Su Zhiwei inherited her family's traditional food-as-medicine skills. Her theoretical expertise was second to none, but her practical attempts always turned into spectacular disasters.
Her poria and eight-treasure cake was hard enough to use as a brick, her lotus seed soup was a chaotic clash of sweet and salty, and her osmanthus wine was sour enough to clean a table and get rid of mold.
Prince Jing'an Xiao Jingyuan, long plagued by palpitations, insomnia, and chronic illness, showed up with a copy of the Capital's Food Guide to Avoiding Disasters, ready to test the place out. He'd planned to put Zhiwei's Eatery on his annual blacklist.
Who could have guessed that these dreadful-looking medicinal dishes would work remarkably well?
From then on, the sharp-tongued prince came by every day.
His little booklet filled up with notes about her culinary disasters. He complained nonstop, but secretly protected her at every turn.
He took on unscrupulous merchants, kept nasty neighbors at bay, and brought her a steady supply of rare medicinal ingredients, protecting the tiny Zhiwei's Eatery so thoroughly that not even a drop could get through.
Su Zhiwei honed her skills through one disaster after another, transforming her dark medicinal cooking into dishes that astonished the entire city.
The stove's fire burned bright, and the aroma of medicinal herbs drifted through the air. Her medicinal food soothed the prince's long-standing illness, while the warmth of everyday life simmered into a love that went both ways.
Before long, her medicinal food gift boxes became famous throughout the capital and were even shipped across mountains and seas to foreign lands. The warmth of one little eatery bound them together for a lifetime of love.
