Chapter 130: Unraveling the Poisoned Feast in the Royal Kitchen

When Shen Yan handed Pei Yue over to Luo Li, the screen of his phone was still cracked, resembling a sprawling spiderweb. Without looking back, he said, “Wait for me to come back for a late-night snack,” and plunged into the depths of the palace corridors. The red dot on the heat map was still blinking, pointing directly toward the direction of the royal kitchen.

This place should have been filled with the aroma of food, but the air was thick with the scent of medicine mixed with the smell of rust—it felt wrong from the start. Shen Yan pressed against the wall and crept to the back window. Just as he was about to pick the lock, a “click” sounded from the ventilation duct above, and Yu Xiaotang slid down headfirst, a half-eaten candied hawthorn stick in her mouth, her cheeks puffed out like a hamster’s.

“Brother Shen!” she exclaimed, slipping as she landed and hastily steadying herself against the stove. “I just went to the library and flipped through three years’ worth of menus—guess what? The emperor has been eating nothing but warming and nourishing dishes for the past three months! Longjing shrimp, angelica chicken, astragalus stewed pork ribs… all fiery ingredients!”

Shen Yan’s brow twitched. “A cold-constitution body consuming heat-inducing food every day—this isn’t nourishment, it’s slow murder.”

He pulled out his phone. Though the screen was cracked, it still worked. The terminal interface flashed as he initiated the scanning mode. Green light swept over the steamers, spatulas, and jars of oil and salt, but the data stream cascading down was blocked by a layer of faint golden runes.

【Warning: High-level encrypted spiritual patterns detected, suspected variant of the Mystic Gate’s ‘Nine-Layered Soul-Sealing Array.’ Life resonance required for decryption.】

“Damn, even the food is password-protected?” Shen Yan clicked his tongue. “Who’s this meticulous, requiring facial recognition just to eat?”

Yu Xiaotang bit the tip of her finger and drew a talisman on the steamer lid. “Let me take a look inside.”

The talisman’s light pierced through the layers of dishes, then suddenly paused—beneath the plate of Longjing shrimp, a faint blue thread wriggled slowly, as if something alive were crawling.

“There’s something in there!” She flung out three purification talismans, but the paper talismans burst into flames and turned to ash the moment they touched the edge of the plate.

“Encrypted protection backlash?” Shen Yan narrowed his eyes. “It seems this isn’t aimed at the emperor, but at a specific bloodline.”

Before he could finish speaking, the door was pushed open. Pei Yue walked in, leaning against the wall, her face pale and bloodstains seeping through the bandage on her shoulder. Yet her nose twitched slightly. “Frostsilver grass… and the smell of rotting blood.”

Her gaze fixed on the plate of shrimp, and her pupils contracted. “This is aimed at me. The Heart-Eating Gu Worm only recognizes the Dark Jade Cold Pulse. It sensed my blood.”

“Don’t get close!” Shen Yan reached out to stop her but was gently pushed aside.

“It’s too late.” Pei Yue pulled off her jade hairpin and pricked the tip of her finger with the needlepoint. A single drop of essence blood fell onto the edge of the plate.

In that instant, ripples spread across the entire dish, and dozens of transparent gu worms scrambled out, swarming toward her blood like moths to a flame. The swarm of insects twisted and merged in mid-air, coalescing into Xie Wujiu’s ethereal figure, his lips curling into a greedy smile.

“The blood of the Medicine Valley Saintess… truly a rare medicine, seen only once in a century. Thank you for delivering yourself to me.”

Shen Yan’s eyes turned cold as he tapped his phone rapidly. “Recording initiated, audio synchronized for backup.”

The ethereal figure sneered. “You may have unraveled this one meal, but you can’t stop the slow erosion of three hundred and sixty days. I’ve laced every meal with a catalyst, waiting for the day her blood qi is at its weakest to turn her into the Gu Mother in one fell swoop.”

“Oh?” Shen Yan looked up, a faint smile curling at the corner of his lips. “So all this effort wasn’t to harm the emperor, but to use Dr. Pei as an experimental subject to study how to destroy the Medicine Valley?”

He tucked his phone into his chest. “This audio recording will be enough for you to replay it for the rest of your life in the interrogation hall.”

Yu Xiaotang listened with clenched fists, rummaging through her Cosmic Bag for the last piece of Talisman Paper—still strawberry-scented. “If I run into him next time, I’ll turn him into a Candied Hawthorn skewer!”

Pei Yue, however, shook her head, her voice weak but firm. “No… these Gu Worms are too clean, with no signs of Host erosion. They aren’t for refining poison—they’re for sampling.”

She looked up at Shen Yan. “He’s collecting Data on my Bloodline to reverse-engineer the Medicine Valley Core Cultivation Technique.”

Shen Yan suddenly realized. “So he’s not in a hurry to act, but changes the dishes daily to observe the toxin reactions in my body? This is a clinical trial!”

“More than that,” Pei Yue gasped for breath. “When I came in earlier, I saw bruises on the wrist of the young eunuch delivering the food outside, as if bitten by something. He’s not poisoning directly—he’s having the Gu Worms test-run on low-level personnel first, then gradually upgrading to me.”

“A typical Iteration development process,” Shen Yan sneered. “Using living people as a testing environment—that old bastard is truly a talent.”

He lowered his head and pulled up the Terminal, starting to write a “Reverse Tracing Program.” Halfway through running the Code, a System Popup Window appeared:

【Warning: Detected remote monitoring Signal, source—Front Palace Annex】

“What the hell, he even installed cameras?” Shen Yan narrowed his eyes. “Thinking we’re struggling here while he watches the live stream?”

Yu Xiaotang’s eyes lit up. “Then let’s give him an encore performance!”

