The Former Court Food Bureau Lady Official Starts a New Career

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Li Huaizhu, an invisible nobody in the Imperial Food Bureau, was one step away from becoming a palace lady official serving at the emperor's side.

But one cup of pepper-and-cypress wine, dismissed as "not enough salt or vinegar, and utterly tasteless," got her kicked off the staff rolls at an age when it was hard to find another job.

Well, that was it. She was out of work.

She shed her heavy official robes and set up a little stall on the streets of Bianjing.

A food blogger in her past life and a small-business owner in this one, she could make all kinds of delights on a street corner: lotus-leaf meat buns crisp and fragrant, soft, chewy rice cakes sweet and cold, and fresh mountain greens and game so delicious they would make your eyebrows fly off. She had it all!

But her path to entrepreneurship was anything but quiet.

She helped a firewood shop out of a jam, winning over an elderly lord and gourmet with a dish of Four Happiness Meatballs, and the story spread all over Bianjing. She entered a vegetarian banquet competition at the Great Xiangguo Temple, dazzling the abbot and overseer with a single bean that spoke to Buddhist wisdom. She opened a shop selling pan-fried buns, whose juices sprayed customers in the face, yet left a queue outside every day. Even when she went head-to-head with a rival in a price war, she used an "empty city stratagem" to make them lose so much they came begging her to stop.

Li Huaizhu earned her keep with her talents, and her goal was clear: a country estate, a storefront, a seaside villa. On the road to riches, she was officially, unilaterally, tying herself to money for life!

Until one day, the young master of the Xie family was newly appointed to the Bianzhou prefectural government. As he rode down the main street, the ladies lined the road, tossing flowers and hoping to catch his eye.

It was early summer, with clear lotus leaves and chilled, round rice dumplings in icy sugar syrup.

"Take it slowly." Xie Ci wiped the corner of her mouth with a handkerchief, his fingertips carrying the fragrance of fermented rice.

He smiled softly, like a piece of white jade softened by the rain.

Li Huaizhu blushed to the tips of her ears, quite hopelessly.

...Fine. She could get rich and find a good match along the way.

Li Huaizhu: My goal is financial freedom.

Xie Lanshi: What a coincidence. My goal is you.

[Reading Guide]

1. Food and business are the focus, with cozy everyday life, a golden finger, and a slow-simmering romance.

2. The setting is modeled on the Song Dynasty, with plenty of invented details. Please don't nitpick the history.

3. This is a work in progress. Please be patient with me!

4. New chapters served on time every day. Thank you for reading.

[Please stop by and check out my upcoming novel!]

The Days of Farming Alongside a Big Shot

(The title and blurb have been changed. My apologies.)

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When Xin He woke up, she had become a farmer's wife in Peach Blossom Village, under the rule of the Great Song.

Unfortunately, there were no fertile fields or beautiful ponds to be seen, nor any peaceful, carefree life. A flood had just swallowed all the village's farmland. Her husband, whom she'd never met, was missing. She was stuck with a blind mother-in-law and a five-year-old stepson, living in a shabby relief hut provided by the local authorities. Every day she had to outsmart neighbors who came looking to take advantage, only to end up bullied all the same.

With the year-end approaching, a badly wounded man, frozen and starving, showed up on a snowy night.

At a time like this, secretly sheltering a strange man made Xin He's first thought that he was a deserter. She was weighing whether to report him or kick him out when he clamped a hand over her mouth and nose, ready to snap her neck and kill her.

Xin He gritted her teeth and struck a deal with him.

From then on, she saved his life and gave him shelter. He took the name of her late husband and protected her family.

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The man was quiet and good with his hands. Though he couldn't even remember his own name and was completely illiterate, he could handle everything from farming and home repairs to plowing, hunting, and business. Xin He thought she wouldn't mind if their charade became real.

Little by little, their lives truly began to flourish. No one dared to come looking for trouble anymore. But just then, a group of people arrived from outside, asking everywhere about a general who had gone missing during a bandit uprising.

They said the general was imposing and dashing. After fighting the bandits in a bloody battle, he had vanished without a trace, neither alive nor dead.

The man was already covered in old wounds from blades and arrows. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that the general fit him perfectly. He planned to claim the identity and earn Xin He a title of nobility, so he followed the clues to find the search party.

But as soon as he arrived, the general's military strategist spotted him from afar. His eyes widened with fury, and he drew his sword and lunged.

"You bastard! So it was you!"

A bolt of lightning struck his mind, and countless images of battle came crashing in. At last, the man remembered everything.

He wasn't a general at all. He was the chieftain of the bandits who had led them in a three-day, three-night battle against the general, the supreme boss of the Twelve Strongholds of Yandang Mountain. He and the general had fallen off a cliff together and been swept all the way to Peach Blossom Village by the flood.

When word got back, his former subordinates rushed over, tears filling their eyes. "Chief, you've finally come back!"

Yan Xiao was overwhelmed with emotion. So what if he had been a bandit? He would give Xin He everything he had saved up, and still make sure she lived in luxury.

He raced back to Peach Blossom Village through the night, imagining a warm home with his wife and children.

He opened the door. The courtyard was empty, and the stove was cold. His wife, who had sworn, "Not even when the mountains lose their peaks and heaven and earth unite," had vanished with his mother-in-law and stepson.

The neighbors sighed on his behalf. "Your wife said she'd rather be a law-abiding citizen than a bandit's wife, with her life on the line. She'd rather farm, raise chickens, and run a business in peace. She told you to go back to whatever mountain you came from..."

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Later, a restaurant proprietress surnamed Xin appeared in the capital. Her remarkable culinary skills made her famous far and wide, and everyone knew she was a legend who had clawed her way up from hardship.

When someone asked about her husband's family, she smiled and said, "He's dead. Been dead a long time."

At the tea stall across the street, a senior general of the third rank, who had been recruited into the imperial army for his service in suppressing bandits, sneezed violently.

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[Reading Guide]

1. A slow-paced, everyday story about family and making a life together.

2. Set in an alternate Great Song, with plenty of invented details. Please don't nitpick the history.

3. Thank you for reading! A deep bow!

Theme: Live well and keep striving for a better life.