The Countryside Eatery Beside the Taoist Temple (Gourmet Food)

Mei Jiu, who once founded a creative restaurant, is reborn as a farm girl whose parents have both died. Her only asset is a bankrupt steamed-cake shop. Her aunt is demanding repayment, the landlord is demanding rent, and she has a frail little sister of three to raise. Mei Jiu is feeling the pressure.

Fortunately, the mountains provide. Wild greens and bamboo shoots cost nothing, and there’s a popular Taoist temple up on the mountain, bustling with worshippers and never short of customers. So she returns to her old trade, tidies up the shop, and starts earning money to pay off her debts by making specialty buns.

Just as business starts booming, her unscrupulous landlord deliberately raises the rent. Mei Jiu simply ends the lease, heads up the mountain, and buys land, all in one go. Next to the temple, she opens a countryside restaurant called A Few Plum Blossoms.

She diverts water, levels the land, plants vegetables, repairs the buildings, transplants trees, and digs a pond. The restaurant soon takes shape, and the menu is full of variety: wild green spring platters, sour bamboo shoot sauce, plum wine, mountain fish soup, and seasonal mushroom feasts. She partners with the temple to offer vegetarian meals for those seeking spiritual retreat, along with self-serve hot pots and custom banquets, all under one roof. And the scenery is a treat too, from spring breezes and summer cicadas to autumn rain and winter snow!

The people of the capital are astonished to discover that all the local gentry, from young masters and ladies to wealthy merchants, scholars, and military officers, have recently taken to “worshipping the gods” at Qingfeng Temple in the countryside. Every one of them returns to the city rubbing their full bellies, looking thoroughly satisfied.

Mei Jiu’s savings grow ever fatter, and at last she gets the leisurely life she dreamed of, raising children, arranging flowers, cuddling cats, and walking dogs.

Jiang Mu is the most doted-on junior member of the Duke of Jiang’s household. Because his birth date clashed with his grandfather’s, he was sent to Qingfeng Temple as a lay Taoist from a young age and given the religious name Liyan.

The food at the temple is rough, and he often eats without tasting a thing.

Until one day, he tries a bowl of vegetarian noodles made by Mei Jiu.

“Shopkeeper, could I have another bowl?”

From then on, a young Taoist who kept coming to mooch meals appeared at Mei Jiu’s mountain eatery.

One evening, the cool and distant Taoist Liyan hurried over. He wasn’t there to mooch a meal, but insisted that Mei Jiu sit with him and watch the stars.

Mei Jiu stared at him, baffled.

Then Jiang Mu handed her a contract, his face slightly flushed but his expression solemn. “Ajiu, would you accept all my worldly possessions as payment for your cooking?”

Charming proprietress x cool, wolfish young man

House rules:

Inspired by the Tang and Song dynasties, with plenty of original worldbuilding.

Food and restaurant management + a little infrastructure-building + a touch of ensemble cast. Cats and dogs, planting flowers and trees, eating, sleeping, and making money in a cozy everyday-life story.

Theme: Good food and love are both too precious to waste