Chapter 1164 - Chapter 1164 Dessert on one Plate
Chapter 1164 Dessert on one Plate
The tea room was not very far away. Zhang Qilan followed the servant girl and reached there after taking a few turns. Along the way, Zhang Qilan learned about the situation. This tea room provided tea and pastries for six resting places in total. The paths inside were winding. These resting places, neither too far nor too close, were approximately the same distance from this tea room.
Upon arrival, they saw a lot of people inside the tea room. There were old maids doing the cleaning and servant girls bringing and sending items. They all seemed very busy. Although they talked to each other occasionally, they were quick in doing their jobs.
Zhang Qilan followed the servant girl to a place for storing pastries.
There were many kinds of pastries here. They were placed on the plates and had not been taken out yet. Many of them had just been steamed and were still steaming with heat.
“Can I pick some snacks?” Zhang Qilan looked at these busy servants in the tea room and asked.
“Of course, Miss Zhang. You can choose whatever you like. I’ll take them for you!” The servant girl said with a grin.
Zhang Qilan looked at them and picked up a few hot pastries, which were still steaming. At first glance, she knew they were just freshly made. Their sweet fragrance gave people a good appetite. “Two pieces for each of these pastries. Please put them on two plates, one kind for each plate.”
“Yes!” The servant girl answered and packed two identical plates of snacks for her.
Zhang Qilan looked at the two plates and frowned. “Are there any more beautiful plates?”
“Well… I’ll go and look for them.” The servant girl hesitated and answered.
“Then go and find the plates quickly. We’ll wait here for a while!” Zhang Qilan’s servant girl said.
The maid answered and left, walking inside to see if there were more outstanding plates. A lot of plates were brought to the tea room, but many of them had been sent to the resting pavilions. Therefore, she didn’t know what kinds of plates remained there.
After the servant girl left, Zhang Qilan motioned to her servant girl. Then, with trembling hands, the servant girl took a small bag of powder from the pocket before her chest and sprinkled some on one of the plates of pastries. However, a little fine powder was still visible. But after clouds of steam, the powder soon disappeared.
Zhang Qilan waited for a while and could no longer see the powder. Afterward, she changed a few pastries in the two plates. As a result, in each plate, some pastries were drugged, and some were not. After carefully remembering those pastries without the powder, she gently wiped her hands with a handkerchief.
The two plates on the table looked the same. Several pieces in each plate contained the powder, and some were not. She put the plate she needed in the front and the other in the back.
Zhang Qilan and her servant girls acted together quickly. Besides, there happened to be a few steamers on the table before them. Therefore, none of these busy servants coming and going noticed their little trick.
After that, since no one paid particular attention to them, Zhang Qilan walked out with her servant girl in boredom and waited outside the tea room.
Not long after, the servant girl of this courtyard ran out with sweat all over her face. She held a few delicate plates in her hand. When she saw Zhang Qilan outside, she breathed a sigh of relief. She ran over and asked, “Miss Zhang, what do you think of these plates?”
She had searched around inside the tea room just now. She saw the two plates with pastries, but Zhang Qilan was not in the room. She thought Zhang Qilan got bored waiting for her, so the servant girl chased after her in a hurry.
“These two plates!” Zhang Qilan picked out two identical blue plates with red flowers.
“Miss, I think the previous ones look better.” The servant girl she brought here said with a smile, “Their patterns are red plum blossoms. Your favorite ones, right?”
Hearing her words, Zhang Qilan hesitated. “Do you think the previous ones look better?”
“Yes, I honestly think so,” The maid nodded and said with certainty.
“Then… let’s use the original ones!” After thinking for a while, Zhang Qilan said. She seemed to be easily influenced.
“I’ll get them now!” The servant girl said with a smile.
Zhang Qilan nodded.
Since she had agreed, there was no need to change the plates. This time, she did not enter the room but asked her servant girl to go in with the servant girl from this courtyard.
After a while, the two servant girls came out. Her servant girl held a plate full of pastries in her hands. It was the plate they had chosen before. The plate had not been changed.
“Why is there only one plate?” Zhang Qilan looked at it and asked.
“Miss, I think I’d better put the other plate in the room. I’ll ask someone to get it when you finish this plate. I’ve asked them to put the other plate aside. If you want it, they can take it to you. When we go out, the snacks will turn cold quickly. It’s not good to eat too much cold food!”
The servant girl advised.
Her words sounded reasonable, so Zhang Qilan didn’t argue about it and asked her servant girl to reward this courtyard’s servant girl with a small purse of money. After she asked about the directions to the pavilions ahead, she slowly moved toward a direction. It was much faster to take a shortcut than to take detours.
Shao Wanru didn’t see anyone else along the way. Then, she sat down to rest in a place nearby. The scenery here was also good. A few pretty flowers were planted on the edge of a bamboo grove. They were huge, bright-colored, and beautiful, which were very attractive.
There was also a carpet of flowers as beautiful as rose-tinted clouds beside the pavilion.
