Xie Wangzhi was frightened by this look, and a myriad of thoughts surged up in her mind. She wanted to hug the lonely boy in front of her, and then she wanted to turn around and run away. She held back for a while, and lowered her voice a few notes. She felt a little aggrieved, and deliberately choked him: "Why, is it possible that Qingsi Palace wants to embarrass His Highness and not even give His Highness enough food?"
"You didn't make it difficult for me. I just didn't feel like eating." Li Qishen was just trying to take advantage of the situation. He could talk about something that didn't happen at all in a serious manner, as if he was really worried. "You didn't even tell me and just went back to the Shangshi Bureau. I always thought about you in my heart. But I didn't dare to come here rashly. During those few days, I didn't want to touch anything that was sent to me."
Xie Wangzhi believed it and twisted the sleeves of his shirt: "Then...then you can't not eat, you will starve."
"I'm worried, but I don't feel hungry." Li Qishen lowered his eyes, holding the coal briquettes, and lowered his head slightly.
When he lowered his head, his long black hair fell down, and the thin braids went around his shoulders and mixed with the hair in front of his shoulders, making people want to touch it. His hair was really fine, like the finest silk, and also like a long river, stirring the sunlight and falling into people's hearts for no reason.
Xie Wangzhi's heart moved slightly, and he stretched out his hand hesitantly, with trembling fingertips, and gently placed it on Li Qishen's head.
Feeling a weight on his head, Li Qishen was slightly startled, and then he lowered his head to make it easier for Xie Wangzhi to touch him. He lowered his eyelids, and his dense eyelashes covered half of his pupils. His eyebrows and eyes were blurred, and the lower half of his face was hidden in the shadows. He looked aggrieved, with his eyebrows lowered and his face submissive. Xie Wangzhi didn't even see the smile on the corner of his mouth.
She just felt that Li Qishen looked pitiful, so she gently touched him twice, rubbed the coal in his arms, and asked tentatively: "Then I made some food, which I was going to send to you... Do you want to eat it now?"
"Are you willing to give me something to eat?" Li Qishen looked up.
"… Why do you say that as if I deliberately withheld food to torture you?" Xie Wangzhi glared at him, not even noticing that these two sentences were filled with the unique arrogance of a young lady, "Do you want to eat or not?"
"Eat." Li Qishen walked to the edge of the flowerbed, found a flat stone, sat down with his skirt lifted, and put the coal briquettes aside, "Give it to me."
The stone was so small that Xie Wangzhi couldn't squeeze in and sit next to him. She looked around and chose to kneel down next to Li Qishen and put the food box in front of him. She unscrewed the lid and took out a jar of sweet soup that was still steaming from it and handed it over like a treasure.
The main ingredient of this sweet soup is glutinous rice, which is stewed until the rice grains burst. The stewed rice juice is white and thick, and it is also mixed with sweet milk. The translucent sugar juice makes the lotus seeds, ginkgo nuts and dried dates inside sparkle. The sweet fragrance that hits you is a mixture of the aroma of dried fruits, glutinous rice and milk, which makes people want to try it.
However, Li Qishen was born not to like sweet food. After being blown in the cold wind for so long, most people, seeing such a jar of sweet and fragrant soup, would probably just want to drink half a jar in one breath to warm their bodies. But he didn't. When he first smelled the aroma of glutinous rice and milk, his throat felt itchy and numb, as if he wanted to vomit.
However, Xie Wangzhi was completely unaware of this. She remembered that Li Qishen had said that he liked salty food, and she just thought that he liked both sweet and salty food. This jar of milk and rice porridge had to blend three kinds of aromas, and it took a lot of thought. She looked at the man in front of her expectantly, waiting for him to reach out for the spoon.
Facing Xie Wangzhi's sparkling eyes, Li Qishen could still do this. He sighed in his heart, touched the spoon, and poured the first spoonful along the edge of the jar.
The first bite was filled with the aroma of frankincense and rice, sweet and sticky. Li Qishen frowned suddenly, then relaxed as if nothing had happened, and continued to scoop the second spoonful.
Xie Wangzhi stared at him closely, how could she miss such a subtle reaction? She got anxious and without thinking, she directly reached out and grabbed Li Qishen's sleeve, forcibly pulling the spoonful that was about to reach her mouth away.
"… What's wrong?" She had a hunch that something was wrong. "Is it not tasty? Or do you not like something in it?"
Li Qishen glanced at her, his mind moved, but he didn't show it on his face, and even smiled half-truthfully: "It's delicious, there's nothing I don't like about it."
Xie Wangzhi felt more and more that something was wrong: "Tell the truth."
“…It’s the truth.” Li Qishen smiled.
"Let me ask you again, what happened?" Xie Wangzhi was not willing to let it go, "Don't lie to me, or I will..."
She didn't know what to say, so she stared at Li Qishen and held it in for a while before she could say just one sentence, like a child throwing a tantrum, "I'm just ignoring you!"
Li Qishen was stunned for a moment and almost laughed out loud. He paused, swallowed his laughter, turned his fingertips, and the spoon fell back into the jar, making a small circle. He said softly: "It's nothing. I actually... don't like sweet food. It makes me sick after eating it."
Xie Wang was stunned: "Then the sweet soup I made for you earlier..."
"I ate it." Li Qishen said calmly, "It's hard to let down your kindness. Besides, I was the one who lied to you, so it's okay to eat something sweet, just use some tea to wash it down."
"The cherry blossom cake from before..."
"I intercepted it. There were too many people at the banquet that day. God knows how many taboos were hidden. It's better to put them in front of me."
