No longer having to involve herself with the homicidal case and free from all restraints belonging to the imperial power, Peng Mingzhu finally stretched her limbs with a satisfied sigh while she was looking at the closed window with open curtains.
Yesterday, when she saw the saw scene right outside her window, she decided to never close her window curtains and instead leave the curtains open so that she could see such a beautiful view when she first woke up.
Outside her window, there were beautiful flowers of all types and man made fountains, ponds, lakes, waterfalls that complimented each other very much. Along the natural environment were pebble pathways and seating fixtures for the passersby to take a rest when they were tired.
During the previous night, she was only able to see the garden with the light of the moon shining upon the view and already thought that the garden was truly a beautiful piece of art. However, at the sight of the morning dew glistening from the halo of the sun, she finally understood what "shining in dark, shining in light," meant now.
She truly wanted to meet the person who designed the garden.
Aside from the satisfying view of the garden right outside her window though, there was another happy thing that occurred the previous night.
She was able to get the promise of Mo Nianzu that he would not tell anyone from the estate that she was currently housing herself in the Plum Fragrance Inn. At the same time, she also managed to get the promises of both Verbatim Bookstore and the inn to not expose her current living address.
In fact, she wanted Mo Nianzu to be responsible for asking the two places to keep this secret for her, but she forgot to tell him to do so. Not only that, as the day was beginning to end, she did not want the small young boy to stay out too late due to stranger danger, so she instead opted to sending messages using the pager system that the current world famously used.
She did not know how the page boy managed to travel so speedily to Verbatim Bookstore from the inn since they were quite far apart from each other, but she was still very happy to receive the letter back from them that they would do their best to keep her privacy from all people - excluding the imperial family since they just really could not break the law.
The inn on the other hand was a different story. According to them, since the family that owned the inn held the most economic power in the country, they could reasonably keep secrets and withhold information from the imperial family.
Done with her stretching, she went to the wash area of the room and washed up: brushing her teeth, washing her face, and doing her face care. Once she was done washing up, she changed into a new set of pink robes - her favorite color of clothing to wear.
After she finished preparing to start the day, she finally left the room to enter the kitchen of the inn.
When she entered, many of the chefs there looked at her strangely. Some were even quietly whispering to each other.
"Hey, what's a beautiful miss doing in here?" one of the male chefs whispered very quietly to the other chef standing next to him.
"Remember yesterday when the manager told us that we needed to make sure there were ingredients to be used for cooking yesterday and it needed to be untouched?" the chef responded with a hand over his mouth to whisper back.
"Yeah, I remember that," the chef who first asked something replied.
"I think she's the reason why," the chef stated in a quiet voice.
Then, another chef from another table whispered, "Hey, she's so pretty, you think she's a mistress of the owners?"
"That can't be it," the previous chef denied before explaining logically. "If that's true, then she wouldn't be paying for her room with her money. I heard that Manager Bai was so shocked, he had to take medicine yesterday after going to rest."
"Yeah, I agree," the other chef stated. "Besides, if she was a mistress, she would not be cooking her own food when we hold such a high reputation for our menu."
"Then, why's she in the kitchen?" the chef from the other table questioned.
"Don't know," the logical chef shrugged while he was still cooking. "Only heard that she personally asked for such from the manager. Maybe she has her own reasons."
Despite everything that was going on in the background, she ignored them all and only decisively chose her recipe to cook for breakfast: scallion pancakes, and beef and broccoli. Even though the chefs think they were being quiet while whispering to each other, Peng Mingzhu still heard everything they said.
As the chefs were talking amongst themselves a chef who seemed to be the head also inserted himself, "Hey, she's so pretty, you guys think she's taken?"
"Definitely," the one who asked if she was a mistress answered.
"No, I don't think so," the logical chef disagreed. "If she was taken, why would she have the inn keep it a secret that she's here?"
"Maybe she's trying to hide from her partner after committing adultery?" the one that answered previously said. "Wait, dude, how do you know so much?"
"I overheard their conversations yesterday when I was helping the others with unloading the ingredients at the backhouse," the logical chef answered. "Also, she's not trying to hide. If she was, she wouldn't be showing her face while walking around. She'd be wearing a mask of some sort."
"Hm… If she's not taken...you think she'd want me?" the chef who seemed like the head asked with a blush.
"You like her?" the logical chef asked.
The head chef shyly nodded with a hand behind his neck.
"I don't think she'll like you back," the logical chef shot him down savagely.
"Wow… My dear brother, must you shoot down Head Chef that fast?" the one who kept on speaking badly of Peng Mingzhu joked with a quiet chuckle.
"She's so beautiful, she must've had lots of handsome, rich, and powerful men pursuing her. However, looking at her, she seems to be old already," the logical chef said as he snuck glances at Peng Mingzhu.
"Old?" the gossiping chef questioned while scratching the top of head. "A beautiful lady like her is old?"
"Not old as an actually like a grandma, but old as she's over 20 but still not married," the logical chef reiterated with a sigh.
"Maybe she's a loyal lover that's waiting for her lover who's left her for years?" the gossiping chef made up a story.
"Who knows," the logical chef muttered. "Alright, let's get back to work. Head Chef, this is supposed to be our job! Not get involved with our gossip!"
"Yes, yes, I know that. I just got distracted for a moment," the head chef embarrassedly coughed.
Then, they all got back to work cooking and such, though in the back of their minds, they would surely talk about Peng Mingzhu again.
Even though she knew that they were all super curious about who she was and why she decided to cook her own food instead of eating the food they cooked or having another person cook for her, she did not care to let people know.
When she finished cooking the scallion pancakes and the beef and broccoli dish, she grabbed a small bowl and filled it with white rice. Then, she got out her tea set and began to make a cup of Da-Hong Pao Tea.
It is hard to imagine that tea leaves can be worth a million dollars, but a kilo of Da-Hong Pao Tea leaves were valued at $1.2 million. Though it was mainly because this type of tea dated back to the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, the tea was declared a national treasure by the Chinese government.
Normally, the tea is usually given as a gift to important individuals such as honorable people, and celebrities. However, the process of making Da-Hong Pao Tea has always remained a secret tightly guarded by the Chinese.
Thankfully, Peng Mingzhu was a very important individual to the Chinese government and thus, was able to receive a kilo of this tea annually. At the same time, since she drank more than one type of extremely rare and expensive tea, she never did use up her stock of Da-Hong Pao Tea.
Finally, she had a worker help her carry her food and drinks to the dining area and began to eat despite the people - strangers - that were staring at her with curious and flirtatious eyes.
Once she finished eating, she began to silently and peacefully sip on her tea. Why did she do such a thing when her most normal response once done eating was to immediately leave?
There was gossip nearby that the identities of the eight murdered netizens were just revealed today, the 7th of February.