After that, Zhao Ai’s visits to Zhanle Lou gradually increased. Usually he didn’t come as a customer, but like a familiar friend, he would greet people he encountered there warmly, enjoying listening to their stories and helping them solve their problems. To avoid suspicion, Wu Zhenzhen largely ignored him, so he often chatted with Granny Song. Learning that Granny Song had once sold fish soup in Lin’an, he immediately expressed his long admiration and said it was like thunder to his ears: “I still remember how the late Emperor would send people to buy your fish soup every two or three days. The late Emperor always doted on us three brothers the most, constantly rewarding us with rare treasures and delicacies, but he was reluctant to share the fish soup he had brought back. Once when the eunuch brought the fish soup back, the late Emperor was still in conference with his ministers. The eunuch placed the fish soup in Funing Palace, and Third Brother and I secretly ate it. When the late Emperor returned, he scolded us severely and nearly took up his whisk to beat our calves himself.”
This made Granny Song cover her mouth and laugh, saying: “Though the late Emperor did indeed send people to buy my fish soup several times, such flattering descriptions—Your Highness truly honors me too much… When I left Lin’an, Your Highness and your brothers probably hadn’t even been born yet!”
Zhao Ai’s kindness toward Granny Song wasn’t limited to verbal compliments. Whenever he saw her working, he would lend a hand, personally assisting with everything from pickling fish and shrimp to drying vegetables. Once when Wu Zhenzhen returned from outside, she saw Zhao Ai with his sleeves rolled up helping Granny Song move a heavy slate stone to press the salted meat and remove moisture. She hurried to stop him: “Your Highness has a precious body—how can you do such rough work?”
“Go away, don’t interfere with me,” Zhao Ai waved his hand, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and continued moving the stone. “I’m penetrating rural areas to understand the people’s conditions.”
Granny Song could also see Zhao Ai’s feelings for Wu Zhenzhen. She privately asked Wu Zhenzhen whether she and he were romantically involved, and if her night away from home was spent with him. Wu Zhenzhen firmly denied it, saying that night she had only been delayed by business, so she stayed at an inn in the city and encountered him by chance the next morning. He had always loved the people like his own children and couldn’t bear to see her traveling alone, so he escorted her home.
Granny Song knew there must be more to their relationship than this, but she didn’t press further, only sighing: “I see Prince Wei is different from those libertines—he’s extremely devoted to you and would be a good man to entrust your life to. However… his status is too noble. If you married him, you could only be a concubine.”
Besides Zhao Ai, Wei Qingxun was also a frequent visitor to Zhanle Lou. She successively brought several groups of friends, having Wu Zhenzhen serve them fine wine and delicacies while she secretly observed the ingredients and dishes Wu Zhenzhen prepared. During conversations and laughter with other guests, she also carefully tasted and analyzed flavors.
After several such visits, she came alone to find Wu Zhenzhen, asking: “I’ve discovered that you don’t necessarily make the same dish exactly the same way every time. For example, fish soup—sometimes it’s very sour, sometimes it has no vinegar taste at all; sometimes the broth is yellow-brown, sometimes it’s white as milk; sometimes the fish meat is in shreds or slices, sometimes it’s finely ground into paste… Are you still exploring, unable to settle on a fixed method?”
Wu Zhenzhen replied: “It’s not that I can’t fix the method, but that I adapt it to different people. The first time you brought guests, they were all businessmen in their thirties and forties who preferred rich, heavy flavors. So I used meat and poultry broth to cook bass fillets, adding bamboo shoots, ham, mushroom shreds, and thickening, seasoned with vinegar to make it fragrant and use the sour taste to cut the grease. The second time you brought a couple from Guangzhou who ran a spice shop, with a seven or eight-year-old girl. Guangzhou people don’t like heavily seasoned soups—they prefer the natural taste of ingredients. Being in the spice business, they need to keep their sense of smell sharp, so they can’t eat strongly flavored foods. And the little girl was teething, so she shouldn’t eat sour foods. Therefore, I used several kinds of seasonal fresh fish to make a white concentrated broth, adding no vinegar or thickening, cooking more tender mandarin fish meat shreds. Instead of coarser bamboo shoots, I used lettuce and carrot cut into dragon-whisker shapes for a smoother texture, and the green and orange thin shreds made the soup more beautiful… Another time, the guests were the retired Wang Neihan and his nearly eighty-year-old mother. The old lady had lost many teeth, so I further improved on the fish soup I made for the Guangzhou guests, grinding the fish meat into paste, chopping the accompaniments into bits, cooking and thickening into soup before serving to the old lady.”
