Dai Cuisine in the 1990S [Gourmet]

[Coming Next: My Daughter Is the Villainess's Mom, and We Go Viral by Raising Kids in Reverse. Please add it to your collection.] What does it feel like to transmigrate into a vicious supporting character who forced a marriage by showing up pregnant, married into a wealthy family, then started tormenting her son out of emptiness and eventually brought about her own death? Gu Qianjing says, thanks for asking. The plot is unfolding right now, and she's finding out firsthand. One moment, Gu Qianjing was criticizing the vicious supporting character in the CEO's Tortured Romance for treating her own son so horribly. The next, Gu Qianjing had transmigrated into that very wicked mother, and the boy had already been tormented into silence by the original owner. The first thing she sees after transmigrating is a floor covered in broken vase fragments. The little boy who caused the mess stares with his big, dark eyes, huddled in a corner and trembling. Gu Qianjing takes one step toward him, and the little one squeezes his eyes shut, shaking even harder. But the pain he expects never comes. Instead, the little one is wrapped in a soft, fragrant embrace. Unexpectedly saddled with the task of being a mother, Gu Qianjing hurriedly starts studying how to raise a child. She falls asleep after reading two pages of the hefty book Making Friends with Your Child, and in the end remembers only one line: [To understand a child, first become one.] When she sees the little one playing with building blocks, Gu Qianjing picks up a box and enthusiastically sits on the floor to build with him. But she discovers that modern children's toys are grinding her intelligence into the dirt. In the end, she can only finish the blocks with her son's help. The little one hides in the attic to read storybooks. Gu Qianjing squeezes in beside him and asks pitifully, "Will you tell me a story?" The little one's face turns red to the tips of his ears. Stammering, he begins, "Once upon a time... there was a little mermaid..." Gu Qianjing suddenly realizes that the little one has finally started speaking. The old mother is so excited that tears well in her eyes. While watching a horror movie, Gu Qianjing hides behind the little one, trembling, and a pair of soft little hands covers her eyes. A cute, babyish voice rings in her ear. "If you're scared, don't watch!" The livestream chat erupts in wails: [Aaaaaah... our little darling has maximum boyfriend energy!] The Lin Group invested in a film called Consort Zhao. At the wrap party, young CEO Lin Mingqi somehow ended up in the room of an actress who had played a maid in the film. Two months later, the actress showed up pregnant and demanded marriage. To protect his family's reputation, Lin Mingqi married her. After the wedding, he rarely saw her, aside from sending her money regularly. Then Lin Mingqi received an anonymous recording listing all the ways Gu Qianjing had mistreated their child. At the same time, Lin Mingqi saw his wife and son on a variety show. The little boy, who looked just like him, was massaging his mother's shoulders. His mother, meanwhile, had a face mask on and her hair in a cute bun, reclining on the sofa as she watched cartoons. Lin Mingqi clenched his fists. On the third day after he rushed home, Lin Mingqi was personally providing massages for mother and son. Gu Qianjing, a winner in life, lounges on the deck of a luxurious cruise ship, watching the two of them bustle around to serve her. She thinks of the words in the book: [To understand a child, first become one.] Sure enough, reading changes your destiny! [Novel Blurb] In her previous life, Yu Wen was warmhearted and sweet, gentle and kind. At nineteen, she was a Dai girl who went with her mother to Zhuangmu to seek help from her uncle. Unexpectedly, her own uncle schemed to have her killed. Only after her death did she learn that others had another name for her: "parasite." Her soul spent thirty-two years training hard in the underworld, and at last she was reborn on the day before her death. When her uncle heard Yu Wen planned to open a shop selling Dai food, he nearly laughed his teeth out. "Her? That parasite who only knows how to rely on men? In less than three days, she'll come crying and begging me for help!" Yu Wen smiled faintly. "Uncle, your thinking is still so simple!" Three months later, a chicken dish called lemongrass roast chicken swept across Zhuangmu City. Lemongrass roast chicken: the fighter jet of roast chicken. Made with classic tea-mountain chicken from Fu Village, it has tender, flavorful meat with a subtle tea fragrance. A head chef with thirty-two years of experience as a ghost takes charge of the knife work, cutting quickly and precisely so not a trace of blood remains on the chicken. It's cooked using the Dai people's most traditional method, known as "wrapped roasting." The skin is crisp, the meat tender, and every bite bursts with juice. More than twenty kinds of spices bring you right back to a mysterious tropical rainforest. Best of all, lemongrass roast chicken goes head-to-head with the state-run restaurant's tea-fragrant chicken, and Yu Wen's beast of an uncle is the restaurant's general manager. The state-run restaurant is caught completely off guard and brought to the brink of closure. Her beast of an uncle pleads, "Yu Wen, spare me!" Yu Wen looks innocent. "I just don't want to be a parasite. I'm simply focused on building my own business. How is that the same as going after you?" Her uncle says, "I don't know if you've built a successful business, but you're definitely about to kill me." The Dai Flavors restaurant gradually expands. In addition to lemongrass roast chicken, it serves pineapple sticky rice, coconut-flavored sago dessert, seven-color hand-grabbed rice, grilled lemon fish, minced-meat rice noodles, and nam prik dipping sauce. Dai cuisine makes your mouth water, but the citizens of Zhuangmu City all know that Ms. Wen, the chairwoman of Dai Flavors, is not to be trifled with. She is ruthless, says little, and never forgets a slight. People all say, "What's the use of having money? No man would dare marry her!" Until the Zhuangmu City Daily publishes a bombshell. Ms. Wen once led a remote village onto the road to prosperity. Now, if she needs something done, the whole village shows up to help. She is also the founder of Zhuangmu's first care center for children with autism, and has helped heal many families on the verge of falling apart. And the most important thing... At a gathering of Zhuangmu City's powerful figures, the other women are all introduced by their husbands' surnames. "Mrs. Li." "The chairman's wife, Mrs. Xiang." Then it's Yu Wen's table... "This gentleman is Ms. Wen's husband, and the youngest police chief this city has ever had." Su Jian: "...I'm the one who married her." Ms. Wen: "My follower!" Theme: Dai cuisine deserves recognition in the world of food