Shen Mianrou was born into an official family. The Shen clan was wiped out after Zhou Kui framed them for colluding with the enemy and betraying the country, leaving her an enslaved convict in the Music Bureau. Hidden away, she carries half of a jade token her grandfather left behind, a keepsake from the imperial kitchens. In the cold, damp woodshed, she learns that Zhou Kui plans to buy her as a concubine. Facing humiliation at the hands of her enemy and having nowhere to turn, she loses all hope and decides to cut her throat with a shard of porcelain. Just as she is about to do it, an unfamiliar voice suddenly rings in her mind, telling her that she meets the activation condition of being at death’s door. The Heavenly Chef System has successfully bound itself to her, and her ancestral jade token has unlocked access to the initial inheritance. Clutching the porcelain shard, she freezes in place, stunned.
