Reborn in the 1980s: I Dumped the Phoenix with Intangible Heritage Cuisine

In her previous life, Jiang Wan was heir to a family renowned for Jiangnan's intangible cultural heritage cuisine. Her superb cooking skills made her a three-Michelin-star chef, but her husband Li Zhiqiang, a fortune-hunting pretty boy, drained her of the family's secret recipes and made off with their assets. She ultimately died a miserable death in a corner of a cold courtyard.

When she opened her eyes, she had been reborn in 1980, the night before the Li family came to demand that she marry into their family and hand over her ancestral recipes!

This time, Jiang Wan's eyes held nothing but icy resolve. “You want to scheme for my family's legacy? Not a chance!”

Armed with the complete culinary heritage in her mind, she set up a food stall in town. One plate of osmanthus-scented lotus root threads earned her ten yuan a day, a fortune in the 1980s, and soon made her famous throughout the neighborhood.

She seized the opportunities brought by reform and opening up, opened a workshop, and introduced standardized production. Her Drunken Chicken and Jinling Salted Duck made their way to the county seat and the city, bringing in a thousand yuan a month, as much as a “ten-thousand-yuan household.”

When Li Zhiqiang teamed up with a state-run restaurant to suppress her, she fought back with the law. To pass on intangible cultural heritage techniques, she campaigned to have them recognized, opened classes, and built a museum, becoming the “queen of heritage cuisine” courted by television stations.

She also unexpectedly met Su Yanci, a scholar of culture. Together, they turned the flavors of Jiangnan into a chain brand and even competed on the international culinary stage, winning over judges around the world with China's intangible culinary heritage!

From a rural girl manipulated by a controlling partner to an entrepreneur who created hundreds of jobs and helped revitalize the countryside, Jiang Wan not only rewrote her own life but also brought her ancestors' food culture to the world.

And Li Zhiqiang, the fortune-hunting pretty boy who once schemed against her? He could only falter with every turn of the tide, watching Jiang Wan's success and bitterly regretting it. Too bad he wasn't even worthy of looking up to her!