The Art of Culinary Schemes

She was born the daughter of a disgraced official, hiding by the stove and scraping by as a concubine-born daughter.

Then she awakened her “keen and ingenious mind,” gaining the ability to tell good ingredients from bad and recreate ancient recipes at a touch. Her stepmother framed her? A bowl of Snowglow Soup won her acclaim instead. Salt merchants hoarded their stock? She used plum branches and kelp to make improved salt, easing the whole city’s urgent shortage.

With every step carefully planned, she sent her enemies to prison, helped the man she loved carry out salt reforms, and even earned merit by saving the emperor with a banquet called “May the Realm Endure Forever.”

When the father who had raised her for fifteen years turned out to be the enemy who had wiped out her family, and the joining of two jade locks revealed the grievances spanning two generations, she bit her fingertip and swore an oath in blood: “I will use the Liu family’s salt to clear the Chen family’s name.”

To the people of Yangzhou, she was the “Salt Goddess.” On this chessboard, she was also the only one moving the pieces.

Gourmet cuisine breaks the deadlock, while political intrigue becomes her blade. Watch as an extraordinary woman stirs up the court and restores justice to the world.