Running a Food Stall with Idol Economics in Ancient Times

Business + food + imperial examinations and officialdom

1.

Food blogger Song Xueyao transmigrates into the body of a girl from a poor family in the city. Her father hauls cargo at the docks, and she and her mother do embroidery to help make ends meet. Her younger brother is a good-for-nothing, and it looks like he's on his way to becoming a street thug.

The whole family is crammed into two tiny rented rooms, barely scraping by.

Song Xueyao looks at the handkerchief in her hands, unable to imagine how she's supposed to embroider a pair of mandarin ducks.

Looking at the shabby house and her family's gaunt faces, all she can think about is returning to her old line of work.

2.

The food at the Imperial College is awful, and the students are suffering. So Song Xueyao sets up a stall outside the gates.

Steaming donkey-meat flatbreads, inventive duck rolls, and cheap, delicious jianbing guozi.

At first, the students passing by sneer at her.

Such vulgar food is unfit to eat.

But before long, the line at the little stall grows longer and longer, with students reviewing their lessons as they wait.

If a student skips class, the libationer can catch them red-handed at the stall outside.

And when they can't make sense of the classics and histories, a chat with the stall owner outside suddenly clears things up.

3.

To keep her younger brother from growing up into a thug, Song Xueyao sends Song Wenmian to study at the Imperial College.

She makes him study day and night, and keeps at it until he becomes the Imperial College's "exam god."

Jinxian Snack Stall unveils its limited-time special: Exam God's Beefy Noodle Bowl. Eat it, and you'll ace your exams.

Song Wenmian sits at the stall all day eating beef brisket noodles, and customers flock there in droves.

A few days later, the stall offers a set of top-scorer exam predictions as a free gift with every purchase of its duck-stuffed three treasures. Even the members of the imperial clan at the neighboring clan school hire someone to sneak over and buy a whole stack of the questions.

Later, Jinxian Snack Stall even holds a face-to-face autograph event with the Exam God, and Song Wenmian signs until his hand goes numb.

Song Xueyao looks at the younger brother she's pushed to study all this time, successfully turning him into an idol for both men and women. All she wants to do is buy a new shop and sell cosmetics, clothes, and serialized stories about her brother.

Theme: Eat well and study hard