Xu Jianguo transmigrates into Love in the Courtyard and becomes an overlooked nobody who dies young. From the start, Xu Damao smashes his family's broken incense burner, while the whole courtyard watches and mocks him for indulging in feudal superstition.
No one knows that the burner contains the last of the Kitchen God's divine power from the previous dynasty. Blood serves as the catalyst, and the deity awakens.
From that day on, the courtyard's whole vibe changes. Silly Zhu's fists can't break the barrier around a bowl of leftover porridge. Qin Huairu's tears can no longer get her a single grain of rice from the Xu family. The Second Uncle trembles at the whispers from the stove in the dead of night.
Xu Jianguo quietly resumes the old traditions: making offerings to the stove, keeping watch at night, and honoring the six household deities. The whole courtyard laughs at him for being crazy, unaware that the Seventy-Two Earthly Fiends Stovefire Formation has quietly enveloped the compound, and the karmic flames of the Red Lotus burn only those with guilty consciences.
That is, until the thousand-year-old dragon vein beneath the Imperial Capital begins to tremble, and the demons and spirits hidden among the common folk emerge en masse to seize its spiritual energy.
That night, in the courtyard's open square, Xu Jianguo uses the cooking smoke of countless homes as fuel to kindle a stove fire reaching to the heavens, illuminating half of the city of Beijing.
“I am the Kitchen God of this age. I govern the warmth and cold of every household and the rise and fall of every courtyard. Tonight, I will burn away every injustice under heaven.”
The stove fire blazes into the sky, and the divine throne is reforged. But Xu Jianguo's journey has only just begun. Beyond the stove fire lies the path to heaven. The lights of ten thousand homes can illuminate the Great Firmament.
