After the first success, Qing Tian grew bolder.
Not recklessly so.
Not enough to draw attention.
Just enough to test how far this invisible thread could stretch before it snapped.
She began preparing more batches of Crunch Chips and Comfort Soup—never much. Always small. Always limited. Enough for ten people at most. Sometimes fewer.
She treated them like contraband.
She never cooked at fixed hours.
Never used the same fire twice in a row.
Never stored anything overnight.
She worked in fragments of time stolen between duties, using scraps that no one would miss and tools too old to attract notice.
And she never—ever—made a scene.
Sometimes she would "accidentally" leave a small cloth pouch beside a maid who had just been reduced to silent tears by Matron Liu's cutting words.
Sometimes she would "forget" a warm jar of soup on a stone ledge where an old eunuch always rested, coughing quietly into his sleeve when he thought no one was listening.
Sometimes there would be a leaf placed beside it, with a crooked little smile drawn in charcoal.
Sometimes there was nothing at all.
No names.
No explanations.
No instructions.
Only the faint smell of warmth.
At first, people were terrified.
No one in the palace trusted gifts.
A pouch left behind could mean accusation.
A jar of soup could mean poison.
A single wrong step could cost fingers—or worse.
They would glance around, hearts pounding, afraid of unseen eyes. Some pushed the food away with shaking hands. Some whispered prayers under their breath.
But fear was a luxury.
When the pressure became unbearable—when backs ached from kneeling, when stomachs twisted with hunger and humiliation—someone would always give in.
A hand would reach out.
Just once.
And when they did—
Crunch.
The crisp snap of the chip cut through the fog in their minds, sharp and grounding, like breaking thin ice.
The warmth of the soup slid down their throats and settled gently in their chests, loosening something tight and painful that had been clenched for too long.
It didn't erase what had happened.
But it made it… survivable.
Slowly. Quietly.
Things began to change.
A young eunuch, barely past sixteen, had been forced to kneel in the courtyard for two hours after breaking a bowl. His knees were numb. His hands shook so badly he could barely stand.
That evening, he found a small pouch tucked beneath the step where he collapsed.
He stared at it for a long time.
Then, trembling, he opened it.
He cried while chewing—tears dripping onto the dirt—but when he finished, the hollow despair in his eyes had softened, just a little. Enough for him to stand and keep going the next day.
A laundry maid whose wages had been unfairly docked discovered a leaf-wrapped bundle beside her wash basin.
She ate one chip.
Then another.
Her sobbing faded into hiccupping breaths as she stared blankly at ants crawling across the stone. For the first time that day, she stopped blaming herself.
Once, Matron Liu was viciously scolding a new palace girl until the child was shaking so hard her teeth clicked together.
Qing Tian passed by.
She said nothing.
But as she walked away, a few chips slipped from her sleeve pouch and rolled softly across the ground, coming to rest near the girl's feet.
The girl froze.
Matron Liu's voice rang sharp in her ears.
But when the scolding paused—just for a breath—the girl snatched one chip and stuffed it into her mouth.
Crunch.
That tiny sound echoed in her head like a drumbeat.
Her shoulders straightened.
Her knees stopped shaking.
It didn't make her brave.
It just gave her enough strength not to collapse.
These changes were tiny.
Small as ripples in a spring pond—visible for a moment, then gone.
The supervisors still shouted.
The managers still schemed.
The inspections still came, sharp and relentless.
The storm was still gathering.
But Qing Tian could feel it.
The explosive tension among the lowest servants—the kind that turned into accidents, mistakes, and silent breakdowns—had eased.
Just a little.
Whispers began to circulate.
Not names.
Not questions.
Just rumors.
"There's something warm going around."
"Have you heard the crunch?"
"It helps you breathe."
No one knew where it came from.
And that was exactly why it survived.
Qing Tian knew this wouldn't save her master.
It wouldn't stop the consorts.
It wouldn't change rations or protect anyone from punishment.
But food could carry more than hunger.
It could carry comfort.
And in this frozen palace, even the faintest warmth was worth protecting.
Before the storm finally broke—
She would keep that tiny flame alive.