Hidden genius: Black belly snake

With the arrival of the elven princes, the feast officially began.

Nimble palace aide elves dressed in pretty elegant attire buzzed around serving delicacies to the various tables.

A heavenly aroma wafted out making Tang Yue visibly drool. This was her first time experiencing something like this.

The elves lived like royalty while the snakes barely got by with their less than adequate resources.

That too, her step-mother would keel over before a slice of medium-grade meat ever touched her mouth, a cripple's mouth.

But now, in front of her, lay platters and platters of tantalizing glistening cubes and skewers of low-grade, medium-grade, and even high-grade meat.

Golden Boa, Twin-headed Monkey, Spiny Gargantuan, and some meat she didn't even recognize, Tang Yue's eyes glistened.

She happily forgot her annoying pest problems and focused on amassing the maximum possible high-grade meat, both into her stomach and into her storage space pearl.

A woman always considers saving for the future!

Compared to the other convoluted methods to increase her strength, eating seemed to be a much simpler and straight forward method.

As Tang Yue gulped down the meat cubes on her plate, her mind couldn't help but wander to the troublesome lucky wheel.

She still hadn't decided what to do with that special gift. It was too valuable to not risk spinning that wheel of madness and misery.

The pondering snake woman nervously emptied the plate, while a serving elf quickly glided over and refilled her plate.

But there was an odd look on that elf's face. Why did it feel like he visited this section more often than the others? Hmm...

Ultimately, the elf shrugged and pushed that disturbing thought aside.

After all, everyone present at the feast were highly prominent people and their main agenda for today was probably not the high-quality food served.

The feast was mainly to gather all the big shots and establish friendly social interactions and beneficial trade agreements.

Two clans were less likely to wage war against each other if one depended on the other for such benefial trades and prosperity.

The palace aide elf served some more delicacies to Tang Yue's side of the table and went back into the kitchen to grab some more.

But then something completely unexpected and weird happened... The elf was brashly pulled aside and shoved into a corner.

"What is happening?" The poor elf trembled. The Queen Consort Charlotte's palace aide was standing in front of him with a threatening look on her face.

"You... Make sure you add this tonic and serve the platter of food to the royal consort Tang Yue. Do you know who she is?"

Her thundering voice frightened the poor elf. He hurriedly accepted the small but deadly bottle of tonic and nodded. "Yes, madam. The snake beast consort of Crown prince."

"Mmmm... You are correct. Just serve her the entire platter with the tonic and make sure she finishes it all."

The Queen Consort's palace aide quickly left the corner after handing out her instructions, leaving behind the poor bewildered elf.

The poor guy might be a palace aide but he was not a fool. This was a very clear case of food poisoning.

But he didn't dare defy the Queen Consort Charlotte's orders. Everyone was well aware of how vindictive and vile the woman was.

"How the hell am I supposed to make sure that she finishes everything? What if someone else eats the poisoned food by mistake??"

Though he had several concerns, his only real option was to blindly follow the orders. It was not his place to question the Queen Consort's authority.

As the poor elf returned back to the kitchen, cursing his sorry fate that made him get entangled into something so sticky, he was suddenly pulled aside again!!!

WHAT THE HELL!!!!!

And weirdly enough, this time as well, someone handed him a bottle of tonic in the name of a royal consort and asked that the tonic be added to the food and delivered to Tang Yue.

"Ah..." The elf silently nodded and accepted this tonic as well. He was already adding one bottle, he might as well add a few more.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

What he didn't understand was why all the consorts were targeting this one consort specifically?? It just didn't make sense.

"Well, I simply have to follow my instructions." The elf shrugged and hurried back to the kitchen before someone else got to him, and busily took care of his special side quests.

He looked at the slightly chubby pale blue-skinned beast consort, who seemed to be happily indulging herself, and sighed in pity.

He then delivered the special platter to the snake consort and continued his serving duty as if nothing had happened.

And Tang Yue as well happily gulped down half of the newly arrived dishes one after the other, saving the other half in her space pearl.

When suddenly... a series of unexpected but familiar notifications popped up.