Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Not long after Simiao entered the household, Jiang Jiusi lost interest.

A flower in one’s own garden had already been plucked. He could go home and admire it whenever he liked. The wildflowers outside, still beyond his reach, were fresher and far more intriguing.

As for the petty little schemes in a man’s belly-there was no need to think with one’s brain. Even a knee could figure them out.

Fortunately, I stood on Simiao’s side, and it was clear enough that I intended to back her up.

So although the servants in the Marquis Mansion gossiped endlessly about her falling out of favor, none of them truly dared to short her on her daily provisions.

When I first married into the Marquis Mansion, as the new bride, all I could eat were dishes neither hot nor cold.

Later, when my spirits took a turn for the worse, my mother-in-law feared I might really die, leaving Jiang Jiusi with a reputation for killing his wife and delaying his official prospects by a year.

So she specially ordered a small kitchen to be set up in my courtyard.

Jiang Jiusi was out living it up and refused to come back, while Simiao had quietly joined me in my courtyard.

Truly, good fortune did wonders for the spirit.

Once I felt I had a reason to go on living again, I began cooking with my own hands.

Compared with my eldest sister, Li Ling, I had no particular talent worth showing off.

Compared with my second sister, Li Shao, my temperament was not gentle enough either.

The only thing I had going for me was a bit of skill in the kitchen. I only wondered whether Simiao would appreciate it.

Simiao was unlike my eldest and second sisters, who liked to nibble daintily at pastries.

She liked meat.

As long as there was a meat dish on the table, her eyes would instantly shine.

So day after day, I buried myself in the little kitchen, racking my brains to make meat dishes for her.

First, I fried some golden, crisp dough sticks and set them aside to cool, then cut them into pieces about an inch and a half long.

I minced pork that was half fat and half lean, then mixed in a little salt and minced ginger.

After thinking it over, I chopped up some tender green scallions as well and mixed them into the filling.

With my fingers, I poked through the hollow center of each dough-stick segment, carefully stuffed the meat filling inside, and fried them again.

As I turned the dough sticks in the wok with long chopsticks, I judged whether they were cooked by the color of the meat visible at the cut ends.

Once the outer layer was crisp enough to shed flakes and the filling inside had cooked through, I immediately scooped them out and plated them.

I had just put the dish into a food box when a maid hurried in from outside. “Second Sister-in-law Liu has come to the courtyard to make a complaint.”

Second Sister-in-law Liu was the steward woman in charge of the Marquis Mansion’s main kitchen. But ever since I had gotten the little kitchen, neither I nor the maids in my courtyard had gone to the main kitchen to collect meals in quite some time.

We had no real dealings with her…

“She’s here to complain? About whom?”

I had packed the food box and was just planning to carry it over to Simiao myself, taking the opportunity to chat with her, so I asked the maid rather casually.

The maid looked at me cautiously. “Second Sister-in-law Liu says it has to do with Concubine Si.”

Simiao?

Second Sister-in-law Liu had come to complain about Simiao?

Ever since Simiao entered the household, she had been very well behaved. She never stepped outside and scarcely interacted with anyone besides me and a handful of maids.

What wrong could she possibly have done?

Was my mother-in-law trying to use Simiao to warn me? Or were my sisters-in-law stirring up trouble behind the scenes?

Alarm bells rang in my heart. I washed the oil from my hands, straightened my clothes and hair, and called over another maid.

“Have Second Sister-in-law Liu wait in the main room of the courtyard. I’ll be there shortly.”

Once I dismissed the maids from the main room, Second Sister-in-law Liu immediately came forward and poured out her grievances.

“It’s not that I’m deliberately making trouble or trying to upset Madam. It’s just that every few days, Concubine Si sends someone to the main kitchen asking for plates and bowls, and after taking them, she never returns them… I’ve sent people out to purchase plates and bowls many times, but this can’t go on forever… Now only half the plates and bowls in the main kitchen remain. Concubine Si also refuses to see me, and I truly had no other choice, so I had to come here rashly and disturb Madam…”

Simiao had asked the main kitchen for a large number of plates and bowls and never returned them?

What was going on?

If Simiao had demanded gold, silver, or jade-even if she had stolen them-I could have understood.

No one ever complained about having too much money.

But what did she want with so many plates and bowls?

Those things were barely worth anything.

Aside from holding food, they had no other use.

And every time I visited Simiao’s room to sit for a while, I had never seen those plates and bowls either.

I was somewhat bewildered and instinctively confirmed it with Second Sister-in-law Liu again.

“You’re not deceiving me? Concubine Si truly asked for that many plates and bowls?”

Second Sister-in-law Liu took a small booklet from her robe and flipped through it page by page for me.

“On the third day of the tenth month, Concubine Si sent someone to take fifty plates and twenty bowls.”

“On the twenty-fourth day of the tenth month, Concubine Si sent someone to take fifteen plates and forty bowls.”

“On the fifteenth day of the eleventh month, Concubine Si sent someone to take six sets of tea service and seventy plates.”

…

It was all written there in black and white.

Over a dozen entries.

