Raising a Child, Starting in Kindergarten [Gourmet]

My other novel, The Sickly Chief Secretary's Bride Who Brings Him Good Fortune (Gourmet), is now updating. Please add it to your library!

★ [Gourmet + Raising Kids + Running a Business + Cozy Daily Life] Bonus chapters coming soon

1,

Shi Chunxiao was transmigrated into an old-fashioned novel as the villain's paternal aunt.

The villain's family was dirt-poor. When Shi Chunxiao arrived, the first thing she saw upon opening her eyes was the four-year-old little villain huddled in a corner, dressed in rags.

Her face was scrunched up, her hair was a mess, and there was a wound at the corner of her mouth. The moment she saw Shi Chunxiao wake up, she fearfully stuffed the steamed bun in her hand into her mouth, choking on it and coughing nonstop.

Poor little thing!

But Shi Chunxiao quickly remembered that she was the one who had caused that injury. She had refused to feed the child, and had even sold the little villain off. Later, when the villain grew up into a domineering CEO, he had sent her to a mental hospital.

What a disastrous start!

Shi Chunxiao went into the kitchen and used the few ingredients she had to make a bowl of noodles. She fried a golden, sunny-side-up egg and laid it on top, then sat the little villain down at the table and threatened to kick her out if she didn't eat right away.

At last, the little villain timidly picked up her chopsticks. After one bite, she inhaled the rest of the food like a whirlwind.

2,

The rice jar was nearly empty, her bank account was even emptier than her face, and the little villain was crying for food. She was old enough to be in school, but was stuck at home suffering instead.

Luckily, the neighborhood kindergarten was hiring a cook. The job came with a steady income, and employees' family members got half off tuition.

Shi Chunxiao put her cooking skills to work, and together with the little one, set out to make a better life for themselves.

A new cook arrived at the kindergarten.

At first, the parents were worried when they saw the delicate young woman:

Could someone so young really cook good food?

Would she know what children needed to eat to grow big and strong?

Would she remember which kids had dietary restrictions?

Later, everyone couldn't stop praising the young woman behind the serving counter:

Being young is great. Her hand never trembles when she serves, and the portions are generous enough to make the cafeteria owner cry.

She makes everything delicious and beautiful, with so much variety that the kids cry every day because they want to go to school.

Wait, why can't a thirty-year-old be a baby? I want to eat at the kindergarten cafeteria too!

3,

Before Shi Chunxiao arrived, the little villain went hungry and cold every day.

She looked forward to growing up so she could get rid of her wicked aunt. This world was awful, so she wanted to destroy it all.

Later, she became the kindergarten's little ringleader. She learned to spread her wings like her aunt and protect all the weaker children from being bullied.

She also drove away every man who tried to get close to her aunt. She just wanted to stay little forever, lying in her aunt's arms and letting her aunt spoil her for the rest of her life and cook delicious food for her.

P.S. 1. The recipes in this story come from the internet and from friends and family. I hope you enjoy the food!

2. The male lead appears very, very late. This story focuses on the female lead cooking Gourmet food, raising a child, building a career, and living well. Come along for a relaxing journey!

Upcoming novel 1: The Gourmet System, but I'm a Master of Traditional Chinese Medicine [The Nineties]. Please add it to your library! Gourmet + traditional Chinese medicine + a career-focused period piece. Synopsis:

After her older brother and sister-in-law died, all that was left to Fang Buling, a young woman in a small town, was a dilapidated little clinic, a bedridden mother, and a hungry baby.

The good news: She got a System!

The bad news: She was bound to a Gourmet System.

Still an apprentice, Fang Buling looked at the patient before her, and a prompt appeared in her mind:

[Knife Skills Tip: The joint is dislocated. You can cut here to quickly separate the ingredients.]

Without batting an eye, Fang Buling calmly said, "You've dislocated it. Look, there's a plane!"

While the patient looked up at the sky, she used the ingredient-preparation technique she'd learned to put the joint back in place.

Patient: "Huh, it's better! And that old problem where my legs sometimes crack when I walk is gone too."

Inspection, listening and smelling, inquiry, and palpation: the four diagnostic methods of traditional Chinese medicine. Fang Buling looked at the person in front of her. "Let me see your tongue."

The System prompted: [Ingredient Freshness: This tongue has a white coating, with fine, dense granules on its surface and significant dampness. When cooking, add ginger and onion to dispel dampness. Not suitable for long-term use...]

Fang Buling automatically ignored the cooking advice that followed. "Your spleen deficiency has caused internal phlegm-dampness. I'll prescribe you a Liu Jun Zi Decoction. Just take it as directed."

After taking a few doses, the patient worked in the fields with boundless energy and could easily eat three big bowls of rice at every meal.

A child wouldn't stop coughing and thought every medicine tasted bitter. But when given medicine prescribed by Fang Buling, the child beamed and said, "Mom, it's sweet!"

