Food Influencer Check-In App

A serving of grilled fish costs 108 yuan, a bowl of beef noodles costs 23, a boxed meal costs 20, and delivery for hot and sour noodles is 30% more expensive...

He Aichi is so broke she can barely afford to eat.

She wishes meals were free,

preferably with a little money thrown in too.

Then a strange food-influencer check-in app appeared on her phone.

[Food Mission: Visit any restaurant and try its food, then write a review. Rewards: meal reimbursement + one prize draw. Users who visit after reading your review can also earn you influence income based on how much they spend!]

He Aichi: Uh, what does that mean?

I can eat for free and make money too?

This is actually a thing?

Well, in that case, she’ll just have to go around eating everything in sight!

*

He Aichi discovers that the more followers she has on social media, and the more buzz her food posts generate, the more money she earns.

He Aichi: Got it. I’m off to find everyone something delicious!

And so

She goes to Guangxi to try glutinous rice stuffed with bean paste, countless kinds of rice noodles, little barbecued skewers glazed with perilla honey sauce, and braised fish with sour taro shoots that even her Didi driver swears by...

In Guangdong, she tries chicken roasted over lychee wood, with crisp skin and tender meat; three-flavor fish cooked in a bamboo tray, with no bones to spit out; clay-pot rice braised with partridge; pork trotters stewed in ginger vinegar; and shrimp roe paste that takes an absurd amount of work to prepare...

In Guizhou, she samples icy rice pudding made from finely pounded glutinous rice, wild-vegetable and bean hot pot that’s incredible over rice, iron-skewer beef bursting with sauce, and live-oil griddle barbecue cooked on a huge clay pot!

She travels, eats, and turns all kinds of delicious food into posts and videos to share across the internet.

The once-forgotten influencer restaurants she recommends are soon surrounded by lines again;

The stinky tofu vendor gets chased all over town by both city inspectors and customers;

The tables in front of the braised barbecue shop are packed with diners;

And the glutinous rice snack shop is suddenly full of foodies who’ve traveled from other cities just to try it.

At first, the restaurant owners think she’s just an ordinary customer who likes taking a few photos while she eats.

Later, they realize she’s a veritable money magnet in the industry. Big restaurants and tiny street stalls alike are in for a windfall if their food is good enough and she happens to stop by!

After gaining another wave of followers, He Aichi covers her mouth and giggles as she watches the income figures in her account keep climbing.

Thanks for the support! You’re welcome! All right, all right, congratulations on getting rich! You’re getting rich too!

What should she eat for everyone tomorrow?

This is the story of a woman gradually becoming a food-review expert.

[The Guangdong arc is complete]

[The Guangxi arc is complete]

[The lobster arc is complete]

[The Guizhou arc is complete]

[The Hunan arc is complete]

[The Yunnan arc is complete]

[Food from other regions will appear randomly in the extras]

A note for readers

I started writing this rather spontaneously. I hadn’t planned on writing this kind of story before.

A lot has happened in recent years, and many restaurants I used to love have been unable to make it through, for one reason or another.

Sometimes I wonder: if I could share all the delicious food and little restaurants I love with everyone, the way the heroine does, would they have been able to stay open?

So I suddenly wanted to write a novel to record the food places I love, whether they’re still around or already gone.

Everyone has different tastes and preferences when it comes to food. I can only write from my own perspective. There may be things the heroine loves that other people don’t, and things she dislikes that other people enjoy.

*Ducks behind a pot lid and runs off.*

Theme: Make sure you eat well, even when you’re on your own