When a three-Michelin-star chef transmigrates into the body of an impoverished scholar, he decides to turn the entire Song dynasty upside down with a single wok.
Chen Yan wakes to find himself a down-on-his-luck scholar in the Song-era city of Suzhou.
Hoping to make a living with his cooking, he opens a small restaurant called the Silent Pavilion. Three strange rules soon make it famous throughout Jiangnan:
Only ten tables are served each day, the chef chooses the dishes, and diners must sit in silence after their meal.
From “Snow-Coated Jade” to “All Under Heaven United,” he uses modern cooking techniques to leave imperial chefs speechless, make the prefect tremble, and move a mysterious “Master Zhao” to write a single character after dining: “Excellent.”
It is only when the stone-faced governor of Jiangnan comes to call that Chen Yan learns the truth:
That “Master Zhao” is none other than the emperor himself.
And the gentle woman keeping the accounts by his side is the governor’s only daughter, who disappeared three years ago.
Food is both a weapon and a game of strategy.
An imperial cooking contest, a storm at the Ever-Normal Granary dining hall, a poisoned-food plot spreading across three prefectures…
From a little Suzhou restaurant to the Jiangnan Culinary Academy, from a cook’s son to a favorite at the imperial court,
every spoonful and every flavor Chen Yan creates affects factional struggles at court, supplies on the frontier, and even the balance of the emperor’s heart.
“Governing a country is like cooking a delicate fish: the key is harmony.”
He enters public life through his cooking and reaches people’s hearts through food,
protecting the essence of every dish and keeping the light of his kitchen burning amid the flames of power and the arrows in the dark.