“Sister Song’s fish soup became famous throughout the world years ago. Now with your thoughtful adaptations for different people, surpassing your teacher is just around the corner,” Wei Qingxun praised, then lightly waved her folding fan with a smile. “I want to buy your restaurant and then have you come to Luming Lou as head chef. Name your price—I won’t shortchange you.”
Wu Zhenzhen shook her head: “I don’t want to sell Zhanle Lou. Though the shop is small, I built it with my own hands. It’s like my own child—I wouldn’t casually sell it to someone else.”
Wei Qingxun said: “Zhanle Lou wouldn’t cease to exist just because you sell it to me. Perhaps we could cooperate. I’ll give you a sum of money, you transfer Zhanle Lou’s management rights to me, but you’ll be fully responsible for menu planning and management of both Luming Lou and Zhanle Lou, directing the chefs and kitchen staff. I’ll regularly give you a portion of the profits from both restaurants. As for how much, you can discuss it with me. This way, you haven’t lost your child but gained a bigger child—why not?”
Wu Zhenzhen still politely declined: “Thank you, Proprietor Wei, for this opportunity, but I feel my abilities are limited. Managing my own small shop well is already difficult—I wouldn’t dare rashly interfere with Luming Lou’s affairs.”
Wei Qingxun didn’t force her, smiling lightly: “If you think it’s inappropriate, I won’t press you. But I still hope you’ll consider it. If you’re interested in the future, you can come discuss it with me anytime.”
After Zhao Ai’s memorial was submitted to the emperor, the emperor immediately ordered the Censorate to investigate Li Tang and Ding Xiyao. The Censorate quickly sent officials to Ningguo Prefecture to investigate the case thoroughly. Zhao Ai had long prepared sufficient witnesses and evidence. Li and Ding’s crimes of using arbitrary taxes as surpluses, selling official land at sky-high prices, and illegally selling water sources were confirmed. They were stripped of office and prosecuted, and the emperor finally decided to grant Zhao Ai’s request, making the newly appointed Chancellor and Administrator answer to him, with all their managed affairs requiring reports to Zhao Ai for his decisions. Thus, Zhao Ai achieved his wish and obtained the real governing power he wanted.
On the day the emperor’s edict reached Ningguo Prefecture, it was already evening. After receiving the decree, Zhao Ai couldn’t contain his joy and was eager to share this good news with Wu Zhenzhen. He spurred his horse and rode through the moonlight toward Zhanle Lou.
Arriving at the courtyard gate of Zhanle Lou, Xiao Ou heard the horse’s neighing and came out to look, asking Zhao Ai in surprise: “So late—Your Highness is still coming?”
Zhao Ai tied up his horse and said to her: “I have something urgent to discuss with Lady Song… Is she here?”
“Yes,” Xiao Ou said. “The mistress has a habit of drinking a cup of plum wine with every meal. When the green plums ripened this year, she asked Granny Song to teach her how to brew wine with the fruit. Today the wine she brewed herself was ready to drink, so during dinner she and Granny Song drank together for quite a while. Later Granny Song couldn’t hold out and went to her room first, but the mistress kept drinking…” She gestured toward the second floor. “Look, she’s still drinking alone upstairs.”
Drinking with every meal? Zhao Ai strode upstairs, thinking as he walked: When did she develop this habit? She didn’t seem to do this before.
Reaching the second floor, Zhao Ai saw Wu Zhenzhen dozing with her head down at the round table in the hall. Before her was a set of white glass wine vessels—both the wine pot and cups were carved like ice blocks, nearly transparent. The pot still contained about half a pot of pale yellow wine. Zhao Ai poured a cup and drank it in one gulp, finding it sweet as honey and pleasantly fragrant.
