A Record of Seasonal Meals

[Completed]

The day Ye Zhiwei returns to her old neighborhood for her grandmother's funeral, there's a bowl of fish soup on the altar.

The fish has been frozen, the ginger added too late, and there's far too much salt. Worst of all, the soup has a faint hint of almond.

And her grandmother was allergic to almonds.

Everyone says the old woman simply wanted a taste of home cooking before she died. Only Ye Zhiwei knows something is wrong with the soup.

Her grandmother was once the head chef at the Four Seasons Restaurant in the old neighborhood. Twenty years ago, an old banquet went wrong, a guest was poisoned, the restaurant shut down, and her grandmother bore the blame for the rest of her life. After her death, all she left behind was an old cookbook called The Ledger of Dishes.

Spring's qingtuan dumplings conceal a stolen recipe; summer-night sour plum soup awaits a long-overdue apology; autumn crab-paste pastries have erased the names of two women; winter lamb soup holds vigil for a reunion that never came.

Ye Zhiwei thought she'd inherited a run-down restaurant. Only later did she understand that her grandmother had left behind the testimony of an entire neighborhood.

People lie, but flavors don't.

She will light the stove and reopen the restaurant, bringing every debt, silence, and truth hidden in the food to the table, one by one.

Theme: Using the food of the four seasons as its thread, this story explores the hidden wounds of ordinary people and truths that come too late. Food is not merely sustenance; it carries memories, emotions, and human connection. As the protagonist reopens the old restaurant and investigates her grandmother's case, she learns to distinguish right from wrong, preserve her craft, and clear the names of those buried beneath silence. May every carefully prepared dish reflect the human heart and bring a warm new answer to regrets of the past.