The Culinary God of the Seventies: One Bowl of Braised Pork for a Siheyuan

I transmigrated to the 1970s and the System turned me into a chef. A spatula in my left hand, a chipped bowl in my right, and from the start, they were about to sell me off for a bride price. I fired back with a bowl of red-braised pork, filling the whole hutong with its aroma and luring over Director Wang from the neighborhood committee. He made the call: “The canteen needs a cook. You’re hired!” My awful relatives got jealous and wanted to bleed me dry? I flipped the wok, turning my wrist as the cleaver flashed. I also picked up a quiet, formidable demobilized soldier to serve as my bodyguard. His rent was one bowl of hot noodles a day. I traded sweet-and-sour pork for my first antique and used Buddha Jumps Over the Wall to get crucial information. While everyone else was still scrambling for secure jobs, I had quietly bought my first, second… and Nth courtyard house. Then one day, a group of men in black showed up and bowed ninety degrees to the soldier I’d picked up. “Mr. Zhou, the business world in the south is waiting for you to come back and take charge!” The man slowly wiped down my wok without even turning around. “I’m not going. Can’t you see I’m helping my wife in the kitchen?” Later, everyone in the city knew that anyone who wanted to ask the “Chef God,” owner of half the city’s property, for a favor had to get past the billionaire in an apron standing behind her first.