A dish can make a person bleed; a dish can also make a family fall into the abyss.
Shen Qingwu is a descendant of the Shen family in Jiangning. He holds the secret recipe for the freshest crab-stuffed oranges in the world, but he also bears the stigma of a poisoning case two years ago and the pain of losing his mother. When the poisonous crab-stuffed orange with the same technique and the same secret carving reappeared in Bianjing Night Market, she understood that the real murderer had never gone away, and a new round of killings had locked her as the next target.
In order to gain a glimmer of hope in a dead situation and uncover the truth about her mother's injustice, she concealed her appearance and hid in the back kitchen of Fanlou, the most prosperous place in the capital. Here, the carving knife carved with orange peel can hide murderous intentions, the aroma of roasted mutton can hide poison, and even the vegetarian restaurant of Daxiangguo Temple has developed festering "human face sores". Underneath the delicacies are interlocking conspiracies, involving military supplies in the northwest, famine in Qingzhou, and a shocking secret deep in the palace about "a civet cat for a prince" and the sudden death of the late emperor.
Pei Yan, the cold-faced and wise young minister of Dali Temple, is in hot pursuit, and Lu Jiuyuan, a swordsman with a feud from the world, is pressing on him step by step. From the fireworks in the city to the ice in the palace, she must use her sense of taste to identify poisons, use her cooking skills to deal with villains, and find hope amidst every sword flash and human scheming.
This is not only an adventure for the taste buds, but also a huge gamble to feed the world.
When delicacies become pawns of intrigues, from a night market murder to a shocking palace incident, watch how a generation of cooks cut through the fog, use food as a sword, and fight fiercely in Bianjing. Finally, at the Baiwei Banquet, they seek for a Qingming world where "food is the basis of the people" for their loved ones and the common people.
