A Little Restaurant in the Northern Song Dynasty

Song Lingyi transmigrates into the daughter of a high-ranking official, except she's the fake one.

Her birth parents are farmers, and their family is poor. She's heard that the real heiress has had a very hard life.

Everyone in the household says the real heiress has had a miserable lot, and they openly and discreetly point fingers at Song Lingyi.

Her half-sister, with whom she has never gotten along, comes by every day to follow the usual household-scheming routine. "If you had even a shred of conscience, you'd ask to set things right and let my poor elder sister come home, instead of shamelessly clinging to the Minister's residence."

What a coincidence: Song Lingyi is allergic to household intrigue.

She returns to her hometown and moves back in with her family of six, all crowded into an old courtyard with a leaky roof and drafty windows.

After paying the land tax and poll tax, their harvest is just enough to keep the family from starving to death, but not enough to keep them from going hungry.

Facing her new family, who look at her timidly, Song Lingyi, a private kitchen chef in her previous life, decides to return to her old profession.

She'll set up a food stall, fix up the courtyard, and run a small restaurant. Life will get better day by day.

Ling Cheng is known throughout Bianjing for being finicky. He demands palatial lodgings, fine carriages and horses, luxurious robes, and delicacies served on jade plates.

When he is ordered to travel away from home for a period of experience, he goes through three cooks in a single day.

His master compares carefully prepared meals to pig slop and would rather die than eat. His personal attendant is extremely worried.

Then a gentle young woman serves him a bowl of crisp gourd strips tossed with plum sauce.

"Come be my personal chef."

The attendant can't believe his master has cleaned his plate for the first time in his life, but then the gentle young woman says, "I don't want to."

A heroine who loves food and has maxed-out cooking skills X a picky, sharp-tongued hero who gets his comeuppance and falls hard, determined to bring the chef home and keep her all to himself

[Reader's Guide]

1. Set in a loosely fictionalized Northern Song dynasty, with a mountain of authorial liberties.

2. Food business, cozy daily life, and a touch of ensemble cast.

Theme: Work hard to build wealth, and live well.