"Lychee?"

Madam Liao frowned and said to herself when hearing Gu Yunxi talk about the Lychee Jelly.

"Doesn't Concubine Xu know that the lychee is originally the fruit in season in mid-May? It is already July. How come can we get lychees now?"

Aunt Li, who was next to her, pulled her sleeves and pouted lips at Gu Yunxi while suppressing a snicker.

Madam Liao immediately understood when she saw Aunt Li's hint, and then she stepped back aside and said to Gu Yunxi with a gleeful delight.

"Hey, now that Concubine Xu ordered you to do it, you have no other choice. However, even the Concubinary Kitchen and the Imperial Kitchen don't have fresh lychees at the moment, let alone our small kitchen!"

Madam Liao thought that since Concubine Xu intended to make things difficult for this newcomer, the small kitchen's other members needed not to get involved. She could simply wait and see how the girl would make lychees empty-handed!

Aware of Madam Liao's inner thoughts while looking into her eyes, Gu Yunxi pursed her lips and chuckled with a subtle glow in her bright eyes.

"Could you tell me what recipe is used to make the Lychee Jelly in our small kitchen?"

Upon hearing Gu Yunxi's question, Madam Liao couldn't help laughing aloud and thought the girl was a layman who knew nothing about making the Lychee Jelly.

So, it should also be a lucky break for Gu Yunxi to have made the ghee hill at that time. She seized the chance to show off her craft in front of the Concubines by making the only ice-dessert that she knew how to make.

Madam Liao put on a lofty posture. Instead of answering Gu Yunxi's question directly, she turned her head and winked at Aunt Li.

Aunt Li took a step forward with a dark face and said to Gu Yunxi in an unfriendly voice.

"Since you can make the ghee hill, why haven't you heard of the origin of Lychee Jelly? Take five catties of fresh lychees, remove the core, and then squeeze to get the juice. Add some Osmanthus and glutinous rice flour into it, and simmer the mixture for a quarter of an hour. Then use a fine sieve to remove its impurities and pour it into the mould. Chill it in the ice cellar for two hours and then demould."

Gu Yunxi looked down and lightly smiled with a confident expression.

"You are talking about the most traditional recipe of Lychee Jelly. I can make it without using any lychee, and its taste is the same as the traditional ones."

"Oh, how confident you are!"

Madam Liao sneered.

"While working in Chuxiu Palace for many years, I have never heard of the Lychee Jelly without lychee as its main ingredient. Okay, let's wait and see."

"Madam, please give me half a catty of smoked plum, twenty Qian of rock sugar, one Qian of ginger juice, amomum, cinnamon and cloves each."

"I'll help you."

Lanxin walked over and pulled Gu Yunxi to the front of the storage cabinet. They returned to the stove after collecting the necessary materials.

Gu Yunxi started to make the Lychee Jelly.

She decocted half a catty of smoked plum with water and boiled down amomum and cinnamon in another pot. After a moment then, she filtered out impurities of the two pots of thick juice.

After she poured the two pots of thick juice into a clay pot, she added the ginger juice and rock sugar in the pot and then brought it to a simmer.

Gu Yunxi ground the cloves into powder, and then she sprinkled them into the clay pot and stirred.

Suddenly, a stream of white steam rose from the pot with a magical scent of lychee.

Seeing the steam, Gu Yunxi took a wooden spoon and stirred the creamy sauce in the pot. According to the sauce's viscosity, she knew that the Lychee Jelly was made and removed the clay pot from the stove.

The cooks all came over.

Aunt Li, who had a disdain for Gu Yunxi just now, said to herself with her lighted eyes fixed on the clay pot.

"So strange! I can smell the special scent of lychee filled the house, but she did never add any lychee..."

Madam Liao looked unbelievable. She seized the wooden spoon and ladled some of the amber sauce. She put it under the sunshine to examine seriously, and then she tasted it with the tip of her tongue. Immediately, her eyes turned bright.

But soon, her face turned to be gloomy, and she threw the wooden spoon on the chopping board and went out of the kitchen with anger.

Getting ahead always caused envy and jealousy. Gu Yunxi had already understood it in her competition with the three cooks of the Eastern Depot's Southern Residence.

Seeing Madam Liao, the Chuxiu Palace's chef cook, leaving angrily, Gu Yunxi raised the corners of her lips silently with a faint smile.

She spooned the thick sauce into a five-petal plum-blossom-shaped crystal bowl and asked Lanxin to take it to the ice cellar.

After Gu Yunxi returned to the side room to rest, Lanxin brought two bowls of rice in. Seeing that Gu Yunxi was busy all morning and did not even have lunch on time, Lanxin deliberately left meals to eat together when she was free.

