Why am I, a cook, always involved in cases?

Calming down, Quan Wushuang silently comforted himself in his heart.

"I want to know where a palace maid with a small mole on her face has gone. Have you ever seen her?"

Quan Wushuang showed the gentle smile he usually gave to the palace maids.

However, instead of showing any joy, the palace maid's face turned pale, as if she had seen something terrible.

The pupils of the palace maid Hu Fei suddenly dilated. Quan Wushuang held her wrist tightly with his fingertips and felt the rapid beating of her pulse.

Quan Wushuang was certain that this palace maid must know something.

He tightened his grip on her hand, preventing her from escaping.

Hu Fei's eyes were wide open, and his amber eyes looked as special as those of a foreigner.

“…I remember now.”

Hu Fei's eyes became dull and he stared straight at Quan Wushuang.

“He called my name with a sweet voice and gave me delicacies from foreign lands.”

Tears rolled down Hu Fei's eyes like beads with broken strings.

Quan Wushuang was confused and didn't understand what the palace maid was talking about.

"You may not know what that noble man looked like in his youth. I heard that his appearance changed drastically in his later years. He didn't appear after I was fourteen, so I don't know what he looked like later."

Who is this palace maid talking about? What does she want to express?

Hu Fei's amber eyes contained a hatred deeper than the color itself.

"That noble lady also has a voice as sweet as honey and a face as beautiful as a god."

Her words were filled with unquestionable certainty.

"Why would a noble like you pretend to be a eunuch?"

Quan Wushuang's hands loosened involuntarily.

Hu Fei took the opportunity to break free from his hand and tried to escape.

However, she was surrounded by eunuchs, so how could she possibly escape?

After a while, he was caught.

"Manager Quan, how should we deal with this person?"

The eunuch asked while holding Hu Fei.

At this moment, Hu Fei took out a small bottle from his arms, pulled out the cork with his mouth, and drank it all without hesitation.

“Hurry up and make her spit it out!”

Gao Zhongcheng's reaction was even quicker than Quan Wushuang's. He immediately ordered the eunuch to fetch water, helped the fallen Hu Fei up, and inserted his fingers into her mouth to force her to vomit.

Quan Wushuang just stared at the scene blankly.

“…Manager, Manager Quan!”

Gao Zhongcheng's call was like a rebuke, waking Quan Wushuang from his trance.

The eunuch had already brought water and forced it into Hu Fei's mouth.

The small bottle that Hu Fei drank from was still lying on the ground.

Quan Wushuang recognized its shape; it was the small bottle that Lin Zhiruo used to store liquor.

It was a distilled liquor with an extremely high concentration, enough to be fatal, but the palace maid drank it without hesitation.

When the wind blows, the wild flowers in front of the grave flutter in the wind, and the wild fruits sway gently in the breeze.

"Manager Quan, please give the order!"

Gao Zhongcheng's tone was heavy and firm.

When Quan Wushuang came to his senses, he found a face with a frown in front of him.

"Master Quan, you must be strong, understand? Don't be affected by the nonsense of a palace maid."

“Nonsense?”

Who would commit suicide by taking poison because of a piece of nonsense?

Wasn't it because Quan Wushuang held her hand in a moment of impulse that she took the poison?

Could the noble person this palace maid was talking about be the one?

"...Gao Zhongcheng, do I look like him?"

This problem has always troubled Quan Wushuang.

He looked neither like that man, nor like his brother, nor like his mother.

So who does he resemble?

That's why he believed the maid's groundless rumors.

Believes he is a bastard.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but smile bitterly.

Why on earth did he stay in the woman's garden?

In order to give up the throne of the Eastern Palace, he asked his brother to grant him the title of eunuch...

Now it all seems so ridiculous.

He stood blankly in front of the grave where the mountain fruit fell.

I wanted to laugh at myself, but I had other things to deal with.

Quan Wushuang slowly squatted down and picked up the red fruit sac.

The fruit sac has become dry and half-broken due to the passage of time, revealing the bright red fruit inside.

I heard that this kind of wild fruit can be used in cooking, but it can be fatal if not handled properly.

Why is this fruit decorated in front of the tombstone?

Looking at the name engraved on the tombstone that would eventually disappear with the wind, he understood.

"Jiaqing".

This is a palace maid's name that couldn't be more ordinary.

In recent years, people in Beijing don’t like this name anymore, and it is usually given to girls from the countryside.

However, the name engraved on this tombstone is something Quan Wushuang can never forget.

This person was the palace maid who died last year.

In that dark harem, her only pleasure was collecting ghost stories.

I heard she has no relatives, but there may be one exception.

If the daughter she had an affair with the imperial chef was still alive, that would be a different matter.

A palace maid named "Jiaqing", a missing eunuch and a maidservant...

The pieces of these puzzles have yet to come together.

However, intuition fills in the gaps.

Quan Wushuang wanted to turn his intuition into solid evidence, so he went to a place.

If the child born at that time was still alive, he would be two years older than the emperor.

It is said that the child was adopted by the imperial chef who was banished from the harem.

It is generally believed that the royal chef's whereabouts are unknown, but this is fraught with doubts.

There was one thing about this matter that bothered Quan Wushuang.