Song Qingshu burst out laughing when he heard Daiqisi's words. Deliberately furrowing his brow, he said with a look of disgust, "You stewed soup with a dead chicken?"
Daiqisi's brows shot up. She snatched the wooden tray back. "If you don't want it, forget it. I'll feed it to the dogs."
Song Qingshu moved faster than she did and took the bowl of chicken soup back. "How could you do that? The dogs are innocent. What if the poison prepared by the mighty Dragon King of Purple Robes kills one of them? As they say, if I do not enter hell, who will? Better let me drink it."
With that, he lifted the bowl and took a sip. His spirits immediately soared, and the exhaustion accumulated over an entire day vanished without a trace. "Delicious!"
Daiqisi's expression finally softened, and a faint smile appeared at the corner of her lips. "Aren't you afraid I really poisoned the soup?"
Song Qingshu wolfed down the food as he answered indistinctly, "Not at all. To die beneath a peony flower is to remain romantic even as a ghost—much less when you're far prettier than any peony."
"Who knows how many innocent girls that mouth of yours has deceived," Daiqisi said irritably, her cheeks flushing slightly. Seeing him devour the food so ravenously, she took out a handkerchief and wiped away the soup that had dribbled down to his chin. "Eat slowly. No one's going to fight you for it. There's more in the pot."
"Can't help it. I was starving. I barely ate anything all day." Song Qingshu quickly polished off the chicken soup, meat, bones, and all. With a satisfied sigh, he said, "Who would have thought that the mighty Dragon King of Purple Robes, the Number One Beauty of the Jianghu,