By the time Qing Tian returned to the Imperial Food Bureau, daylight had fully broken.
Morning light filtered through the tall lattice windows, yet it carried no warmth. Instead, it fell cold and pale upon the blue stone floor, like frost that had yet to melt.
The back kitchen was already lit. White porridge boiled in the cauldrons, steam rolling upward—but the familiar, comforting scent of rice was gone.
Qing Tian stopped at the doorway.
She didn't step closer. She only glanced at the color of the porridge from afar and already knew—
The grain had been tampered with again.
Her gaze swept through the kitchen.
Yunxiang kept her head down while chopping vegetables, her movements slower than usual.An elderly matron crouched by the stove adding firewood, the backs of her hands cracked and bleeding from the cold.A young eunuch who had stood night watch had dark circles under his eyes, clearly sleepless, yet still forcing himself upright.
No one spoke.
They didn't need to.
Their bodies were already speaking for them.
Qing Tian walked to the stove and gently stirred the porridge with a wooden ladle.
The liquid rippled. The rice grains sank to the bottom—so thin it was nearly transparent.
She stopped.
Then, in a voice so calm it bordered on cold, she said:
"From today onward, the Imperial Kitchen will cease the Warm-Heart Soup entirely."
The moment the words fell, the entire kitchen seemed to stop breathing.
The firewood crackled, yet no one moved.
Clang—
Yunxiang's ladle nearly slipped into the pot. She jerked her head up, her face draining of color.
"Director Qing…" Her voice trembled. "That soup… it's reserved for night-duty workers and the sick. If it stops, they—"
She didn't finish.
Everyone understood.
That single bowl of Warm-Heart Soup was the only meal that made the lowest servants feel like human beings.
Qing Tian turned to face her.
Her gaze was steady. No anger. No avoidance.
"I know," she said.
Precisely because she knew—she had to stop it.
She didn't say the rest aloud.
But her eyes made it clear.
No one dared argue.
Before half a day had passed, the order had spread through all six bureaus.
The Imperial Food Bureau had stopped the Warm-Heart Soup.
It wasn't a shocking decree—yet somehow, the news spread with alarming speed.
The first to feel the change weren't the nobles.
It was those who already lived in the shadows.
Night-duty eunuchs realized there would be no hot soup after patrol.Old women hauling firewood received only a small bowl of thin porridge at noon.Rough labor maids crouched by the wash basins, stomachs aching with hunger, swallowing saliva to endure.
No one dared cry openly.
Tears never reached noble ears.
But resentment began fermenting in the dark—like fire buried under ash, waiting for someone to lift the lid.
Just as people began to believe Qing Tian had changed—even began to grow cold-hearted—
She issued her second order.
And it was the complete opposite.
"Post the exact grain standards for every pastry and soup in the Food Bureau.Write them clearly.Hang them publicly at the bureau gates."
Even Chief Steward Li froze.
"Director Qing," he warned quietly, "these records… have always been internal."
"Exactly," Qing Tian replied calmly. "That's why they must be posted."
Soon, wooden boards were hung.
The writing was clear. Mercilessly precise.
Sesame Cake: Standard — 2 taels rice flour → Actual — 1 tael 3 qian
Lotus Seed Soup: Standard — 3 taels rice → Actual — 2 taels
Warm-Heart Soup: Standard — 1 tael rice → Actual — 6 qian
Each line landed like a slap.
At first, palace workers only glanced in secret.
Then some stopped walking.
Then more gathered.
No one dared speak loudly—but their eyes changed.
—So it wasn't that we were meant to eat this little.—It's that we were supposed to have more.
It was never a secret.
But no one had ever dared to write it down.
Qing Tian did.
And she hung it where everyone could see.
The news quickly reached Consort Shen.
She was playing the zither.
At the words "Warm-Heart Soup stopped" and "accounts posted", her fingers slipped.
Zing—
A harsh, broken note rang out as her fingertip pressed hard into the string.
"Who is she trying to incite?" Consort Shen asked softly, without warmth.
"The lowest trash," her confidant scoffed. "What use are they?"
Consort Shen lifted her eyes.
Calm. Clear.
"No," she said."She doesn't want their power."
"She wants their mouths."
Once the lowest begin to talk,the wind changes.
Because words climb.They spread upward.They leak outward.
The truly lethal strike came on the third day.
That day, Qing Tian entered the kitchen herself.
No fanfare. No new recipe.
She made the most ordinary meal imaginable.
She gave it an equally ordinary name:
Plain Offering Rice.
No meat.No oil.Only rice, greens, and water.
She had it delivered directly to the Empress Dowager's Buddhist hall.
The messenger carried only one sentence:
"Director Qing says—this is the most appropriate meal that can be preparedunder the Buddhist hall's current grain allocation."
The Empress Dowager took a bite.
At first, her expression held.
By the second bite, her brow creased slightly.
By the third, she set down her chopsticks.
Because the taste—
She knew it too well.
Bland. Hollow. Lifeless.
Exactly the flavor of the meals the lowest servants used to survive.
In that instant, she understood:
This wasn't food.
It was a mirror.
Outside the Buddhist hall, Qing Tian stood beneath the covered corridor, watching water drip from the eaves.
Chuntao whispered, "Director… isn't this too much?"
Qing Tian didn't answer right away.
After a long moment, she said softly:
"Whoever controls the grainshould be the one who knows besthow much has truly gone missing."
Her voice was quiet.
Sharp as a blade.
This move—
She wasn't reporting anyone.
She was forcing the lootersto taste the hungerthey had inflicted on others.