A Little Restaurant in the Divine Capital of the Prosperous Tang (Food)

The main story is complete. Enjoy

Yin Yao, the owner of a small restaurant, transmigrates to ancient times and becomes the third daughter of the Yin family.

She has been dealt a terrible hand, and the bad news just keeps coming: her parents are dead, her uncle has been exiled, her little sister is naive, her aunt is weak-willed, and her grandmother is old...

The one piece of good news: it's the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and the city is Luoyang.

Looking at her family of old, young, sick, and frail, Yin Yao shrugs. "It's nothing. We'll just start over."

Luckily, her sister was born with a gift for marketing, her aunt was hardworking and capable, and her grandmother was knowledgeable and well-connected.

The whole family pulls together and gradually gets their household back on its feet.

Word is that a new Four Seasons Eatery has opened in the bustling South Market of the divine capital. Its menu features all kinds of seasonal delicacies:

In spring, fresh and crisp jade spring rolls and glutinous rice balls with salted egg yolk and pork floss;

In summer, cool, refreshing fermented-rice tofu pudding and Guanzhong assorted liangpi;

In autumn, nourishing lily bulbs baked in a clay pot and wood ear, spinach, and pork blood soup;

In winter, steaming lamb chop sizzling pot and peppery pork tripe chicken soup.

Alongside its distinctive local dishes, the restaurant keeps adding delicious fare from across Han and Hu lands:

Mushroom and bacon focaccia, salami pizza, refreshing Korean cold noodles,

And for dessert, flaky cream puffs and lychee rose ice cream. Pair them with a cup of mango pomelo sago or iced grapes topped with salted cream foam, and you'll feel like you're in heaven!

Diners come in leaning against the walls and leave leaning against them too, marveling, "Madam Yin, do you ever run out of ideas for new recipes?"

Du Zhao was born into a prominent Guanzhong family and grew up alongside the current emperor. He weathered repeated rises and falls with his friend, spending half his life caught up in conspiracies and intrigue.

One day, he woke up to find that he had returned to the age of twenty.

Remembering how weak and ineffectual his close friend had been in his previous life, Du Zhao suddenly found himself sick of it all.

Since he had a second chance at life, he might as well roam the world on horseback and live out his days carefree and unrestrained.

One day, he came to the divine capital to see the peonies and happened upon a little restaurant in the city...

Hmm, the steamed pork ribs are pretty good, the braised chicken has a rich sauce, and the radish ball soup is light and tasty.

Still, good as it is, he's eaten at royal banquets. Why would he stop for a few humble street dishes?

If only...

Damn it. Du Zhao had barely been roaming the world for a few months when he ran aground.

With no money to pay the bill, the restaurant owner held him at knifepoint and made him work as a waiter.

Today he's fixing the upstairs rooms, tomorrow he's helping the old and young, and the day after he's going out to buy wine. He's so busy his feet hardly touch the ground.

Even after he'd earned more than enough to pay off his debt, he still didn't leave.

He once dreamed of roaming the world with a sword at his side. Then he fell in love with the everyday warmth of life and never went.

Pairing: A cheerful, fiercely protective restaurant owner x a reckless, down-and-out wanderer

Reader's guide:

1. Set in a semi-fictional Tang Dynasty during the reign of Wu Zetian, with many original details. Please don't nitpick historical accuracy.

2. A food and restaurant management story about ordinary people in a prosperous era. Slow-paced and slice-of-life, with a diary-like feel.

3. The male lead appears relatively late. There are many family-bond storylines.

4. The female lead transmigrates, and the male lead is reborn. In their previous lives, one was absorbed in cooking and the other was busy staying alive, so neither had much inclination to fall in love.

The following is the blurb for a future release, The Little Cook of the Ningguta General's Residence

Food + infrastructure building + farming. If you're interested, take a look~

Qi Ran transmigrates to Ningguta, where six out of every twelve months are freezing cold.

She crawls up out of the ice and snow and clutches her head.

Not because she's scared, but because she's freezing! It's thirty below, where's her hat?!

Is this a joke???

Luckily, she's not an idiot. She just slipped while picking mushrooms.

At last, she digs her hat out of the snow, bundles herself up, and races back to the city.

Then she discovers she's been exiled here.

Thanks to her excellent cooking, she's assigned to the general's residence as a junior cook.

They say the general eats five jin of meat and drinks eight jars of liquor per meal. He's a firecracker who explodes at the slightest provocation and enjoys tormenting exiles whenever he has nothing better to do.

What can Qi Ran do? Cook obediently and take things one day at a time!

But as she carries on, she starts to realize that maybe things aren't quite what they seem...

Even a bitterly cold land has great potential, and even a fierce general can turn gentle.

Life gets better with each passing day.

A timid, resourceful little cook x a fierce but friendly (?) frontier general

Theme: If your heart is free of idle worries, every season is a fine one.