Fang Buling smiled. She had to thank the Gourmet System for its prompt while she was preparing the medicine: [The current amount of honey will make the food taste pleasantly sweet. The optimal heat has been adjusted for the Host. Cooking is complete, with a delicious flavor added.]

Before long, the name of the little miracle doctor Fang Buling had spread throughout the town.

At first, everyone said, "She's bragging, right? She's just a young girl. Traditional Chinese medicine is better in the hands of the old!"

Later, they asked, "Is Miracle Doctor Fang seeing patients today?"

The answer: "Don't ask, just hurry over! The country's most famous old doctor is there, asking Miracle Doctor Fang to treat his chronic illness!"

Upcoming novel 2: Quit My Job and Return to the Countryside for a Rural Life. A cozy, lighthearted Gourmet story in the same vein.

The dream scenario everyone fantasized about came true for overworked office worker Song Wenmiao. She had kept buying lottery tickets, and one morning she really did wake up to find she'd won ten million yuan.

Song Wenmiao quit her job at once, packed her bags, and returned to the warm embrace of her hometown.

Her family was delighted. Miaomiao was back, and now the whole family could be together again.

Her grandparents had spent their whole lives farming and raising pigs and chickens.

Song Wenmiao built them a new pigsty and bought a few piglets.

The pigsty was spotless, and the piglets wagged their tails as they noisily gobbled down their food. Her grandparents couldn't have been happier.

Her mother's braised dishes and cold salads were excellent, and all the neighbors loved them.

But selling food through wind and rain was exhausting, and with the city undergoing renovations, she had to close for a few days every month.

Song Wenmiao checked out every shop along the street at the village market and picked the nicest corner location. She bought it outright for her mother.

Her mother ran her hands over the bright, open kitchen and gleaming stainless-steel work counters, smiling from ear to ear.

Having a shop of her own gave her endless energy and enthusiasm for everything she did.

Even the food connoisseurs said the cold salads and braised dishes were getting more and more delicious, as if the owner's sweet, happy life had become part of the flavor.

Song Wenmiao's baked flatbreads and stir-fried rice noodles had an irresistible wok hei, making the little shop more and more popular.

She got up early to pick dew-covered vegetables from her own fields.

Then she stood at the stove, tossing the rice noodles in the wok, calling out to the neighbors to line up and promising there would be plenty for everyone.

Once the mother-and-daughter team opened for business, the shop stayed busy from morning to night, providing the neighbors with breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night snacks.

Song Wenmiao remembered how people in the city streamed everything they did, so she started a livestream too.

She never expected it to go viral, and soon more and more people were driving out to eat at the little shop.

A university-educated village official who had come to help the village out of poverty showed up at the food shop with a pile of unsold produce. "Sister Miaomiao, come on camera for a bit. I guarantee we'll sell everything like hotcakes!"

The jackfruit in her arms looked heavy. Thinking about its rich aroma, Song Wenmiao nearly drooled.

"Um, can I eat this?"

So she ate it with gusto on camera, and helped the village's unsold jackfruit find buyers overseas.

Upcoming novel 3: My Husband Who Married Me for Good Luck Becomes Chief Secretary [Gourmet and Farming]. A slow-paced story about farming, Gourmet food, and the imperial examinations. Please add it to your library! Synopsis:

At dawn, Fuxiao woke up to find herself a nine-year-old bride, sold by a poor farming family to the landlord's son in exchange for food during a famine, to bring him good fortune.

Her mother and older sister were beating her father, crying that he was a heartless man.

Her sister even said she should have been the one to marry him.

Fuxiao, who had never experienced the warmth of family, felt tears fill her eyes.

Fine, she'd go. She was still young. If her husband died, she could just run home.

Fuxiao went to the Wen family in an eight-person bridal sedan chair.

She became the young bride of a sickly twelve-year-old boy, married to bring him good fortune.

Before she arrived, each of her three sisters-in-law had her own plans.

There was also an unmarried sister-in-law who feared Fuxiao would steal her share of the affection.

But when the red bridal veil was lifted,

everyone's heart melted at the sight of the girl's pretty little face, white as dough.

How could such an adorable little sister have any bad intentions?

And so Fuxiao settled into life there.

Though she was only nine and small for her age, she was incredibly strong.

She could chop wood, carry water, and plow the fields with ease.

She was even an excellent cook.

Mushrooms from the mountain, fish and shrimp from the river, bamboo shoots after the rain, berries from the trees...

In Fuxiao's hands, they became one delicious dish after another.

Even her sickly husband, who never liked to eat, could polish off two bowls and then drink the bitter medicine he'd always refused.

Her parents-in-law beamed with joy. Even in a famine, when there wasn't enough food to go around even for the landlord, Fuxiao managed to make the household thrive.

The family fields produced more and more after she introduced her fertilizing method.

The hens rushed to lay eggs whenever they heard Chunxiao sing.

