Jiang Wantang, the demoted cook, used a spoonful of secret sauce to hide an unjust case from three dynasties. Xie Zhao, the cold-faced censor, saw through the subtlety in its taste, and the two relied on each other step by step amid the poisonous and soybean aroma.
The palace maid Liu Ruyan changed poison into medicine, the kitchen maid Shen Jiuniang presented the ancestral sauce recipe, the mute eunuch Cui used the sense of smell to convey the secret message of life and death, and the Buddhist Princess Yan was using hundreds of flavors as a blade to overthrow the court.
A spoonful of sauce, a drop of blood, a silent history of political intrigue, and the pages are turning from the stove.
