My Whole Family Ran Out of Food from the Start, So I Fed the Entire Village with a Single Pot

[Transmigration and farming | food and business | family life | heartwarming everyday healing | mutual devotion]

Su He woke up because she was starving.

Her sick mother was bedridden, her younger siblings had run out of food, and only two handfuls of broken rice remained in the jar. If she couldn't come up with three hundred copper coins within seven days, their half-acre of land would be taken away.

Having gone from a modern food product developer to an indebted farmer's daughter, Su He looked at the cold stove, then at the wild greens in the corner. She rolled up her sleeves. First, she'd get this family fed.

A handful of shepherd's purse became crisp, fragrant pancakes. A jar of pickled bamboo shoots won over the dockside diners. Then she made plain tofu so delicious that it went better with rice than meat. Others looked down on her humble ingredients, but a long line gradually formed in front of her little stall.

From a market stall to a county-town restaurant, from a patch of wasteland to a village sauce workshop, every coin she saved carried the scent of firewood and hot meals.

But as business improved, trouble followed. An old-established shop cut off her supplies, the merchants' guild forced down her prices, and fake sauce bearing the Heji sign appeared on the streets.

Su He protected her own cooking pot and began to fight for a way forward for the small traders whom the big merchant houses had squeezed into a corner.

As for the taciturn retired soldier living next door...

At first, he repaired her bamboo baskets and built a stove rack; later, he accompanied her on business trips and weathered storms by her side. When she seriously asked him what he wanted for their married life, he laid their account books side by side.

"Your shop stays yours, and I won't give up my own path. We'll walk through the days ahead together."

At first, Su He only wanted to feed her family.

Now, she wants to make the pot bigger, so all the villagers working alongside her can have a secure livelihood too.