Shao Wanru walked over, smelling the fragrance of flowers. When she sat down and looked around, the green bamboo forest seemed right before her, making this sea of flowers even more gorgeous. This pavilion was close to a courtyard on the side.
The courtyard was empty, and the door was open. Only two princesses lived temporarily in such a large area, so many places here were empty.
Yujie poured a cup of tea for her. Shao Wanru took a sip and looked at the beautiful scenery in front of her leisurely. She recalled what had happened just now.
“Yujie, have you seen the cluster of flowers at the entrance of the pavilion just now?” Shao Wanru asked.
Tiny flowers grew in the bushes. She had never seen such flowers.
“I haven’t seen them before. I think they look like wild blossoms in the mountain. How can the two foreign princesses like wild flowers in the mountain? Besides, these wild flowers are less bright and luxuriant than the ones before us.” Yujie shook her head, thinking that those flowers were not carefully cultivated. They must have grown only by themselves in the wilderness.
But how could noble princesses like Princess Yutao and Princess Yuyan plant such wild flowers?
Yujie could not figure it out.
After a short silence, Shao Wanru was more confident that these flowers were unusual. Princess Yuyan and Princess Yutao had only been in the capital city for a few days, and neither had left the city. In this case, how could they get these wild flowers? As for others, they could not give them these wild bush flowers as a gift.
Instead, they would only send precious flowers and plants.
Taking such worthless flowers as a gift to the two princesses would be humiliating.
Apart from these two possibilities, there was only one possibility: this kind of flower was brought here from the Xu State. People from the remote Xu State must know some unimaginable tricks, such as the Changxing Grass she knew and the wild flower she hadn’t figured out.
“My Lady, isn’t this Miss Zhang?” Yujie suddenly saw Zhang Qilan advance slowly from the intersection, and her eyes lit up.
Shao Wanru looked up and found Zhang Qilan also saw them. With a smile, Zhang Qilan walked over, followed by a servant girl holding a plate. The fresh pastries were still steaming.
“Greetings, Your Highness!” Zhang Qilan came over, bowed sideways to Shao Wanru with a smile, and said mischievously.
Shao Wanru stood up and said, “We are friends. Don’t stand on ceremony. I heard you were in front, but I didn’t expect you to go behind me!”
“I was ahead of you. Later, I wanted to get some fresh pastries, so I made a special visit to the tea room. I got some freshly baked pastries from there and came over!”
Zhang Qilan smiled and asked the servant girl to put down the pastries. She gently pushed them forward and said, “Let’s try them together. They are the latest batch, much fresher than the ones placed here.”
There were pastries on the stone table, but they were no longer hot. The pastries in Zhang Qilan’s hands were still steaming hot. At first glance, one could tell that they were freshly baked. At this time, the tantalizing aroma of fresh pastries wafted toward them.
After strolling around for a while, Shao Wanru was indeed hungry. However, it was not time for the meal. In addition, the dessert looked and smelled quite delicious, which easily whetted her appetite.
Zhang Qilan took a piece first. After she took a bite and tasted it, her eyes brightened. “Try it. It’s really good!”
As she spoke, she pushed the pastries closer to Shao Wanru.
When hanging out together in the past, they were at ease with each other and had done many casual things like sharing pastries. Zhang Qilan did this very naturally. She nodded and smiled, her eyes crinkling around the edges. All in all, she appeared very lovely and innocent.
Somehow, Shao Wanru looked a little sad, with a trace of deepness in her clear eyes. Her eyes fell on Zhang Qilan’s face, and the corners of her mouth curved into a polite smile. Then she slowly reached out her hand to the dessert.
Since when had their relationship come to this?
Just before Shao Wanru’s fingers touched a small round pastry, Zhang Qilan happened to push the plate closer to Shao Wanru. This time, a small square pastry stopped below her fingers.
Shao Wanru had randomly picked a piece, but now her hand landed precisely on the square one.
“It’s tasty. Just try one!” Zhang Qilan was still inviting, and her smile was a little cute. She looked adorable, so her bright smile was quite pleasing to the eye.
Shao Wanru picked up the pastry and took a closer look at it. There were tiny sesame seeds on it, but she didn’t know what the stuffing was.
She put it under her nose and sniffed it gently.
“Does it smell good? It’s particularly fragrant. I heard some pastries were not from our Kingdom of Dongcang. The two princesses must have brought over their unique recipes. I’ve also smelled them just now but can’t smell any fragrance. It smelled a little strange to me. Their snacks are different from ours, but they are tasty!”
Zhang Qilan said softly and took another bite. Then she took the pastry to her nose and deeply sniffed it. Once again, she enthusiastically invited Shao Wanru to try it. “I eat some but can’t tell what’s inside. You won’t know it by smelling. Try it.”
Her smile was gentle and warm, as usual. There was some pastry powder on the corner of her mouth. It looked indecent, but they certainly didn’t care about it since they were close friends.
Shao Wanru looked at the pastry in Zhang Qilan’s hand and hers. Then she opened her mouth and slowly took a bite…
In the end, they went this far…