The Imperial Kitchen in the Qing Dynasty: The Little Princess Cries, Calling Me Mother

Su Tan transmigrates into the lowest-ranking fire-tending maid in the imperial kitchen. On her very first day, the head matron points at her and scolds, “You’re clumsy and worthless. You’ll never get a dish onto the table in your whole life.”

She doesn’t talk back. She simply fishes the chicken fat out of a pot that’s about to be thrown away.

Three days later, she carries a bowl of chicken-fat-and-scallion noodles to the corridor.

The little princess, crouched in a corner and crying in secret, sniffs, eats the whole bowl until she’s hiccupping, then looks up and hugs Su Tan’s leg.

The child has no mother.

Her birth mother was a disgraced consort who was executed. Everyone in the palace avoids her, and even the snacks sent to her are cold.

Su Tan crouches down and wipes the corner of her mouth. “If you’re hungry, come find me.”

She doesn’t see the person standing at the far end of the corridor, who has been listening for a long time.

Only later do the imperial kitchen staff realize: this maid, who can barely manage the stove, can make a squirrel-shaped mandarin fish dish that gets Fourth Prince to set aside his memorials, and a bowl of almond cream that makes even the pickiest little princess chase after her, calling her Mother.

Those who used to scold her now line up to ask her how to control the heat.

But one day, Fourth Prince holds one of her lucky cakes and suddenly looks up. “Since you can fill her stomach, would you dare to be her mother?”