“Someone come!” Prince Ling called toward the door.
A guard entered with his head bowed and saluted.
“Go! Find several crowded places and quietly set a few fires,” Prince Ling ordered, a vicious glint flashing in his eyes.
“Yes, Your Highness!” The guard withdrew.
The fire at the Imperial Ancestral Temple was visible throughout the capital.
Yet everyone had a different reaction.
Some hurried to make plans, some hurried to set fires, and some gloated at the misfortune…
Duoduo, Lüdou, and Qingliu were once again crowded into the kitchen, studying a new kind of pastry.
Lüdou’s first attempt had been a failure.
She refused to accept defeat and decided to try again.
However, the first batch had already been eaten up.
Without anything to use as a reference, every attempt came out just a little different in flavor.
In the end, Lüdou took Duoduo’s advice and began learning how to make another kind of pastry.
This time, Lüdou had grown wiser.
She divided the pastries into very small portions.
Since they only needed to taste them, even a tiny piece was enough to tell the difference.
Qingliu looked at the pastries, each no bigger than a fingernail, and blinked at Lüdou.
“Lüdou, you have to succeed this time!”
“I’m counting on getting to eat more later!”
“These pieces aren’t even enough to get stuck between my teeth.”
Lüdou pressed her lips together and smiled. “You’re only supposed to taste the flavor. They’re not meant to fill you up!”
Qingliu stuck out her tongue sheepishly.
“Who can blame me? The pastries in the palace are just too delicious!”
Lüdou handed a piece to Duoduo and answered Qingliu, “Don’t assume that everything in the palace tastes good just because it comes from the palace!”
“I’m telling you, aside from these pastries, the palace food isn’t as good as what our cook makes at home!”
“How is that possible?” Qingliu refused to believe her.
“I can prove it!” Duoduo raised her hand.
“It really isn’t good!”
As she spoke, Duoduo shook her head to emphasize just how awful it was.
Qingliu’s face was full of disbelief.
“Princess, then how do His Majesty and the others manage to eat it?”
Lüdou burst out laughing.
“They’re used to it!”
“And besides, they have no choice but to eat it!”
Duoduo gave Lüdou a thumbs-up. “Exactly!”
As Qingliu ate her pastry, she suddenly remembered something.
“Princess, when I came over just now, I ran into the steward.”
Duoduo stopped eating and looked at Qingliu.
“How is he?”
A flicker passed through Qingliu’s eyes.
“After he was beaten that day, he was filled with remorse when I went to see him.”
“When he found out that I was delivering medicine from His Highness, he actually burst into tears!”
“The steward is old enough to be my grandfather, yet he cried like a child!”
As Qingliu spoke, her face was full of disbelief.
“And then?” Lüdou asked curiously.
“And then? Then I hurried back to serve the Princess.” Qingliu looked at Lüdou in confusion.
“Didn’t you just say you ran into the steward?” Lüdou reminded her.
“Oh, right! Princess, the steward seemed to be all right now.”
“He asked me to thank you on his behalf. He also said he wanted to come over and kowtow to you in gratitude!”
Qingliu finished the whole story in one breath.
Lüdou looked puzzled.
“Princess, didn’t you tell Qingliu to say that the medicine came from His Highness?”
“Shouldn’t the steward be going to thank His Highness instead?”
Duoduo blinked, then quickly understood.
“Father must have sent someone to deliver medicine too.”
“So the steward immediately guessed that the medicine Qingliu delivered had actually been sent by me!”
“His Highness sent medicine to the steward?” Lüdou was bewildered.
“Then why did he punish the steward in the first place? Is this a case of giving someone a beating and then offering them a sweet afterward?”
Duoduo glanced at Lüdou. Lüdou hurriedly covered her mouth and looked around.
Fortunately, there were only the three of them in the kitchen.
Although Qingliu had been assigned to them by Prince Ling, her master now was the Princess.
“Qingliu, I misspoke just now. I didn’t mean anything by it!”
Lüdou was worried that her words might reach Prince Ling’s ears and cause unnecessary trouble for Duoduo.
Qingliu blinked. “I didn’t hear a thing.”
Lüdou immediately broke into a delighted smile.
“Qingliu, don’t worry. I’ll definitely manage to recreate all these pastries.”
“When I do, I’ll let you eat as much as you want!”
Qingliu was overjoyed.
“Then you have to keep your word! I’ll be waiting!”
Seeing the two of them making plans together, Duoduo smiled and nibbled on the pastry in her hand.
“Lüdou, without rules, there can be no order!”
“If you ever make a mistake, I’ll punish you too.”
Lüdou’s expression turned solemn, and she bowed to Duoduo.
“This servant understands.”
Qingliu hurriedly bowed as well. “This servant understands too.”
Duoduo smiled as she ate the last bite.
“All right, I’m going to start writing down the ingredients!”
The pastries from the palace came in different shapes and styles, but their ingredients were more or less the same.
The three of them quickly listed everything.
Lüdou prepared the ingredients and began making the pastries.
An hour later, the finished pastries came out of the oven.
“Hmm? The aroma is a little weaker.” Duoduo had a keen nose.
Qingliu sniffed hard, but she couldn’t detect any difference.
Lüdou placed the steaming pastries on a clean plate.
“Here, try them. Be careful—they’re hot!”
She gave a piece to both Duoduo and Qingliu.
Qingliu took a bite, and a satisfied expression immediately spread across her face.
“Lüdou, these are delicious!”
“You’re amazing!”
“You tasted them just once and managed to recreate them!”
Qingliu praised her between bites.
Lüdou turned to Duoduo. Duoduo was silently savoring the pastry and hadn’t said a word.
“Princess, is something wrong?”
Duoduo tilted her head. “Lüdou, try this.”
“Why do I feel like Xiao Che’s pastries had something extra added to them this time?”
“Your version is still missing one flavor.”
At once, Lüdou picked up another pastry and carefully took a bite.
The moment she tasted it, she realized Duoduo was right.
“That’s true! The palace pastry is sweet without being cloying, and fragrant without the aroma dispersing.”
“But mine is a little too sweet, and the fragrance isn’t as rich as the palace’s.”
“The flavor is quite close, though,” Duoduo concluded fairly.
Lüdou picked up the remaining palace pastry and compared it repeatedly with the ones she had made.
What step had gone wrong?
The flour? No.
The eggs? No.
The candied fruit? That wasn’t it either…
Lüdou carefully compared every ingredient again and again.
Qingliu popped the pastry in her hand into her mouth in one bite.
“Lüdou, honestly, I think your pastries taste better than the palace’s!”
Lüdou looked at Qingliu in surprise. “You’re not just saying that because you want more to eat, are you?”
Qingliu hurriedly shook her head. “I really do prefer this flavor.”
A flicker passed through Duoduo’s eyes.
“Lüdou, don’t you feel that the palace pastries this time taste noticeably different from the last batch?”
“Could it be that the palace already knows we’re trying to imitate their pastries?”
