The Culinary Chronicles of the Court Physician: The Disgraced Princess Consumes Poison to Create Medicine
When the emperor passed away, his corpse was placed in a coffin and worshiped until it turned to bone. This ritual was called mogari (temporary enshrinement).
The hinkyū (imperial mortuary hall), with every window covered by drapes, was dimly lit. Incense burned to mask the stench of death, but the mingling of fragrance and putrid decay was suffocating.
Empress Xin Hua, who had come to visit, peered into the coffin and lowered her eyelashes.
“How truly pitiful you are.”
Lying before her was a wretched corpse.
Struck by lightning, his body bore the scars of blue-purple burns. As she traced the marks—like the roots of poison spreading beneath his skin—Xin Hua whispered:
“You finally became emperor, yet you were never fulfilled, not even at the end. Since childhood, you were always compared to your capable younger brother, resented by your father as a failure… And in the end, it all ended so suddenly.“
“But you should be grateful.”
A small smile graced her lips.
Leaning in close to his unmoving chest, she pursed her lips.
“I made you a promise, but… you don’t seem very appetizing.”
“Soldiers scattered across the battlefield look far tastier than this. What should I do?”
Her eyelashes quivered ever so slightly. As she gazed down at the lifeless body, her eyes reflected a distant scene.
“But, when I think back… you were the only one.”
A soft sigh escaped her lips.
And like dropping a flower into a coffin, she murmured:
“You were the only one who ever looked at me—the man-eating monster—and called me beautiful.”
She had been roused from her slumber nearly a thousand years ago.
Until then, she had indulged in idle slumber within something akin to a shrine, occasionally feasting on the sacrifices offered to her. But at some point, the offerings ceased, and she was no longer worshiped.
Starving, she left the shrine and wandered the continent, inciting wars and devouring the fallen on the battlefield.
At times, she was revered as a deity. At others, she was feared as a demon.
There was even an era when they called her Tōtetsu—the gluttonous beast of legend.
Then, on the desolate remains of a battlefield where everything lay dead, she met a man.
He had been wounded and had hidden in the underbrush, waiting for the fighting to end.
Sitting atop a mound of corpses, her lips stained with blood as she hummed a tune, she watched as the man, for reasons unknown, burst into tears and fell to his knees.
He called her beautiful.
It was unexpected.
Many had admired her when she smiled, calling her an unrivaled beauty. But the moment she began to feast on human flesh, they cowered in terror and fled.
She had simply been satisfying her hunger.
“I have never seen anything as beautiful as you,” the man had said. “May I… touch you?”
Many had sought her affections, but none had ever spoken with such trembling sincerity.
When he reached out to touch her unmoving legs, joy overtook him.
Overcome with emotion, he wept aloud.
As she stroked his hair, she felt a strange warmth.
She did not understand love.
“But I was happy. Yes… I was very happy.”
So, I shall grant you my promise.
Xin Hua brought her flower-like lips to the emperor’s cheek in a delicate kiss.
Then, tilting her fragile chin, she parted her lips and extended her tongue.
“Bon appétit.”
