Chapter 10

After staying the night, Qin Yanwei suddenly decided my house was his home.

“Don’t the senior ministers complain about Your Highness spending so much time outside the palace?”

He raised his head from a thick stack of memorials.

“My work is the same wherever I do it.”

“Besides, this concerns my marriage. They wouldn’t dare.”

I said nothing more.

I did like Qin Yanwei very much, but that was quite different from wanting to enter the palace as his consort.

I’d suggested parting, but he couldn’t bear to hear so much as the word “part.”

The moment I mentioned it, he wailed and howled.

Eventually, I gave up.

I could only take one day at a time.

Suddenly, I heard Qin Yanwei cry out like a fighting cock,

“What are you doing here again?”

Cui Shiyu came in carrying a food box. “I found a recipe while I was in Lingnan. I had our cook make it and brought it for my sister to try.”

This was partly Qin Yanwei’s own fault.

When he’d been the kept lover, he’d managed to tolerate sharing a room with Cui Shiyu. Now that his position had changed, he wouldn’t even let Cui Shiyu through the door.

He’d completely forgotten how he’d once called Cui Shiyu “narrow-minded and intolerant.”

After being turned away three times in a row, Cui Shiyu changed tactics.

He began presenting recipes instead.

He’d spent a year in Lingnan and acquired a cookbook from somewhere.

He tore it apart page by page.

Every day, he had one page’s recipe cooked and brought it over.

Unfortunately, the food was fresh, sweet, and delicious, quite unlike the flavors of the capital. My customers praised it highly.

For the sake of my income, I had to see him.

At last, Qin Yanwei could bear it no longer.

“It’s my birthday today. I’ve specifically come to have a meal with Zhaozhao. Take your wretched cookbook and get out!”

“Oh… Your Highness’s birthday?” Cui Shiyu said, as if enlightened. “Then I won’t disturb you. I’ll take this recipe to your residence and give it to the cook myself.”

After several rounds of wine, a servant brought in a dish called Stir-Fried Longing.

Qin Yanwei ground his teeth. “Neither Zhaozhao nor I likes it. Take it away.”

A little later, a servant knocked again.

This time, it was a bowl of Red Bean Snowflake Soup.

Qin Yanwei went out with a knife. He returned shortly afterward.

With a few new bruises on his face.

I rolled a hot egg over them. “Why stoop to his level, Your Highness?”

Qin Yanwei earnestly explained, “I know exactly what he’s plotting.”

“I’ve played all those tricks myself. If he thinks he can undermine me, he’s dreaming.”

That night, Cui Shiyu came back and stole the dog.

The next day, he furiously impeached the crown prince at court for forcibly seizing another man’s son.

The crown prince was docked half a month’s stipend and confined to the palace.

Our dynasty might be liberal in its customs, but even so, the heir to the throne couldn’t keep brawling with a minister over a woman.

I supposed the fuss surrounding me had become so great that the emperor had found an excuse to teach Qin Yanwei a lesson.