In Republican-era Beiping, tucked deep in Brocade Lane, stood an old pastry shop called Jinweizhai.
The proprietress, Madam Hu, was in her thirties, fair-skinned, with narrow eyes that always seemed to smile. Her pastries tasted bland, yet everyone who ate them would weep.
Jinnian, a ten-year-old orphan, was taken in by the fox-spirit proprietress. She had a special gift: she could taste the “emotions” in food. The mung bean cakes held heartache, the honey-glazed pastries concealed jealousy, and the osmanthus wine carried the weight of someone who had been dead for centuries.
The thousand-year-old fox spirit cultivated the Dao by tasting emotions. Once she had savored every flavor, she would attain enlightenment. The price was that she must never fall in love. The moment her heart stirred, a thousand years of cultivation would vanish.
But Jinnian found it harder and harder to tell: did the way Madam Hu looked at that man’s wine jar count as “falling in love”?
