Restaurant owner Meng Yuan transmigrates to the Northern Song Dynasty and becomes an ordinary person, poor as can be.
The good news: Bianjing is prosperous, full of shops and business opportunities.
The bad news: Her new family's home is bare, and she and her two younger siblings huddle together for warmth in a drafty shack with a broken tile roof. They can't afford coal or firewood, and every meal is watery millet porridge.
Her little sister tries to comfort her. "Sis, as long as the green hills remain, there'll be wood to burn. Grandpa used to say all the time that our ancestors ran a perfume shop. We were rich once!"
Meng Yuan ruffles her sister's round head. "You ancient people were so fashionable. You knew how to distill perfume a thousand years ago."
Her little brother says, "Oh no, Sis got sick and burned her brain."
To make ends meet, Meng Yuan rolls up her sleeves and decides to take her siblings to set up a stall at Zhou Bridge Night Market.
Soap cakes and honey sesame crisps, their crisp, fragrant shells coated in amber honey and their delicate fillings soft and tender.
Dongpo pork simmers away in a big pot, red and glossy. One gentle bite, and the soft, gelatinous skin melts in your mouth.
There are also seasonal sugar-filled buns, jianbing, golden jade soup, candied plums, and icy sweet dumplings...
Before long, Meng Yuan's stall has the longest line at the night market.
With money in her pocket, Meng Yuan starts enjoying life in Bianjing.
She meets up with friends to watch shadow plays in the lantern pavilion in the market district.
For the Ghost Festival, she takes her siblings to Daxiangguo Temple to pray and burn incense.
With some money to spare, she goes to the Third Great Gate market and brings home a little cat to raise.
As their lives get better and better, her little brother says, "Sis, I'll leave it to you to revive the Meng family's perfume shop."
Meng Yuan says, "But I really don't know how to make perfume!"
Wei Chi is transferred from the Imperial Guard to the Fire Brigade, where his salary is even better.
But...
While everyone else strolls around eating and drinking at the Lantern Festival fair, he stands watch in a fire lookout tower, checking for fires among the colorful lanterns.
While everyone else burns incense and prays for blessings at Daxiangguo Temple, he stands outside the gate with his people, ladders, and water bags at the ready.
The next Qingming Festival, he successfully puts out a fire outside the Eastern Capital, leaving his face black with soot.
His subordinate invites him to get a scrub at the Meng family's perfume shop. "That shop is famous around the Vermilion Bird Gate. They do a full scrub and massage, and their sour plum drink is the best, too."
Wei Chi falls silent.
Of course he knows about the Meng family's perfume shop, and he's been longing for its beautiful owner for a long time.
But he can't go there looking like this. It would ruin his dashing, heroic image.
What if Yuan's little brother uses it as an excuse to turn him and the matchmaker away? That would be awful.
[Reading Guide]
1. A fictional setting based on the Northern Song Dynasty.
2. A cozy slice-of-life story about food and running a bathhouse.
3. An optimistic, hardworking, talkative, sociable, money-making heroine x a tall, fierce-looking but kind firefighter with a high salary.
4. The perfume shop doesn't sell perfume, it's a bathhouse! Aaaaah!
Welcome, and please add this to your collection!
Theme: Hard work is the path to prosperity.
