[A trope-defying reborn historical romance · Slow-paced everyday life · No inner-court rivalry, power struggles, or terrible relatives]
Lin Sui, a food-service planner, worked herself to death on a project. When she opened her eyes, she had become a swaddled infant in the Lin family of Ye County, Dengzhou Prefecture, in the Great Yong dynasty. Clutching half a piece of stove candy her eldest brother had slipped her, and waiting for her father to come home with Eight-Treasure Cake, she made up her mind: in this life, she wouldn't seek power or riches. She would simply keep her whole family safe and live peacefully.
Her father was kindhearted and an excellent cook. He slowly turned a little eatery with just two tables into Dengzhou's famous Sui Xiang Ju, and treated her mother with warmth and gentleness all his life. Her mother was the only daughter of a bookstore owner, whose embroidery was good enough to catch the prefect's wife's eye. She managed the household well and raised all four children to be sturdy and healthy. Her eldest brother was steady and good with numbers. He took over the restaurant and married a kind older sister from a cloth shop; they lived happily together. Her second brother was lively and resourceful. He traveled all along the coast to secure a steady supply of seafood, then married a forthright fisherman's daughter who kept the purchasing in perfect order. Her adorable younger sister was born to make a living from embroidery. She opened the county's largest embroidery shop, married a gentle scholar, and enjoyed a smooth life.
And then there was the little Shen Yan next door, who was always peeking at her over the wall. Poor and taciturn, he was a slow learner. He passed the children's exam at sixteen, then only scraped through the licentiate exam at thirty-two, on his fifth try. Knowing he wasn't cut out for the imperial examinations, he became a clerk at the county yamen and earned a steady salary. He never took a concubine or a secondary wife. After saving for ten years, he bought her a small three-courtyard home, and even in old age, he peeled roasted sweet potatoes for her and warmed her date tea.
There are no melodramatic household feuds, awful relatives, or power struggles at court. Just the ordinary little troubles of life: competitors undercutting prices, distant relatives borrowing money, and drowning one's sorrows after failing an exam. Life rolls gently like the waves along the coast of Ye County, from a swaddled infant to a home surrounded by children and grandchildren, from two little tables to eight branch shops, from childhood playmates to gray hair