As she spoke, she took out the last half of a candied hawthorn stick, rolled it on the ground to stick to a piece of broken porcelain, then tore a strip from her skirt hem to wrap around it, fashioning a crude reflector. She tilted it toward a corner of the ceiling.

“High-definition, uncensored, guaranteed to satisfy,” she flashed a peace sign at the camera.

Seizing the opportunity, Shen Yan packaged the recorded Gu Worm Data, encrypted it, and uploaded it to his private cloud, naming it “The Grand Preceptor’s Crime Record v1.0.” He set it to automatically send to the supervisory departments of the three major Sects at a scheduled time.

“Now, it’s our turn to set a trap.”

He turned to Pei Yue. “Can you still hold on?”

Pei Yue nodded, taking a small bottle of silver powder from her Medicine Pouch. “This is ‘Blood-Guiding Incense’ left by my mother. It can make Gu Worms misjudge Bloodline concentration. I can pretend my poisoning has worsened to lure them into revealing their next plan.”

“No,” Shen Yan firmly refused. “You’ve already lost too much blood. Draining more vital essence will damage your foundation.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Pei Yue looked at him.

Shen Yan fell silent for two seconds, then suddenly smiled. “Yes—I won’t use human blood. I’ll simulate blood with Code.”

He opened the Terminal, retrieved the life Parameters collected when Pei Yue performed Poison Removal on him last time, and began writing a “Virtual Dark Jade Cold Pulse Simulation Program.” He input heart rate, Spiritual Energy Fluctuation, meridian pathways, and even body temperature change curves, gradually constructing a digital “Pei Yue.”

【Program loading… Simulation rate: 78%】

【Inject Gu Worm lure Protocol?】

“Take the bait, you old schemer,” he pressed the confirmation key, transmitting the Program Signal through the metal of the stove and quietly releasing it into the kitchen’s piping network.

In less than ten breaths, ripples appeared again in the shrimp dish. The Gu Worms emerged once more but didn’t rush toward Pei Yue. Instead, they circled the stove as if searching for something.

“It’s looking for the Signal source!” Yu Xiaotang whispered.

Shen Yan sneered. “Found it.”

He abruptly initiated the “Recursion Trap,” the program reverse tracing the Gu Worm control chain, following the signal all the way back—the endpoint was located in the warm chamber on the east side of the front hall.

“Just as I thought, someone’s waiting there to collect the data.” Shen Yan put away his phone. “Let’s go meet this ‘wellness expert.'”

But Pei Yue suddenly grabbed his sleeve. “Wait… I can smell it—the real scent of Silver Frost Grass is coming from the cellar.”

Shen Yan froze. “Cellar?”

The three exchanged glances, then quietly lifted the hidden panel beneath the stove. A narrow stone staircase extended downward, and in the damp air, the faint sound of mechanical gears turning could be heard.

“Damn, poisoning the food on the surface while hiding an underground factory in secret?” Shen Yan grinned. “Is this the imperial kitchen or the headquarters of a multinational biotech company?”

Yu Xiaotang rubbed her hands together. “Then what are we waiting for? The demolition crew is here!”

Just as she was about to jump down, Shen Yan grabbed the back of her collar. “Hold on. If there’s a Formation down there, we’ll all end up pickled if we rush in.”

He opened his phone and launched the “Miniature Reconnaissance Drone” program—actually a modified copper coin. Infused with Spiritual Energy, it buzzed and flew out, spiraling down the staircase.

Five breaths later, the Image transmitted back: deep in the cellar, rows of glass jars floated in pale blue liquid, each labeled—”Sample of Imperial Shrimp, 17th Day of the First Month, Year of Jiazi,” “Ginseng Soup Residue, 3rd Day of the Second Month”…

And in the central bronze cauldron, a swirling mass of black mist slowly rotated, countless fine threads connecting to pipes above, leading directly to the kitchen stove.

“Is that… a Gu Mother incubation chamber?” Yu Xiaotang widened her eyes.

Shen Yan stared at the screen and suddenly noticed a line of small characters engraved at the bottom of the cauldron: 【Abyss Workshop · Custom Model · Heart-Devouring Gu V3.2】

“Abyss Workshop again.” He narrowed his eyes. “Xie Wujiu definitely has a supplier behind him.”

Pei Yue suddenly swayed, and Shen Yan instinctively reached out to steady her shoulder. Leaning against his arm, her voice was almost inaudible. “Shen Yan… my father disappeared back then while investigating this very workshop.”

Shen Yan’s heart jolted. He looked down at her pale face and suddenly shoved the phone into her hand. “Hold this.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to smash that cauldron.” As he spoke, he took off his plaid shirt and tossed it to the ground, revealing the Silver-Thread Soft Armor underneath. “For something like this, you have to do it yourself to show sincerity.”

Yu Xiaotang grabbed him. “I’m coming too!”

“You stay.” Shen Yan glanced at her. “If anyone comes from above, you’ll need to buy us time.”

He then turned to Pei Yue. “If I’m not back in thirty breaths, initiate the ‘self-destruct program’ and blow up this cellar.”

Pei Yue shook her head. “I’m not leaving.”

“Listen to me.” He gently pressed the back of her hand, the Tip of the Finger leaving a trace of warmth. “This meal is on me. The bill is mine to pay.”

With that, he turned and leaped into the hidden passage, his figure disappearing into the depths of the staircase.

Yu Xiaotang watched his retreating back, silently folding the last piece of Talisman Paper into a small boat and placing it in her palm.

Pei Yue gripped the phone tightly, the Screen reflecting her trembling eyelashes.

Deep in the cellar, the black mist in the bronze cauldron suddenly began to churn violently.

(End of Chapter)