Running a Seafood Restaurant in Ancient Times

[My next novel is "Is the Little Chef Gossiping About Her Koi Boss Again Today?" A silly Gourmet story, please add it to your collection! The blurb is at the end, so keep reading!]

[A female lead who cooks amazingly well and loves gossip x a seemingly meek and delicate male lead with maxed-out fighting skills and a secret identity]

After transmigrating overnight, food blogger Yun Manchu becomes the owner of a struggling seafood restaurant.

Her rival is suppressing her, ingredients are scarce, and the restaurant is on the brink of bankruptcy. Fortunately, she knows how to make seafood dishes exceptionally well.

Red-marinated crab with white flesh and rich roe, savory and refreshing seafood in a tangy sauce, chewy and crispy seafood cakes...

Unable to keep her restaurant running in the outer city, Yun Manchu pushes her food cart into the inner city and finds a new path.

Before long, all the sects, large and small, in the inner city know that every day at the hour of the Snake, a young maiden pushes her cart over to sell innovative dishes.

Passersby: It's just seafood. What could be so special about it? Well, since we're here, why not line up and try some?

After tasting it, one more customer eagerly looks forward to her stall every day.

"Miss Yun, will you set up your stall tomorrow? Will you have seafood in tangy sauce, seafood cakes, seafood congee, Spanish mackerel dumplings, and fried shrimp?"

Yun Manchu: ?

I know you're in a hurry, but don't rush me. I'm about to make my spatula smoke.

-

Shulian was tired of a life where people praised him to his face while hiding murderous intent behind his back.

After being hunted down by his enemies yet again, he was left adrift at sea.

He thought, I can't go on living such a pointless life.

Then the aroma of scallions sizzling in oil suddenly reached his nose. After days of fighting, that single scent was enough to make his mouth water.

Shulian: I think I can keep living after all.

So, with a belly full of jianghu gossip and a delicate constitution that gets him injured every few days, he landed a job as the restaurant's storyteller.

Every day, he watched the restaurant owner get hooked by the gossip and rack her brains trying to make him tell her what happened next.

Suddenly, he didn't think surviving among the jianghu sects since childhood was such a miserable memory after all.

Unfortunately, there were always people who didn't want him to live in peace.

The young woman was kidnapped, and the bloodstain on her fair neck was glaring. Shulian's fingers trembled.

He covered Yun Manchu's eyes with one hand and swung his blade. Shattered rocks flew as a scream tore through the air.

"I retired. I didn't die."

-

Gossip corner:

Yun Manchu: Wow, this Sect Leader is so handsome! He and his wife look so much in love.

Shulian: It's fake. They don't get along at all, and each of them keeps a whole courtyard of lovers and pets at home.

What?!

Yun Manchu: That swordsman looks so scary. He must be really hard to get along with.

Shulian: It's an act. He's been pursuing an embroiderer for nearly ten years, writing her three love poems a day and reciting them outside her window every evening. He keeps getting moved to tears by his own poems.

He still hasn't won her over, though.

Delicate little scene:

Because Shulian keeps collapsing, scraping himself, bleeding, and getting hurt,

the restaurant has stockpiled enough jars of ointment to build a wall.

Yun Manchu is always thinking: When will Shulian put on some weight and stop getting hurt so often?

Shulian is always thinking: This injury is almost healed. When can I take another fall?

Reading guide:

1. All the recipes in this story have been artistically adapted!! Don't try making them yourselves, please!! The food in the story comes from all over China.

2. A sweet, everyday romance, 1v1.

3. New author here! Thanks for your support! Please give me lots and lots of comments and saves!!

[Coming soon: "Is the Little Chef Gossiping About Her Koi Boss Again Today?"]

Blurb:

A marriage-first, love-later, lighthearted comedy

[A hapless, laid-back little chef forced to work x an outwardly kind but inwardly calculating, picky koi boss]

Shen Qingli closed her eyes and opened them again, only to find herself transmigrated into the body of a frail servant girl on the verge of death. Disheveled and dirty, she was yanked up from the ground.

"Even if I marry her, what can you do about it?"

When she opened her eyes again, she was sitting in a bridal sedan chair with a red veil over her head, being carried through the wedding ceremony and into the bridal chamber.

Shen Qingli: Huh?

And just like that, she had a luxurious mansion and a husband she'd never met.

But the biggest problem was...

She couldn't afford to pay all those servants!

The next day, Shen Qingli, the owner of a mansion but drowning in debt, found work to support herself and her household.

-

A new little chef joined the Taotie Restaurant.

She's good at everything, and her food is absolutely delicious! It's just that...

This young woman seems to have incredibly bad luck.

She can trip on flat ground, and whenever water is spilled, it always lands on her head. Even when she secretly badmouths the boss, she's the only one who gets caught.

Shen Qingli is almost used to her run of bad luck.

But ever since she was caught talking behind the boss's back and made him food to apologize,

her luck has mysteriously started to improve.

So she stopped eating, drinking, and sleeping, and compiled a thick manual on how to praise someone while secretly insulting them.

-

Pei Biechen has repeatedly caught the little chef saying bad things about him lately.

Whenever he catches her, she comes running over to offer him unfamiliar dishes as an apology.

Over and over again.

Until he discovers that the little chef has an entire brick-thick book devoted to all the bad things she says about him. It makes him laugh in disbelief.

The little chef is always hanging around him. Pei Biechen admits that her playing hard to get has worked.

He's started to care about her.

Then he suddenly feels like he's forgotten something very important...

-

The next time Shen Qingli receives news of her husband, whom she's never met, it's the steward telling her to go get a divorce.

A familiar-looking person is standing outside the government office.

He turns around, and all the seriousness on his face vanishes when he sees the young woman.

"W-what are you doing here?"

"I came to see my ex-husband."

Theme: Stay strong in adversity and enjoy life.