They followed Chunxiao's directions, found water behind the house, and dug a well.

As for her sickly husband, Fuxiao kept waiting and waiting, but he just wouldn't die.

Not only did he stay healthy, he also came first in the imperial examinations and became a Chief Secretary of the dynasty.

Upcoming novel 4: Getting Rich Running a Street Stall in a Melodramatic Novel [Gourmet]. Gourmet + melodrama + running a street stall. Synopsis:

1,

Shi Lingyu had just spent all her savings opening a food shop when she was transported into an old-fashioned melodramatic novel.

This story had every kind of over-the-top trope: wealthy-family stand-ins, fake and real heiresses, a fight among men for a woman's affection, amnesia, a CEO with stomach problems, family inheritance battles...

It had every kind of drama imaginable.

System 818 told her that all she had to do was work diligently, taking jobs including, but not limited to:

Being the best friend of the CEO's stand-in for his first love, and spending all the money she got from the CEO.

Being an ordinary classmate of the real and fake heiresses, and getting the two of them to claw at each other.

Being the CEO's on-call doctor, treating his loss of appetite and stomach problems.

Being the CEO's mother's all-purpose assistant, solving every problem.

Being a top lawyer at a law firm, making a friendly appearance as an adviser during an inheritance dispute.

Once she'd done those jobs and helped the original story reach its happy ending after all the melodrama, she'd receive a huge reward.

System 818 was full of confidence. "Don't worry, they're all minor roles. You can handle them all at once, and we can provide you with interdimensional tools, so you can..."

Before it could finish speaking, Shi Lingyu sent it flying and let out a scream like a marmot.

Aaaah! What happened to my huge shop? The food shop I spent all my savings and five years' wages on?

Working for someone else? No way. She'd never work for someone else again in this lifetime.

Shi Lingyu ignored the System shrieking in her ear. She was entirely focused on starting over by running a street stall.

She swore she would win back everything she'd lost.

2,

A new food stall opened outside Tuosi International School.

There were thin, crispy guokui flatbreads, golden, fragrant egg burgers, and stir-fried rice noodles piled high with ingredients and infused with the aroma of the wok.

At first, the rich young masters and heiresses from the elite school walked past, drooling at the sight.

Still, they put on airs and said, "What could be good about a roadside stall? It looks so dirty. Come on, I'll treat you to that new Michelin-starred place."

Then, once no one was watching, they disguised themselves from head to toe and sneaked over to order one of everything from the owner's stall.

System 818 was so excited that sparks shot out of it: "Ah! The fake heiress! Oh, the real heiress is here too. Hurry, tell them there's only one portion left and make them fight over it!"

"Isn't that the CEO's stand-in for his first love? She loves this pancake so much. Let's charge her an astronomical price and empty her wallet."

"Isn't that the CEO with stomach problems and loss of appetite? Quick, let's make him some pumpkin and millet porridge to soothe his stomach."

"Wow, what luck! We've run into the CEO's mother too. Quick, take Madam to a Sotheby's auction and bid on the biggest pink diamond!"

Ignoring the System's excited sparks, Shi Lingyu gave the real heiress and the fake heiress a portion of fried rice noodles each.

What did it mean, there was only one portion? She could make two portions in a single wok. Only an idiot would turn down money.

She sold a pancake to the CEO's first-love stand-in for five yuan, and even added an egg for a regular customer.

Raise the price? Not a chance. She was building a business around return customers. Her reputation mattered.

"Your luosifen, extra spicy. Here you go." What kind of decent person would serve millet porridge at a street stall? Wasn't the whole point of eating street food to get a little kick?

The CEO cheerfully said, "Add a fried egg too."

Shi Lingyu took a basket of vegetables from the CEO's mother, then spent five minutes arguing with her about whether she could knock three yuan off the price.

The System did a full Thomas-the-Tank-Engine-style flip in midair and collapsed onto a floor that didn't exist.

It was over. With such a stubborn Host, the plot had gone completely off the rails. There was no way this mission could be completed.

The System was on the verge of tears.

3,

Who could have guessed that Shi Lingyu would eventually bring everyone to a happy ending where they all gathered around the table to make dumplings?

The real heiress and fake heiress pressed their heads together, whispering secrets and making plans to go try the new dishes at Shi Lingyu's shop.

After seeing the CEO recognize his first love's true nature and go through a painful reckoning, he realized that his stand-in was his true love. Now he was being unreasonable and insisting that even a three-month-old fetus could kick.

The CEO's mother's vegetable garden was lush and green. She excitedly told Shi Lingyu she planned to raise ten more chicks.

Everything was peaceful, and every sight was heartwarming.

Nearby, Shi Lingyu cheerfully counted the number of zeroes in the rewards the System had given her, already thinking about buying up the shop next door too.

The System was thinking so hard it was about to burn out.

Wait, how did this turn into a happy ending?

Theme: No matter how big the world is, eating comes first.