The Shu family favored boys over girls. They had seven daughters, each one thin and sallow from hunger, and still wanted to keep trying for a son. But Shu's mother couldn't get pregnant again. In despair, Shu's father poured all his love and all the family's good food into his brother's son. At least then, when he died, there'd be a boy to smash the bowl at his funeral.
Shu Mi awoke in another world and saw her mother and sisters, their marriages unhappy and their lives full of suffering. Furious, she...
Smack!
She fiercely slapped her own thigh, made the thickest (and most shapely) by the food System. "Don't be afraid, sisters. Stick close to me!"
*
With the food System's golden finger, Shu Mi and her sisters soon saved enough money from running a street-food stall to open a restaurant.
Cooking seafood, roasting crispy-skinned duck, braising pig ears, stewing cabbage with glass noodles, tossing chicken with numbing chili sauce: these might all be traditional dishes, but their aromas carried three hundred meters on the wind. They soon won a loyal following of devoted foodies.
The restaurant went from a forgotten corner to a bustling commercial street in no time. Her sisters dumped their awful ex-husbands, who regretted everything too late, and together they brought their mother to the city. The women built happy lives for themselves, and their restaurant expanded across the country.
As for their deadbeat father, who wept, knelt outside, and kept repenting, swearing he'd never favor boys over girls again, he could go back to doting on his nephew. He wasn't welcome!
*
Yan Haicheng adopted the son and daughter of a fallen comrade. He raised the two kids hands-off, and they spent their days taking money to eat at Shu Mi's restaurant. In time, they wanted Shu Mi to become their godmother.
As for a godfather, who was that? Never heard of him.
Yan Haicheng: "I want to see just how good her cooking is!"
After going once, he couldn't help coming back every day.
Before long, everyone in their circle was saying that Yan Haicheng had fallen for the restaurant's gorgeous, fiery-tempered owner, a master chef.
Shu Mi was utterly exasperated. "No, no, no. He just loves the food I cook."
Theme: Peace, friendship, and growing together
