Qing Tian forced herself to calm down.
She had no choice.
Fear had already surged once—cold, violent, suffocating. Rage had followed, burning her chest until her breath shook. But once that first wave passed, something colder rose from beneath it.
Clarity.
Her mind began to race, sharp and merciless.
This was not an accident.
Not negligence.Not chance.
It was a perfectly designed trap.
Too perfect.
They had witnesses—Wang Youcai and his people, men who had long since sold their consciences for a glimpse of power. Likely the guards assigned to the storehouse as well, their mouths already bought, their testimonies rehearsed.
They would swear that Chef Zhang had been careless.
Or worse—
That they had seen him near the bowl. Near the place where the "unclean object" was found.
They had evidence—that tiny, filthy fragment lifted from the bottom of the soup.
No one knew where it came from.
No one could prove how it got there.
But the moment it was discovered in front of the Empress Dowager, its origin no longer mattered.
Truth was no longer truth.
What the powerful declared to be true became truth.
They had motive.
Chef Zhang had refused the Liu family's offer—refused to become their knife in the Imperial Kitchen. Worse, he had openly offended Lin Fu, Consort Liu's most trusted pawn.
In the palace, refusing favor was more insulting than open rebellion.
Revenge was not just justified.
It was expected.
In front of this, Chef Zhang had no defense.
Any ordinary plea—any explanation, any appeal to reason—would be swallowed whole by Consort Liu's fury and her tightly woven web of influence.
Li Dehai was finished.
Not dead, but worse—alive and broken.
A man barely keeping his head on his shoulders had no strength left to shield anyone else.
And the Imperial Kitchen…
Qing Tian felt it clearly now.
It was being quietly taken over.
Wang Youcai's sudden arrogance.
Matron Liu's unchecked cruelty.
The way rules tightened overnight, punishments doubled, eyes watched more closely than ever.
This was not chaos.
It was consolidation.
They were cleaning house.
If nothing changed, Chef Zhang would die.
And everyone who had ever stood on his side—
Would follow.
One by one.
Silently.
Qing Tian's fingers clenched.
They needed something impossible.
They needed a force strong enough to cut through Consort Liu's power.
A force that could overturn an accusation already sealed in blood.
And in this palace—
There was only one.
The Emperor.
The moment that thought appeared, it burned like wildfire in her heart.
Dangerous. Blasphemous. Insane.
Yet unavoidable.
She remembered the late-night dishes quietly sent to the Imperial Study.
No fanfare. No names attached.
Just food.
She remembered the subtle changes—the way trays returned lighter. The way certain bowls came back scraped clean while others remained untouched.
She remembered the rare moments when whispers passed among the eunuchs—
"His Majesty seems less irritable today.""He worked later than usual.""He dismissed the ministers early."
Food had reached him.
Not as an offering.
But as something human.
Was it madness?
Of course it was.
A lowly kitchen maid daring to approach the Son of Heaven—for a man already condemned?
One wrong step.
One mistaken word.
And she would be executed on the spot.
But what choice did she have?
To wait quietly while her master was erased?
To lower her head and survive by forgetting everything he had taught her?
No.
That was not survival.
That was death with breath still in the body.
Late at night, when the dormitory finally fell silent, Qing Tian slipped out of bed.
The room was dark, filled with the soft, uneven breathing of exhausted girls.
She moved carefully, each step measured, as if even the floorboards might betray her.
From beneath a loose plank near the wall, she pulled out a small bundle wrapped in oil-paper, worn soft from being handled too many times.
Her treasure.
Her Food Journal.
She unwrapped it slowly, reverently.
Inside were recipes—precise, meticulous.
Notes on textures, temperatures, flavors.
Observations scribbled in the margins about moods, seasons, even silence.
And something far more dangerous.
Records.
Dates. Dishes. Reactions.
"Twelfth Month, fifteenth night. Snow. Sent Golden Lotus Tranquility Cakes. Next morning, His Majesty looked less tired."
"Second Month, second day. Cold. Jade Soup not returned."
"Third Month, light rain. Shepherd's purse dumplings. He ate more than usual."
They were not proof.
Not evidence.
Not enough to accuse or defend.
But they were patterns.
And in a palace ruled by patterns and precedent, that mattered.
Maybe coincidence.
Maybe wishful thinking.
But right now, this fragile book was her only light.
Her only weapon.
She pressed it to her chest, heart pounding so loudly she feared it would wake the room.
Chef Zhang had saved her.
Pulled her out of filth.
Taught her skill.
Given her warmth in a frozen world where kindness was a liability.
Now it was her turn.
Quietly, she dressed.
Carefully smoothing her clothes, tying her hair as neatly as she could.
Silently, she opened the door.
Cold night air rushed in.
The palace lay before her—vast, dark, breathing with unseen dangers.
She stepped into the shadows.
Her destination—
Li Dehai's tightly closed room.
The door behind which a broken man still held one thing she needed:
Access.
And perhaps—
One last chance.