Across two months, all told, Simiao had taken nearly a thousand plates and bowls from the main kitchen.

Faced with both witness testimony and physical evidence, I was silent for a long time. In the end, I still decided to suppress the matter for Simiao.

I took some silver from my own dowry to help Second Sister-in-law Liu out and told her to go buy a few plates and bowls for the time being.

Then I took out two silver bracelets from my trousseau and, without making a fuss, clasped Second Sister-in-law Liu’s hand.

“Concubine Si is young and doesn’t quite know better. If she has done anything improper, I hope you can be understanding.” I slid the first bracelet onto Second Sister-in-law Liu’s left wrist.

The second bracelet slipped smoothly onto her right wrist as well. “As for gossip, I don’t want to hear any of it. Understood?”

Having received both gifts and a warning from me, Second Sister-in-law Liu naturally bobbed her head and withdrew with meek compliance.

I looked at the now-cold meat-stuffed fried dough sticks and sighed. In the end, I put the lid back on, picked up the food box, and headed toward Simiao’s courtyard.

What Simiao had done was strange, yes.

But I felt she might have her own difficulties. It would be better to meet her face-to-face and talk things through.

In the Marquis Mansion, the purchasing for the small kitchens and the main kitchen were handled separately.

If Simiao could give me a reason-even if it was one she made up-then from now on, her plates could be paid for out of my private funds and dowry, and purchased through the small kitchen’s channels. That would not be impossible.

Thinking this, I stepped into Simiao’s courtyard.

She only had two maids serving her to begin with, and both were chatting idly in the courtyard.

When they saw me arrive, both maids jumped in fright.

The slightly quicker-witted one hurriedly explained, “Concubine Si said she wanted to read in her room and told us all to go outside…”

I knew perfectly well the two of them were slacking off, but Simiao’s matter was far too odd. I had no desire to waste time quibbling with them, so I merely raised a hand to indicate they need not announce me. “I have business with Concubine Si. You two may leave for now.”

After sending them away, I strode toward the room where Simiao was.

I had just reached the doorway when I heard a choked female voice say, “Miss Si, please, I beg you, save my young mistress.”

My steps halted, and I pricked up my ears to listen in silence.

Simiao never said a word.

Seeing that Simiao did not answer, the woman sobbed even harder. “If we had any other way, I would never have come here to beg you… Strictly speaking, our young mistress was your childhood sweetheart. You cannot just stand by and watch her die…”

Simiao did not reply. There was only a crunch, crunch, as if she were eating something brittle.

Yet a small flame seemed to kindle in my heart, scorching my chest until it ached with an indescribable bitterness.

If I asked myself honestly, I had treated Simiao with the utmost care. Within the limits of what protection I could offer, I had already poured my whole heart into doing my best for her.

But after becoming my concubine, first she hid it from me and went to borrow plates from the main kitchen, only for me to learn she had caused trouble when Second Sister-in-law Liu came to report it. And now-now she was still entangled with some childhood sweetheart…

“I had no idea you had a guest here, Miaomiao. It seems I was the one being presumptuous.”

I was angry, so I spoke up cleanly and decisively.

I even changed the way I addressed Simiao to assert my position.

In an instant, every sound from the inner room vanished. It was even quieter than before the graves of my eldest and second sisters.

Playing dead?

Simiao, of all the things you could learn, you learned from men how to play dead with someone close to you?

With a cold laugh, I pushed the door open-only to be frozen in place by the miraculous scene before me.

A painting lay scattered on the floor. The woman in the painting stood on the left side, her hair done in twin buns, a silver plum-blossom hairpin through them, her clothes and skirt all bright crimson.

Like fire in full blaze, like brocade and clouds.

Yet what did not match her exquisite attire was the charred half of her face.

It looked as if it had been burned by fire, or struck by Heavenly Thunder.

The other half of her face, with skin like snow and features like a flower, was slowly shedding tears. Drop by drop, they seeped out of the paper.

But the moment those tears left the painting, they evaporated into wisps of white smoke and vanished without a trace.

As for Simiao, she was sitting on the couch, her cheeks puffed out, half a celadon plate still in her hand.

Looking closely, I could even see two bite marks along the edge of the plate.

Simiao… Simiao was not human.

At the very least, none of the people I, Li Jin, knew had the habit of eating plates.

The moment I realized this, the food box slipped from my hand and crashed down. After a dull thud, the meat-stuffed fried dough sticks rolled all over the floor.

“Sister, let me explain-badly…”

Seeing this, Simiao quickly patted her chest and, with difficulty, swallowed the plate in her mouth. A rare look of panic appeared on her face.

“Explain what?”

I stared straight at Simiao, my words growing ever more relentless.

“Explain the fact that you’re a demon, or explain that you don’t have a childhood sweetheart?”

Simiao walked from the couch to stand before me, pinching the half-eaten plate in her hand as she explained in a tiny voice:

“I’m not a demon. I’m a Devourer.”

“A Devourer?” I raised an eyebrow and asked.

Simiao nodded and repeated, “A Devourer.”

“Humans eat grain and cooked food. Spirits, ghosts, and gods eat incense offerings.”