They sat facing each other and talked while eating.

"Muxue, thank you for helping me in the morning. I would be taken to the Violent Room and get punished by Madam Jinzhu if there were not your ghee hill."

Lanxin spoke gratefully and then gave Gu Yunxi the big cured duck leg in her own bowl.

Gu Yunxi swallowed the food and frowned slightly. Her expression did not show any hint of joy but seemed clouded by worries.

"I was too aggressive this time, and it definitely made Madam Liao upset."

Lanxin disapproved and rolled her eyes.

"Don't pay her any mind. She's just jealous of you. Don't you think that she is born with a mean face? She has little knowledge and sticks to stereotypes, but always feels jealous when others are better than her."

"I really admire your recipe of Lychee Sauce. It's so amazing..."

Gu Yunxi managed a smile. She lowered her eyes and indulged in memories, speaking lightly.

"Lychee is precious. When I was a child, I watched others eat it, but I couldn't get it myself. So, I thought about it and tried many times to make something with lychee's flavor by mixing different spices. Finally, I came up with this recipe as a donkey's carrot to comfort myself..."

The first lychee she got in her life was given by Gu Yunyao secretly at that time. Its sweet taste that mixed up with the sisterhood could make her remember for a lifetime.

"You are so brilliant!"

Lanxin smiled naively and then asked.

"Muxue, is the Girl's Meeting in the morning fun? Isn't it that the women of the Emperor are all charming and beautiful?"

Gu Yunxi put her bowl down and showed a bit depressed.

"Oh, don't remind me. They are gorgeous but ruthless. They started quarrelling at any single jarring note in conversation, making the moment turn awkward and boring."

"That's normal. Since so many women serve one husband, they naturally want to make themselves more outstanding to get the husband's favor. It is normal for them to step on others to climb up."

Lanxin said lightly. Then she shook her head and continued to eat.

Gu Yunxi kept silent for a while and then raised her eyelids to look at Lanxin.

"Could you tell me more about the origin of Jieyu Jin? When I took the training in the Garden, I often heard damsels talk about how much the Emperor pampered Zhaoyi Yu, but I never heard that Zhaoyi Yu had a younger sister."

Gu Yunxi lied to Lanxin, trying to find out more about Gu Yunjin.

Lanxin was willing to tell her good partner everything she knew without reserve. She wiped the oil from her mouth and said solemnly.

"It is said that Zhaoyi Yu and Jieyu Jin were originally a pair of sisters. Zhaoyi Yu entered the Palace earlier than Jieyu Jin, her younger sister. While Zhaoyi Yu got the Emperor's favor, Jieyu Jin was Cairen Jin at that time, and the Emperor ignored her for a long time."

"Then Cairen Jin would naturally not feel reconciled and willing. On the night of last year's Cold Food Festival, the Emperor was hungry and asked for some cold food."

"In the end, guess what, it was Cairen Jin who was carried into the Qinming Hall. At that time, she was undressed and wrapped tightly with various fruits, vegetables, Qingtuan, and Wuren rice, and she was placed in front of the table by eunuchs."

"Most of the women in the imperial harem abide by the rules of the Palace, and no one has ever given such enjoyment to the Emperor. The Emperor surely couldn't endure while seeing Cairen Jin so charming."

"After that, he enjoyed the meal with both Cairen Jin and the food. The next day, Cairen Jin got promoted, and the Emperor named the dish. What is it called... Oh, Routaipan (A dish used the beauty as the plate)!"

Routaipan?

After Lanxin finished the words, noticing that Gu Yunxi across the table seemed to be frozen with an embarrassed and disgusted expression, she laughed for a moment before continuing speaking.

"You feel dirty, too, don't you? But the Emperor likes it. If it were not for his taste, how could the Empress in the Eastern Palace allow Jieyu Jin alive? However, some people say that the backer of Jieyu Jin is Noble Concubine Wan."

Gu Yunxi lowered her eyes silently. Her teeth clenched the tips of the chopsticks, and she kept thinking in mind.

Those rumors sounded indeed somewhat reasonable.

Gu Yunjin offended Master Leng once and was disqualified from entering the Palace. After the Western Depot took over the Garden, Gu Yunjin successfully entered the Palace and used shameless means to fight for the Emperor's favor, which showed that she should be on Ming Lan's ship. And the power behind Ming Lan and the Western Depot was exactly the Imperial Noble Concubine—

Gu Yunxi sighed secretly. In the Palace, all kinds of relationships and forces were intertwined, joining hands, or fighting each other. It was indeed complicated.

If she took a wrong step, what waiting for her in front would be likely the disastrous abyss of doom—