In the Imperial Capital, inside a private room at "Emperor Cloud" Hot Pot, located in one of the city's top commercial districts.
Li Wei gazed eagerly at the churning orange-red broth before her, her index finger practically twitching with anticipation.
According to the server, the soup base had been carefully simmered from Australian lobster heads and shells, with old hen, pork bones, dried scallops, and other ingredients added to bring out the flavor. It was indescribably delicious.
Li Wei nearly drooled as she listened.
While waiting for the pot to boil, she dipped the end of her chopsticks into it, lightly coated them with broth, and sucked on them.
Then her eyes lit up.
So fresh!
When Li Wei dipped the chopsticks, now carrying her saliva, into the broth again,
a crack appeared in Yun Xi's expression management across from her.
And when Li Wei found dipping her chopsticks insufficiently satisfying and directly picked up the soup ladle from the table, scooping up a spoonful to savor carefully,
Yun Xi finally reached the limits of her patience.
She stared at Li Wei's exquisitely beautiful face, her voice carrying shards of ice. "Li Wei!"
Li Wei had just taken a mouthful of soup...
Pffft—!
A mouthful of fresh, sweet, rich broth, carrying the seafood's natural sweetness and the peculiar richness fermented by a young girl's saliva, sprayed squarely across Yun Xi's face...
Yun Xi: "..."
A few seconds later, the Yun princess, whom netizens jokingly called Hua Nation's most noble young lady—the dignified figure who brought the dynasty's eldest princess into reality—
had lost her composure for the first time in twenty years.
"Li Wei, you filthy commoner! I'll fight you to the death—!!!"
Clang—!
The same familiar recipe, the same familiar scene...
When the icy edge of a cicada-wing soft