The Possession-Spoon Chef Feeds the Empire - Chapter 71

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 71
“Winter Rose…….”
What the maker had tried to bring into being became clear at once.
Lauren reached out with trembling hands and touched the Barrier surrounding the dish.
With a soft pop, the barrier shattered, and cold air dispersed from within—the rose became even more vivid.
Confronted with such breathtaking beauty, Lauren gasped in wonder.
Within the transparent ice, the red and green forms resolved into dozens, hundreds of tiny pearls.
As if jewels had been set within the flower itself, each one gleamed brilliantly.
“A Winter Rose, made based on your description.”
Debron said.
“…….”
Pointed petals, a single thorn on each stem.
A vivid hue like blood flowing through white snow, surrounded by a thin coating of ice.
She couldn’t deny it—it resembled the actual Northern roses quite closely. Perhaps it was even more beautiful.
“No.”
Yet Lauren shook her head firmly.
“If you’d truly listened to me, you would have remembered that the Winter Rose isn’t like this at all.”
She smiled wryly and reached out to grasp the stem of the rose.
“Outsiders call a frozen rose the Winter Rose of the North, but the real one…….”
Crack—
The moment she lifted the flower, the small pearls filling the ice tumbled through the stem and scattered across the dish.
In an instant, her hand held only a transparent, delicate rose-shaped piece of ice.
“……!”
Lauren froze as if she herself had turned to ice, still clutching the rose.
Thin and precarious, a single Northern Winter Rose left alone in the snow.
Touch it and it shatters; let the sun reach it and it melts—a desolate beauty that blooms only in a fleeting moment.
“Winter…… Rose.”
She murmured in a daze.
What lay in her palm was undeniably, unmistakably a Winter Rose.
“There’s no way I wouldn’t know what a Winter Rose is. The moment I married you, I became half Northern too.”
Debron said.
“How…… how did you make this?”
“I just…….”
“Don’t lie—tell me straight.”
“I only drew what the Winter Rose looks like. Luciel made it.”
Lauren exhaled a sigh tinged with admiration.
What extraordinary talent.
To have created this in just a single day.
Yet behind her amazement at Luciel’s gift rose the image of her husband.
She could see it clearly: thinking of the Winter Rose she loved, planning to present it as a dessert, persuading even a child who wasn’t his own—all to bring this vision to life.
“You said you wanted to hold a Winter Rose in your hand, one that breaks if you try to bend it.”
As Debron added this, Lauren’s eyes widened.
“……I wanted to place it in your hand. This way, at least.”
“……you remembered that?”
“I’m not so foolish as to forget such things. Now, try eating it.”
“Eating?”
Lauren stared blankly at the Silver Spoon he offered her.
Eating? But what?
“A meal isn’t complete without dessert, after all—or so you said.”
“But…….”
She turned to Luciel with an incredulous look.
“Please do. It’s food, after all.”
Lauren carefully plucked one transparent petal of the rose and placed it in her mouth.
Cold, and sweet.
Not merely ice, but sugar-water that had been melted and refrozen.
A smile bloomed at her lips.
Ice that tasted of sugar.
Simple, yet the very flavor she had imagined in childhood for the Winter Rose.
Lauren glanced down at the pearls scattered across the dish.
If he’d given her a spoon, surely these were meant to be eaten too?
That these jewel-like grains were food?
Looking back at Luciel, the young woman nodded in confirmation.
Hmm.
Lauren scooped a few red pearls with the spoon and put them in her mouth.
The instant they touched her tongue, cool frost filled her mouth before melting away at once.
……Ice cream?
As she recognized the food, the taste of Cloudberry bloomed across her palate.
The distinctive bitterness had vanished, leaving only a rich aroma enhanced by tartness and sweetness—a bright, sharp burst like juice, then gone.
Cloudberry ice cream.
In pearl form, extraordinarily delicious, the strangest food she had ever tasted.
She hurried to scoop the spoon again, this time gathering a heap of the green pearls and popping them into her mouth.
This was different.
Still cold, but as it melted, the flavor was far softer and more delicate.
Neither bitter nor merely sweet—a deep taste threaded through with herbal notes.
Green Tea.
A new variety of Green Tea dessert.
Once more, she combined the two kinds of pearls and filled her mouth.
The two flavors didn’t clash but melded seamlessly across her tongue.
A miraculous food.
Its taste was so fleeting, melting away inside her mouth, that its passing was almost painful.
When she came to her senses, the plate lay sadly empty.
“Ah.”
Lauren drew a deep breath.
“Was the taste…… satisfactory, Mother?”
Edwin asked in a voice tight with anticipation.
Satisfactory?
It had been transcendent.
So much so that she couldn’t even grasp what she had just experienced.
“This meal…… so you two led its creation, is that what you’re saying?”
Debron and Edwin exchanged an awkward nod.
“This…… this impossible rose was, in other words…….”
Her gaze turned toward Luciel.
“You’re truly a child who brings forth things that defy reason.”
“Well…… that’s not entirely wrong.”
Luciel gave a small shrug.
She was affecting modesty, but inwardly she too was marveling at the finished dessert.
She’d sent Debron to Melina to retrieve several rose-shaped molds used by the pastry chefs of Maestel, then spent considerable effort selecting the one most resembling the Northern rose.
How much labor it had taken to bring Bael along and use gloves from the Imperial Palace to meticulously control the temperature while crafting the Pearl Ice Cream.
“……Good.”
Lauren, who had been silent for so long, spoke again.
“What? Good?”
“You won’t leave us, then, Mother?”
“That’s right.”
Watching the boy’s exuberant reaction, she nodded.
“If they went to this much trouble, then at least they didn’t dismiss everything I said entirely out of hand.”
As she spoke, her eyes glistened slightly.
Debron and Edwin had no such composure. They were already weeping quite openly.
“But listen to me carefully.”
She spoke in a low, commanding voice.
“From now on, you’ll listen to what I say word for word. If you presume to guess what I really mean, I won’t let it slide.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“I shall remember, Mother.”
“And the letter. I know you secretly read the letter your aunt sent. If you do such a thing again, there won’t be another chance.”
“That was an accident…….”
“Be silent.”
Lauren cut him off sharply.
Beneath her voice, always so gentle, there suddenly rang an immense authority and fierce dignity.
Luciel found herself wondering if this was the bearing of the Northern people.
“I kept the letter not because I agreed with your aunt’s views, but because the back of it contained the Payton House head chef’s secret recipe for pheasant. Lenar couldn’t master it, so it became useless anyway.”
“R, really?”
“I’ll admit one thing. It was partly my fault that I couldn’t stop the elders of the Payton House from filling your head with nonsense. But that was long ago. I didn’t know you were giving their prattle more weight than my words.”
“S, senile……!”
“They were wrong. All of them.”
She spoke again, her voice cutting like steel.
“I never wanted to marry Cedric Bellaon. What I always wanted was you.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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