Cooking

Sold at sixteen to the Zhao family of Taoshui Village, Pan Xi’er expects a life of hardship among three unmarried brothers with terrible reputations.

Instead, she finds warmth, loyalty, and a family ready to work for a better tomorrow.

With tofu, new recipes, and stubborn kindness, Xi’er helps the Zhaos turn hardship into prosperity—until old wounds and new ambitions put their hard-won happiness to the test.

I was a child bride, bought by the Song Family for five taels of silver.

But Song Jitong didn’t like me; he preferred the daughter of the family living at the east end of the village.

I originally liked someone as handsome as Song Jitong, but eventually, I simply gave up on those feelings. I planned to repay my debt of gratitude to the Song Family, see Song Jitong off to the capital to become the Top Scholar, and then leave.

However, Song Jitong later appeared with an imperial marriage decree in one hand and my redemption money in the other. In the middle of the night, he cornered me against a wall just as I was trying to sneak away with my bags packed. Gritting his teeth, he hissed, “Jiang Miao’er, don’t you dare try to run away.”

Before I could even answer, this elegant Top Scholar-as refined as iris and orchid-was the first to turn red-eyed, looking just as aggrieved as he did when we were children.

“Elder Sister, please don’t abandon me…”

On the day of my hairpin ceremony, my brother-in-law, tipsy from wine, barged into my room.

That same night, my mouth was gagged and I was taken to the Marquis’s Mansion.

My legitimate elder sister told me she could not bear children and needed to borrow my womb.

A year later, I gave birth to a son.

My legitimate elder sister brought me to the Bamboo Garden, where four old maids covered my mouth and buried me in a pit they had dug long before.

Before I died, I kept wondering what the point had been of someone like me coming into this world.

But I never imagined that I would be dug up again.

The person who found me was small and thin, yet he staggered along with me on his back for ten miles.

He covered me with the only clothing he had and gave me a chance to live.

An old man took me in. From that day on, I changed my name and became someone else.

Five years later, my wonton shop opened in Capital City, and I happened to run into my legitimate elder sister and her family being sold off.

She begged me to save her son.

But I pointed to the young man kneeling off to the side and said, “I’ll only save him.”

My father wanted me to enter the palace in my elder sister’s place, so I packed my valuables that very night and ran away.

I left the capital and traveled south toward Jiangnan through the turn of winter and spring.

Thin snow and frost-laced woods followed me most of the way, but by the time I reached Jiangnan, the grass was lush and orioles filled the air.

Drunk on the spring scenery, I spent my days roaming mountains and rivers to my heart’s content.

One day, I was crouched beside a food stall with shining eyes, waiting for a braised pork knuckle to come out of the pot, when hurried footsteps erupted behind me.

A hand seized my ear and hauled upward until I had no choice but to rise with my face twisted in pain.

My father strode out from among the servants with a mocking smile. “Yin Chuchu, agree to enter the palace for your sister, and I can overlook your running away this time.”

The emperor had ordered the Yin family to send a maiden to the imperial selection, and by custom, my eldest sister should have gone.

But she had been sickly since childhood, and Father and his concubine could not bear to send her into that man-eating palace, so they set their sights on me instead.

My own mother had died giving birth to me, and as the unsupported second daughter of the Yin household, I was someone they could squeeze however they pleased.

Was my sister made of flesh and blood while I was not?

I lowered my head, gripping the silver hairpin I had bought at the night market the evening before. “And if I refuse?”

His wrinkles bunched into a hideous mask as he laughed. “Where could you possibly hide? Unless you die, I will turn over every inch of earth to find you.”

Understanding dawned across my face, and I dipped into a graceful bow. “Thank you for granting my wish, Father.”

Then, before his stunned eyes, I drove the silver hairpin into myself.

The early-spring wind slipped cold fingers beneath my clothes as I lay on the ground, regretting only that fragrant bowl of pork knuckle.

If it had finished cooking a little sooner, perhaps I could have eaten myself to death instead.

This was the seventh time I had died, and frankly, I was tired of it.

When the Sword Venerable stood at the entrance of my Milk Tea Shop, sword in hand, the entire Sect thought he had come to demand an accounting for some grievance.

Only I knew that he just wanted to cut the line again for a cup of full-sugar milk tea with no ice.

But today, even the Demon Realm Young Master, the man destined to trample the Cultivation World underfoot a century from now, was standing behind him, clutching a queue number and waiting for me to call his turn.

After being selected by the Horror Game, I took over a snack stall at the village entrance.

An Eerie opened its bloody maw to take a bite out of me, but I reached back and stuffed a meat-filled Mo into its mouth.

He chewed thoughtfully. “Forget it,” he muttered. “Since there’s Mo to eat, I’ll kill you tomorrow instead.”

The next day, it was fresh, fragrant wontons, stir-fried snails with perilla, peppery pork tripe soup, fried skewers, and spicy Malatang…

Every Eerie that passed by abandoned their hunt, burying their faces in the food and eating like possessed creatures.

The viewers in the Live Stream watched in shock as I survived until the very end, all thanks to a single cooking pot.

After wandering the mortal world for more than six hundred years, I hear that a once-in-a-century sword prodigy has appeared.

The young man has also found a dragon that sounds remarkably like the one I lost long ago.

Cultivators from across the realm flock to the mountain, some to seek the dragon and the Dao, others to kill and seize treasure.

I am different.

After a long, dusty journey to the Sword Sect, all I want is to set up a little stall at the foot of the mountain and sell wontons.

When Wei Zhao married me as his lawful wife, all of Shangjing City laughed.

The once-proud Eldest Young Master of the Wei Family had fallen so low that even a phoenix in decline was no better than a chicken.

In the end, he had only managed to marry a maid who tended the fires and cooked the meals.

Later, when Wei Zhao achieved fame and success, noble ladies from aristocratic families who wished to marry him were too many to count.

So I made an appointment with a well-known matchmaker in the capital, intending to take in two honored concubines for him.

But just as I was about to leave, Wei Zhao, who should have been handling affairs in Yangzhou, blocked me at the front gate.

Travel-worn and furious, he was trembling all over. “Try stepping out of this gate today. I dare you.”

My older brother was eighteen when he was married off as a live-in son-in-law to my sister-in-law.

My sister-in-law said that if he gave her a child, she’d reward him by letting him continue his studies.

Later, the day my brother passed the imperial exam, Father still refused to give up and asked,

“Son, now can my grandson change his surname back to mine?”

I am a Jiao who has failed the Zoujiao process several times. To leech off some immortal energy, I specifically sought out a Heartless Dao Sacred Body Snake Clan Husband.

In theory, every time he goes through a molting, he should forget a portion of his past.

By the ninth time, all his memories of the mortal world should vanish, leaving nothing but his Dao Heart.

But even after eight rounds of molting, he still remembers that he loves eating roujiamo!

The crispy kind! Just as I reached the end of my rope and was planning to slip him some poison… A danmaku drifted past. [Here it comes! The Villainess Supporting Character is finally going offline!]