In the Yongning era of the Great Yu, beside a well in the Laundry Bureau, a condemned servant knelt, soaked from head to toe.
The eunuch had already raised his whip. In the next moment, she would be kicked into the well, never to be found again.
But she neither cried nor begged for mercy. She simply stared at the well, calculating: if the water were boiled with ginger and mugwort, it would make a fine resurrection soup.
Then a voice really did sound in her mind: [Host near death detected. The Classic of Mountain and Sea Cuisine has been successfully bound. First mission: Drink the ginger and cinnamon resurrection soup within ten breaths, or die immediately.]
So she drank it. And lived.
Later, when Regent Helian Ye gripped her chin and said, "Those eyes don't look like a condemned servant's," he heard her thoughts: "This lunatic is pretty handsome, but his grip is really strong."
Later still, when the Noble Consort bestowed poisoned wine on her, she tipped her head back and drank it, then turned around and used a pot of purgative soup to send the Noble Consort to the cold palace. The Imperial Physician recited the Inner Canon with a sage-like air, and she pulled out a silver needle right there in court, using it to pick crystals of pufferfish toxin from the bottom of a concubine's bowl. The Laundry Bureau supervisor had been skimping on rations? One bowl of laxative soup, and that matron soiled herself in front of the Noble Consort's procession.
From the Laundry Bureau to the Imperial Kitchen, from a low-ranking concubine to Noble Consort, and from Noble Consort to Empress Dowager Fengtian, every step she took left a crowd of people who had been humiliated in her wake.
Some called her a witch who used sorcery to bewitch the ruler.
She smiled, holding her ladle. "Sorcery? This bowl of soup has saved the emperor, subdued vassal princes, broken up court factions, and brought down a family of imperial physicians. Would you like to try a sip?"
The history books of Great Yu gave her only a few brief lines: Noble Consort Zhang was skilled in medicinal cuisine and rendered meritorious service in governing the state.
