Asking for Warmth from the Smoke

In the coldest season, she used the warmest fireworks to feed a family and warm a heart. In Qinghe County of Daning Dynasty, Shen Qinghe, a scholar's daughter, faced a cruel choice after her father passed away due to illness and her family fell behind. Should she starve to death with "respect" or should she put down her body and survive? She chose the latter. With the cooking skills taught by her grandmother, 18-year-old Qing He started out under an old locust tree at the pier. Scallion pancakes costing two cents each, porridge cooked until midnight, five-color steamed dumplings at the Qingming Festival... Her skills improved through trial and error, from street stalls to "Shen's Food Shop", from county towns to prefectures, and finally established a foothold in the capital. But the road is full of thorns: harassment from gangsters, suppression from peers, social prejudice, family resistance, and the young police officer Zhou Yan who always appears when she needs her most - he appreciates her tenacity, but is also trapped in worldly perspectives. This is not a gold-fingered story. There is no modern knowledge of travelers here, no recipes provided by the system, and no magical ingredients in space. Some are just the simplest wisdom of an ancient woman: take every grain of rice and every fire seriously, and use your hands to create a world between the stoves. From scallion pancakes to restoring lost ancient dishes, from feeding a family to opening a cooking school, Qinghe spent fifteen years. She proved that: the most solid dignity is hidden in the smoke of firewood, rice, oil and salt; the warmth of a porridge and a meal can heat up the coldest world. This is a story about "how to live decently". It is also a warm epic dedicated to all those who live seriously.