Beside the wine vessels stood a larger Yue kiln celadon plum vase with intertwining lotus patterns, used for storing wine and also called a “wine vessel.” Zhao Ai picked it up and shook it, feeling only half a bottle of wine remained inside. He couldn’t help but smile and sigh at Wu Zhenzhen’s fondness for drinking. Looking at her rosy cheeks and deeply intoxicated expression, he felt tender pity. His gentle gaze rested on her for a moment before he bent down, lifted her up, and carried her to the bedroom inside, wanting to let her rest properly.
When he placed her on the bed, she suddenly woke up, her starry eyes half-open, grasping his arms in the darkness and seeking confirmation in disbelief: “You… you came?”
“Mm,” he replied softly, unable to resist stroking her warm face. “Is this wine so good that it made you drink so much?”
“This wine isn’t good at all—it’s as bad as you,” Wu Zhenzhen’s voice was slightly slurred from drinking, sounding full of lazy charm to his ears. “Sweet and deceptive, making people think it’s sugar water, drinking cup after cup unknowingly, only to be made drunk by you.”
Is she describing me? After his surprise, Zhao Ai suddenly felt a wild joy strike him: Does she mean she was unknowingly moved by me, and by the time she realized it, she couldn’t control her feelings?
Wu Zhenzhen extended a fist with drunken, misty eyes and lightly pounded his chest: “Step by step leading me to fall, making me so sad—you’re really bad…”
He smiled and held her hand: “Not so much, not so much… I’m not strong liquor—I won’t make you dizzy or harm your health.”
“You won’t make me dizzy, but you’re addictive,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist and nestling against his chest. “Once I realized how good you are, I wanted to see you every day and never leave you for a moment.”
Her sudden closeness left him completely at a loss, feeling this scene was like a dream. He joyfully embraced her tightly, thinking she had hidden her feelings so well that without tonight’s wine-induced revelation, he would never have known she had such deep feelings for him.
“Sigh, could this be another dream? Even if it’s a dream, as long as you stay in my dreams a little longer, I’ll be very happy…” She closed her eyes, buried her face in his chest, and called out dreamily like sleep-talking: “Your Highness…”
This call struck him like lightning. The joy he’d felt moments before scattered completely, replaced by a surge of despair, anger, shame, and helpless grievance and sorrow. These intertwined emotions made him tremble involuntarily, and a tear uncontrollably escaped and fell onto her forehead.
Feeling his tear, she looked up in confusion and touched his cheek: “Why are you crying, Your Highness?”
He didn’t answer, lacking the courage to push her away. He remained silent, trying to breathe deeply and suppress the emotions that threatened to burst from his chest.
“Are you sad for me?” she sighed softly. “I’m fine now… I’ve gotten used to days without you, rising with the sun and resting at sunset, eating normally, talking and laughing… except for drinking an extra cup of plum wine with each meal, everything is the same as when I was a daughter…”
His heart ached even more, and more tears fell. She sat up to face him, reaching her hands toward his face, groping to cup his cheeks, kissing his tear-stained eyes—first the left, then the right, wiping away the tear tracks with her lips before trailing down to press against his lips.
Feeling his momentary shock, she released her hands, paused briefly, then continued kissing his lips again and again.
Her taking the initiative to give him such intimate affection was a scene he had fantasized about countless times in solitary nights, but he had never imagined it would happen under these circumstances. The deep love hidden in his heart made him unable to resist responding to her kisses, yet he couldn’t convince himself to ignore the truth—every kiss she gave him now expressed love for his elder brother. It was in her unusually passionate behavior that he deeply realized how ardently she and his elder brother had once loved each other.
He continued this painful kiss with tears flowing, like sipping drops of sweet poison, until he felt desire and pain both threatening to spiral out of control, with rising flames about to consume him. Only then did he press her against his chest, restraining her from moving further.
She fell silent for a while, gradually falling asleep in his embrace.
He let her sleep peacefully on the bed, tucked her in with the brocade quilt, and slowly withdrew.
“Don’t tell the mistress I came tonight,” he said, giving Xiao Ou, who was waiting in the courtyard, a substantial sum of money before leaving.