A Gourmet Guide to Another World

When Shen Ye opened his eyes, the sweet, metallic stench of gas leaking on Blue Star still lingered in his throat.

The spirit vein testing stone showed no light at all. His family didn't even bother to look up. A single order of exile kicked him out to Chun Teng Town, a lawless dump at the foot of the Beast Mountains. His entire fortune was half a moldy piece of black bread and three copper coins. Someone knocked him out and stole the coins on the road back to town, and he never even saw who did it.

He lay sprawled in a pile of straw in an abandoned blacksmith's shop, his stomach cramping as his cold sweat trickled from his temples into his collar.

Then the thing rang.

The Chinese Gourmet Compendium. No dazzling golden light, no mechanical voice, just one line of text, burning into his retinas like a branding iron.

The instant the first youtiao dropped into the boiling oil, the crackle of the splattering oil sounded like thunder.

From soy milk and youtiao to the Complete Manchu-Han Banquet.

From a rusty iron pot in the ruins to the very heart of the empire's political power.

A legend of using a spatula to turn the tide of a nation burst into life in the first wisp of cooking smoke from Chun Teng Town.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.