Episode 8 recap: Hongyie's troubles were resolved after Duan Kang confronted and criticized her.
Rong'er knelt on the ground and begged everyone to forgive her, saying she had forgotten herself, and hoped they could give her another chance. Aunt Shouxi said that opportunities must be earned, but agreed to let Rong'er continue working in the kitchen.Lu Qiutong and Liu Er discovered that after Shen Daoren's death, he had used blood to write "Huabaozhai" on the ground. They quickly reported this clue to Li Qi, who immediately told Emperor Puyi about it.
Lu Qiutong prepared to go investigate Huabaozhai, while having Liu Er guard the back door. Liugong notified Wu Tian to immediately silence the Huabaozhai employees. When Wu Tian saw Lu Qiutong nearby, he entered through the back door, taking advantage of Liu Er and Yumei's argument in the car to go unnoticed, and killed all the employees. By the time Li Qi arrived, the employees had already been killed, and though Wu Tian had not yet escaped, he and Li Qi fought, with Li Qi getting injured and allowing Wu Tian to flee.
Li Qi searched Huabaozhai's secret room and found many national treasures. The palace treasures were returned to the palace, while the other treasures were sent to the Nationalist government. Upon returning to the palace to report, Li Qi noted that the thief seemed to have learned of the incident too quickly, and Puyi suspected a palace eunuch may have leaked the information, instructing Li Qi to closely observe.
The guards recovered Rong'er's purse and gave it to Li Qi, who returned it to her. Rong'er took out a jade pendant from the purse, which Li Qi recognized as his own. Rong'er explained that a drunkard had previously harassed her, and the pendant's owner had rescued her, so she had been trying to find him to express her gratitude.
Aunt Shuangxi had someone tamper with the shrimp that Aunt Shouxi planned to use for the family banquet, causing the banquet's shrimp dishes to be made with vegetarian ingredients instead. When the guests noticed the unusual shrimp taste, they demanded Shuangxi account for this. Hearing this, Rong'er also went to confront them.
Jingyi Taifei wanted to punish Aunt Shouxi in the Chonghua Palace for the deception of using vegetarian shrimp instead of real shrimp. But Rong'er claimed the idea to use yam shrimp instead was her own, and said she should be the one punished instead.
Puyi asked why they had to use imitation shrimp instead of real shrimp. Aunt Shouxi said that in the morning they found that the real shrimp had been heavily salted by someone and all died, so they had to use imitation shrimp as a replacement, and she was willing to be punished.
Ronghui Taifei said that good shrimp should only be accessible to the palace kitchen staff, and hoped the Emperor would investigate the culprit. Jingyi Taifei suggested asking Gongong to look into it, and Ronger directly stated that to find out, they just need to check which kitchen had suddenly used a lot more salt. The Emperor instructed Li Qi and Qin Fang to investigate, and said if they found the culprit, they should be taken to the Shenjing司 immediately.
At this point, a palace maid rushed out and accused Fangming of doing it to take revenge for Shuangxi. Ronghui Taifei asked Fangming if this was really for Shuangxi's revenge or if someone was behind it. Duankang Taifei intervened and said that since it was just a lowly maid, she should be taken to the Xinzhe warehouse and Shuangxi should be caned 20 times.
The Emperor was very satisfied with the imitation shrimp and decided to have his meals prepared by Chonghua Palace going forward. Shouxi asked Ronghui Taifei to have Ronger transferred to Chonghua Palace, and the Taifei readily agreed.
When the new maids were being assigned to the different palaces, Qinger wanted to return to Chonghua Palace, but ended up being assigned to Taiijdian instead. It turned out that Shouxi had asked Gongong to have Qinger assigned to Chonghua, but Gongong said Qinger had already been claimed by Jingyi Taifei. Shouxi was told she would need to speak directly to Jingyi Taifei to get Qinger back.
Shuangxi led the new maids to see Jingyi Taifei, and Ronger kept her head down. When Jingyi Taifei told her to look up, they saw Ronger had a rash all over her face, shocking everyone. The Taifei immediately had Ronger taken away, with Ronger pleading that she did not have an epidemic and asking if she could return to Chonghua Palace instead.
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