I Set Up a Snack Stall and Became a Goddess

*

On the first day after transmigrating to ancient times, Li Songjiao bound herself to a food-stall System.

Because of her dignified beauty and the language barrier, people mistook her for the Goddess of Alms. Li Songjiao was speechless with exasperation, thinking: This isn't my fault, is it?

Who turned my food stall into a maglev vehicle? Who equipped me with an invisible loudspeaker?

The System beside her said nothing.

It even activated a one-touch personal defense feature for her.

On the first day of binding with the System, Li Songjiao, who loved researching ancient recipes, thought she would become a national treasure of a chef and rise to the top.

On the second day, Li Songjiao opened the virtual electronic menu and looked at the unlocked bizarre recipes: Isatis root instant noodles, chili pepper jelly, and pumpkin-stewed duck.

With a little culinary skill under her belt, she clasped her hands together under the System's eager gaze and fell into grave silence.

On the third day, the System stammered out that they wouldn't be running a food stall in the modern world. They would be selling food to ancient people in other worlds to earn copper coins.

A map she'd never seen before loaded onto the screen. Each time she set up her stall, she'd have to travel to a different region, and the map was covered in place names written in unfamiliar pictographs.

The System tried to encourage her: It's okay, sweetie. If someone doesn't pay or leaves a bad review, we'll just kill them. We can always switch to another world!

Li Songjiao: ...Thanks, but I don't need that kind of doting.

She glanced at the other worlds on offer: zombie apocalypses, deserted-island survival, radioactive wastelands. Suddenly, this world didn't seem so bad.

*

Because of the language barrier, Li Songjiao maxed out her charm.

Because of the constant wars, Li Songjiao paid out of pocket to buy the compulsory ceasefire rule, "Wash your hands in a golden basin before meals."

Because the river banks had burst, Li Songjiao redeemed a temporary sky screen to broadcast her crude flood-warning animation, so she could protect the customers at her mission site.

Even when the food stall was assigned to a battlefield, she carried the food out herself with a smile, offering it equally to both sides.

So, across the centuries she spent filling in the map and completing food-stall missions, some came to believe that worshipping and loving her would earn them the blessing of a meal;

some spread tales of her serene dignity, her moonlike face, and her thousand-eyed compassion;

some, grateful for a single meal, took refuge in her and raised armies and founded nations in her name, devoting their whole countries to preserving the traces she had left behind...

When she completed the entire map, Li Songjiao discovered that a new feature had suddenly appeared: the inner thoughts of her customers. Their endless prayers, as fervent as those of fanatical worshippers, read:

Please, please appear here again.

I would gladly die this very moment if I could eat a meal bestowed by you.

A chancellor from a disgraced family, I gave my life serving the realm. You are the only sovereign I ever served. But why... why do you always appear in other countries?

■ Notes for readers:

* The ancient people have a simple, traditional view of gods and immortals. The only one to have appeared in person to the locals is the heroine.

* She unwittingly passes herself off as a deity. There's lots of food and lots of helping people in need.

* Belief leads to devotion, and devotion leads to fervor. In short, the heroine and the dark-cuisine System turn this chaotic age into a world devoted to food and the heroine. She's bewildered by it all herself (.)

* The ancient setting is at the end of a dynasty. While transmigrating and staying there, the heroine chooses where on the map to land. To keep the food stall running smoothly, the System's rules enforce a complete ceasefire. Time flows at different rates in the two worlds.

* The heroine's name comes from the poem, "The plum leaves a sourness softening the teeth; banana leaves spread green against the window screen." It is also a pun on the sound of the words for "praise pepper." I hope readers familiar with my work will like this heroine. She's a character I love and a new kind of protagonist for me to write. I've always loved the everyone's-in-love-with-the-heroine genre, but this story is less about that and more about the whole world falling in love with her.

Theme: The only ones who must never be let down are delicious food and the goddess who pities the world.