Chapter 202 Case File 3: The Mysterious Dinner Party at Rose Villa (6)
Although preparing a meal for a vegetarian who can eat fish, shrimp, and eggs was a bit tedious, Takumi had been warned by Yadra when he submitted the menu, so Yadra had prepared the alternative ingredients. With a plan in hand, Takumi wasn't panicking at all.
The guests' lunch has been served and they have also visited the sea of roses. Andre, Winston and others are going to start investigating the past of the princess of Rose Villa. Jiang You thought about it and decided that instead of sitting around doing nothing, it would be better to start preparing for the evening dinner early.
Biscuits and puff pastry dough need to be made in advance, and soups and braised goods can also be cooked in advance... The Crucible of Time is indeed a cheating artifact, but wouldn't it be more cost-effective to save some magical energy?
Witch fingers and chocolate spider cookies require low-gluten flour. French puff pastry, because it requires multiple folding, is best made with all-purpose flour, which allows the dough to stretch without being too tough. The "golden threads" in golden shrimp rolls and sausage rolls are actually thin fried noodles, and they also require all-purpose flour...
Jiang You first planned everything in his mind, then divided the table into several areas, placed the necessary ingredients, and muttered to himself: "Make cookies here, make puff pastry here, and, um, make noodles here..."
Flour is scooped out according to the amount and piled up into small hills on the clean and disinfected table. Jiangyou presses a crater-shaped depression in the middle of the hilltop, cracks an egg into it, and then pours in water, thus forming a "flour crater lake".
——This was Jiangyou’s favorite game when she was a child. As she kneaded the flour and made her hands sticky, it seemed as if all the pressure, pain and worries disappeared, and she was Nuwa, the creator of human beings. The flour in her hands was her mountains, lakes, land and creations... even if those tiny flour creations were as indistinguishable as mud.
She kneaded the dough happily, yet she also managed to keep a brief eye on Andrei. The three of them had been questioning the maid, Leila, for quite a while, but Leila's face remained frozen, as cold as porcelain, and her voice, in a voiceless voice, repeatedly said, "Sorry, you don't have the permission to access this information."
"I'm sorry, Leila, I don't understand your question."
"I'm sorry, Leila, I can't answer your question."
Takumi: "..." I feel like this doll's AI is just like a giant idiot... Huh? Wait, is there already AI technology in this era?
"Oh! Can this puppet answer our questions properly!" Winston stroked his hair in frustration.
"It really doesn't work..." Vivian sighed. "Well, if it was so easy to ask, Madame Butterfly wouldn't have to go through so much trouble."
"How about we check the study upstairs?" André suggested. "Didn't Madame Butterfly say that all the documents, records, and furnishings here are consistent with when the princess lived here? So the villa must contain the princess's legal documents, such as her birth certificate, family tree, and coat of arms..."
"Let's go!" Winston made a prompt decision, obviously not wanting to waste any more time with the puppet.
Winston and Vivian were the first to leave the kitchen. Andrei stopped at the door and looked back at Jiangyou. "Little Bone, are you okay here alone?"
"No problem~!" Jiang You made an OK sign with his flour-covered bone claws - he didn't know whether Andrei understood it or not: "Anyway, Leila is here~ Remember to tell me if you find anything interesting~"
"I will investigate as soon as possible and come to help you when I'm done." Andre left a word and rushed out of the kitchen, quickly catching up with his brother and future sister-in-law.
The noisy kitchen suddenly became quiet, leaving only the sound of Jiangyou kneading the dough.
"Hmm... this is a bit boring," Takumi muttered. "There aren't any audiobooks to listen to while cooking these days... Hey, Leila, can you tell a story?"
"Yes." This time, Leila answered decisively.
"Then can you tell me a story while you wash the dishes?"
"As you wish." Leila walked back to the sink and began to wash the dishes. "I'll tell you the young master's favorite stories: 'The Fairy in the Mirror,' 'The Glass Slipper,' and 'The Cat That Returns Gratitude.' Which one do you want to hear?"
"Okay, okay, you can talk about anything... huh?" Jiang You tilted his head, sensing something was amiss. "Young Master? Isn't your master the princess hidden in this villa by King Delman?"
"You're talking about my previous master, Princess Deresi Delman," Leila said. "After my previous master gave birth to the young master, she gave me to him."
Jiang You's eyes flickered. "Hey, Leila, I'm particularly interested in the story of Princess Deresi and the young master. Can you tell me about it?"
Leila was silent for a long moment. Just when Jiangyou thought his attempt had failed and the doll would not speak again, she spoke slowly, as if finishing a long data stream: "It has been detected that the above request does not involve confidential data... OK."
"...Then, shall we start from the beginning?"
"Okay." Leila nodded. "Princess Drecy Derman was born forty-nine years ago, on the night of the nineteenth day of Midsummer in the year 939 of the Tower Calendar. She is the daughter of King Rudolf Derman and Queen Isabella Derman, and the twin sister of Crown Prince Frederick.
"Because the German royal family has a special taboo against twins, even though she was a princess, she was never crowned a princess by the king, nor did she receive a fiefdom. She was only given this Rose Hill by Queen Isabella herself. It was then that I was purchased by the royal family and assigned to the princess..."
As Jiangyou kneaded the dough, shaping each dough ball into long strips resembling a witch's fingers, he listened to Leila's story of the princess who, because of an inexplicable superstition about twins, was confined to Rose Hill. If the princess was a beauty like a nightingale, then Rose Hill was her prison.
Princess Drezieldröhlen inherited the good looks of the Drezieldröhlen royal family. With dazzling golden hair, sapphire eyes, and skin as white as snow, she bore an 80% resemblance to Crown Prince Frederick. However, it was precisely this 80% resemblance that terrified the superstitious King, who feared that Drezieldröhlen had stolen the Crown Prince's soul and that the twins were influenced by each other, like twin butterflies.
In the eyes of the king, once Therese unfortunately passed away, half of Crown Prince Frederick's soul would be dead. He didn't know whether the other half of the soul would go to hell, the realm of gods... or it would haunt the still-living Crown Prince, like an evil spirit or a thorn in his flesh that would not go away for a long time until it dragged the other half of the Crown Prince's soul into death.
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