Three long days of disaster finally ended. With a wide smile, the guards drove Shao Chen off from the underground jail.
"Miss, please never commit any trouble again! We can't have you here again," the guards sighed. Some even cried, being touched by the fact that they won't have to see this crazy girl again.
Looking at their tears, Shao Chen thought that they were not willing to see him off. He patted their shoulders, intended to cheer them up. "Don't cry. I will visit you once in a while so that you won't cry for missing me a lot."
All of them wiped away their tears simultaneously. "YOU DON'T HAVE TO!" they exclaimed in a choir then pushed Shao Chen away.
They even spread salt in front of the jail's entrance after Shao Chen went away, hoped with the salt power, that jinx – Shao Chen – would never come to disturb their peace again.
Meanwhile, Shao Chen's mind was wandering away about his revenge plan. When he finally came to himself, the scenery around him was foreign.
'Where is this?' He was looking around but still could not find anything that felt familiar.
In fact, Shao Chen was indeed utterly unfamiliar with the palace. Even in the harem block in which he had resided for more than a week, he would certainly be lost.
After in a trance for a while, Shao Chen decided to follow his instinct but what was the point of his minus level instinct?
He became more and more lost.
After strayed around for a long time, his leg languid and his stomach growled, asking for food. "Ah … usually, I could live without food for a week."
A delicious aroma suddenly caught by his nose, made him instinctively walked to the source of this aroma. A slightly open door showed in front of Shao Chen and he noticed the aroma was flowing from inside the door.
He opened the door slowly and tiptoed inside. It turned out to be a kitchen.
A lot of people were passing by in a hurried step, focused on their tasks thus did not aware that there was addition of one person inside.
Shao Chen's view was instantly locked at the plates full of still-warm dishes. With a drool, he approached them.
"Did the chicken have been cooked?!" one of the young maidservants shouted.
"Not yet! Arranged the soup first!" one of the palace cooks exclaimed.
Lunch time almost arrived but the dishes still far from finished. Today, there was an important meeting between the emperor and the local officials who were trusted to supervise the Xin Kingdom's territories.
"How much time left we had?" another maidservant asked while placing a bowl of soup on each tray.
"Ten minutes left!"
"Sh*t! The beef has not cooked yet!"
"The chicken is ready! Quick, arrange them on the plate!"
The kitchen was in chaos. The maidservant quickly ran to get the plates and placing them on the trays. Another maidservant started to count the dishes.
"Hm?" One of them knitted brows after counting.
"What's wrong?" asked the girl beside her.
"There are two trays without soup!"
"Huh, no way! I had placed them on all trays, I swear!" the girl who had done that task before exclaimed in disbelief.
"This is weird." The frowned girl rechecked them, hoped that she was wrong.
However, this time, not only two bowls of soup, but a plate of chicken was also disappeared. "We lack one chicken!"
"What?! We do not have more chicken to cook!" the palace cooked complained in annoyance.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah! And I have made sure to cook for the right amount. Maybe you did not count them properly?"
The maidservant was scratching her nape in confusion, began to count again when she saw a pale hand, which was grabbing one of the chicken plates, emerged from the bottom of the table.
"WOAH! Th—the food theft ghost!" the maidservant shouted in fear.
"Don't be silly! There was no way something like that exist!" One of the cooks had had enough of this.
"Bu—but there is a hand!" The maidservant pointed at the hand that was still groping the table then pulled another plate of chicken.
The kitchen crew approached the hand carefully. With fear filled their heart, they bent down and a pair of bright orange iris directly met their view, mouth full with the just-cooked chicken….
*****
Feng Meifeng walked around the palace anxiously. A moment ago, she went to the underground jail to fetch Shao Chen but the man was not there. When she asked the guards, they said that Shao Chen had gone for some minutes ago.
"Shao Chen!" Feng Meifeng shouted, hoped that Shao Chen was around and would answer her call.
"THIEF!" A thunderous scream shocked Feng Meifeng, followed by a loud bang of the door opening.
Feng Meifeng almost ran away, fear that the thief was evil enough to harm someone innocent, but stopped right away when Shao Chen appeared with a piece of chicken in his mouth and another piece on a plate he brought. Behind him was a group of maidservants and palace cooks chasing with pots, skillets, or spatulas in their hands, ready to strike at the thief.
"Shao Chen?!" Feng Meifeng felt her heart slid down to her stomach, almost like a mother that in the verged of fainting because of her troublemaker child. She immediately followed the group to stop that child.
On the other hand, Shao Chen was running at the speed of light. He did not know why he was chased only because he ate their food even though there were plenty of them.
'Why they are so stingy?!' Shao Chen grumbled.
Nevertheless, he still ran away because he felt threatened if he stayed in the kitchen.
He turned the other way without knowing what was coming at the end of the road. One in a while, he bumped into the passerby but without any care, he continuously ran away.
"Thief!" the group of his chaser shouted ceaselessly.
Some of the guards, who were relaxing around, startled and immediately followed the group to chase Shao Chen.
"Stop or you will get a heavy punishment!" the guards threatened.
Shao Chen's chaser became bigger and bigger in no time and forced him to be faster. His bite on the chicken was getting loose but his hand had been full with the plate thus he focused on looking for a hiding place before the meat completely fell to the ground.
Some of the kitchen crew were getting tired. Feeling that they could not run faster than this, finally threw the cooking tool in their hand straight to Shao Chen but failed. As result, the road was filled with pots or spatulas that were stuck in the ground.
Meanwhile, at the palace grand main building, the meeting had been finished and along with the emperor, they were walking to the dining hall.
Chen Liqin ordered Ming Yu to attend the meeting so that he would be known by and familiar with the officials as the emperor's empress-to-be and vice versa.
"Your Majesty really has good eyes for beauty," one of the local officials named Yang, who was famous as a bootlicker, praised The Emperor high to the sky. He shamelessly blurted out a superficial compliment in order to catch the emperor's heart.
Chen Liqin laughed proudly. "You too!" he exclaimed satisfiedly. He did not care whether it was just genuine praise or not. As long as it was a compliment to his loved one, he was jubilant.
Ming Yu smiled shyly, slowly moved behind Chen Liqin's back. His figure was very graceful, even some of the officials flushed in red. Afraid that the emperor would find out their inappropriate thought, they immediately lowered their face.
"THIEF!"
Chen Liqin, Ming Yu, and the other officials stopped at hearing that scream. At the same time, a girl suddenly emerged from the junction and crashed on The Emperor.
They lost footing and fell down. Chen Liqin fell with his butt on the rough road while the girl fell on top of him with her face patched on The Emperor's chest.
"Your Majesty! Are you okay?"