Cooking

I had been married to Shen Shi’an for eight years, but he still cherished the woman he had never forgotten.

He had grown tired of me, sick of me, finding me dull and vulgar.

When I cooked porridge or simmered soup, I was a woman with no ambition, forever fussing over a stove.

When his beloved washed her hands and made a bowl of soup, she was gentle, considerate, and understanding.

Later, after I had written our divorce agreement, Shen Shi’an traveled all the way to Jiangling to ask me for a bowl of jujube porridge.

I smiled and told him, “We don’t grow jujubes in Jiangling.

I haven’t made it in years.

I’ve quite forgotten how.”

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 have been selling wontons in the capital for twenty years.

Prince Cheng’s Heir was galloping through the city when his horse’s hooves trampled my wonton stall. He even struck me with his whip.

The heir was incredibly arrogant. “You’re just a lowly commoner,” he sneered. “Even if I don’t pay you a copper, what can you possibly do about it?”

The next day, I went to the Capital Prefecture to beat the drum and cry for justice.

The Six Ministers of the Six Boards arrived in person, and the Left and Right Censors were present to observe the proceedings.

Marquis Ningzhao hauled the heir into the hall. “I’ve caught the little brat!”

The Emperor, seated upon the main throne, declared, “Beat this boy until even his father won’t recognize him.”

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!]

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.

A new neighbor moved in next door-a man who radiated a wild, untamed energy from head to toe.

He always came home late at night.

On the rare occasions I ran into him in the elevator, he was quiet and withdrawn, looking nothing like a decent guy.

Until one night, without the slightest warning, the water in my apartment cut off.

Halfway through my shower, I stood there in silence for a long moment before wrapping myself in a bathrobe and knocking on my neighbor’s door.

“Bro, can I borrow your bathroom?”

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?”

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.

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.