Xie Wangzhi was speechless for a moment. He frowned slightly, glanced at Li Qishen, then suddenly lowered his eyelids and said in a low voice: "Actually, you don't have to do that. You can just say you don't like sweets... The female officials in the Shangshi Bureau are all good people. They won't torture me for this."
"It's okay, it's a thoughtful gesture." Li Qishen smiled indifferently, holding the spoon with his fingertips neither lightly nor heavily, and easily stirred the sweet soup twice.
Seeing that he really wanted to eat more, Xie Wangzhi quickly snatched the spoon from his hand, covered the porcelain jar and put it back into the food box. When Li Qishen was about to reach out, she suddenly closed the food box. She slung the food box back over her arm and stood up: "I don't want to eat this anymore!"
Li Qishen looked at her leisurely: "But I'm hungry."
"Get up and follow me back to the Shangshi Bureau." Xie Wangzhi pursed his lips, "I'll make you some salty square cakes."
"Um?"
"It's the one you've eaten before. It's a slightly burnt egg cake on the outside, with cheese and salted egg yolk on the inside." Xie Wangzhi turned around, "Next time, if there's something you don't like, don't be wronged. Tell me."
Seeing her like this, it was obvious that she had let go of the previous deception and was completely focused on Li Qishen, thinking only of feeding him. Li Qishen didn't know what to say. The good thing about Xie Wangzhi was that he had a clear mind and was easy to coax and deceive.
Thinking of this, he suddenly felt that Cui Shi was a really useless person. His origin from the Qinghe Cui family was wasted. His ancestors had several famous playboys, but the ideas he came up with were all so stupid, not as good as the self-torture trick played by Li Qishen himself.
He sighed silently, tapped Meiqiu's head lightly with the tip of his shoe, turned his back to Xie Wangzhi, and when he smiled, the gold in his pupils flickered for a moment, but his tone was too obedient to match his expression: "Okay."
Xie Wangzhi responded, slung the food box tightly in his arm, and walked directly to the food bureau. Li Qishen followed him immediately.
The two people gradually walked away on the palace road, and Meiqiu was still squatting there, licking his paws and washing his face. After rubbing for a while, he felt something was wrong. It was quiet all around, and when the wind blew, the withered branches in the flowerbed rubbed against each other, making a rustling sound.
… It seemed to have been dropped without mercy.
Coal Ball let out a "meow", exerted force on its hind legs, leaped twice on the palace road, and ran towards the Shangshi Bureau.
While it was chasing, Xie Wangzhi and Li Qishen had forgotten about the coal briquettes. At this time, the kitchen was preparing meals. Thinking of Li Qishen's identity, Xie Wangzhi couldn't take him in without a care. He took a small path and went around to the courtyard where the palace servants lived from the back.
"Wait a minute." Xie Wangzhi put the food box on the stone table in the yard, feeling a little embarrassed and scratching his face. "I haven't made this cake for a long time. I don't remember how to put the cheese and milk in it. I have to go into the house first to look for the recipe I wrote down earlier."
Li Qishen understood and nodded.
Xie Wangzhi smiled at him, rubbed his hands awkwardly, and turned to the door. The door was ajar, and the window was not closed tightly. There were faint voices coming from inside. One voice was sweet, sounding like Xue Geshu; the other was also a female voice, and sounded a bit old.
Xie Wangzhi couldn't understand why Xue Geshu was in the room at this time, but since she was talking to someone, she couldn't just barge in, so she raised her hand to knock on the door.
As soon as she bent her fingers, Xue Geshu's voice came through the doors and windows clearly.
"... Alas, what can I do? I didn't want to come to the palace either. I was supposed to be a female official, but I ended up in a place like this... the Imperial Food Bureau, huh." She snorted coldly, a little annoyed, "Aye gave me some money and made nice arrangements, saying that I don't have to wait on people here. That's true, but how is it better? I'm busy in the kitchen, the fumes are stifling, and I have to wash dishes and wipe the table. It's so disgusting. Only poor servants do this!"
These words were so harsh that Xie Wangzhi was at a loss for what to do. He stood there in a daze, not knowing whether to listen any further, turn around and leave, or just push the door open and go in.
Li Qishen had followed her here before, and he heard Xue Geshu's words clearly, and couldn't help but smile sarcastically. But when Xie Wangzhi's gaze moved over, he immediately lowered his eyes slightly, his eyebrows calm, and gently put his hand on her shoulder.
Xie Wangzhi nodded and was about to speak when another female voice came from inside.
This female voice was different from Xue Geshu's. It was rustling, like the bark of an old tree that was about to die. Her tone was also much calmer, as if she had not heard Xue Geshu's harsh words at all: "It can't be helped... It's all fate. The master is thinking about his wife, otherwise he wouldn't have spent so much time on this... Well, not to mention the fumes, how are the people living with my wife doing?"
"You're right. Grandpa obviously misses me, so he sent me to the palace and spent money to arrange things for me. Otherwise, if he had sent Ge Dan and Ge Li, wouldn't they have trampled on my head? How can a thing born by a concubine be worthy of it?" Xue Geshu's first sentence was still a little annoyed, and the second half was full of contempt, "Let's not talk about this. The wet nurse asked about my roommate... Tsk, it's not much better. It just annoys people for no reason."
The author has something to say: Like Li!!! Tool man!!!
Changsheng: Plan Pass (√)
Let's just say that forgetting is easy to deal with. My female moth will definitely not be in a tantrum for more than three chapters, but it's not certain that she will get it right (slowly exhales smoke)