Chapter 1 Opening Ceremony.
On a quiet early summer morning, the vegetable market near Suli Street was bustling with activity.
"The local pork smells amazing, come and see!"
"Fresh, live fish! They were caught at 3 PM and arrived at the market by 5 PM. Come and see for yourselves!"
"Homegrown vegetables, natural and pollution-free!"
The vendors shouted their wares loudly, and the elderly people buying vegetables would ask a few questions if they found something interesting. If they liked it, they would bargain and buy it; if they didn't, they would turn around and leave.
Gu Qingqiu stood out among the group of elderly men and women; it was rare to see a young girl coming to the market early in the morning to buy groceries on a weekday.
She wasn't drawn in by the loud and lively shouts, nor did she go up to ask any questions. Instead, she glanced at each stall in the market as if she were on a tour.
Gu Qingqiu was indeed looking at what each stall was selling. In her eyes, the fresh pork, live fish, and vegetables described by the vendors were all shrouded in a little bit of black mist, just varying in degree.
She judged that these were impurities in the ingredients. The less black mist there was, the fresher and better the ingredients were, which would make the meat dishes taste better.
However, after walking around, I didn't see any food that was clean and free of black mist.
Gu Qingqiu had no choice but to select the best among the worst, buying food with as few impurities as possible.
She walked up to a pork stall and asked, "Boss, how much are your pork ribs per pound?"
The pork stall owner chuckled, "Young lady, you have good taste! These are all local pigs, raised on coarse food, very fragrant. Ribs are twenty-seven yuan a pound, leg meat and pork belly are fourteen yuan a pound. How much do you want?"
"Jiakang" probably refers to leftover food from home.
Gu Qingqiu had just heard the price quoted by another pork stall that the ribs here were two yuan more expensive per pound. She pointed to the three ribs with the least black fumes: "I want these three, could you please weigh them for me, boss?"
"Okay." The pork stall owner immediately took the three ribs on display, picked up a cleaver and chopped them into appropriately sized pieces according to Gu Qingqiu's request, put them in a bag and weighed them, "A total of four catties and three ounces, one hundred and sixteen yuan and one hundred and fifteen yuan is fine."
Gu Qingqiu scanned the code to pay, took the bag of ribs, thanked the owner, and headed to the next stall with a clear goal.
"Boss, how much are your bok choy and water spinach?"
The old lady at the vegetable stall smiled and said, "These vegetables are five yuan a bunch. They're all homegrown, and I've bundled them up for you. How many bunches do you want?"
Gu Qingqiu: "Give me six bunches of each of bok choy and water spinach."
Actually, the vegetables at this stall had very little black residue, but she chose bok choy and water spinach because she wanted to cook them. The vegetables were bundled up neatly, looked fresh, tender, and clean, and each bundle appeared to weigh over a pound, priced similarly to other vegetable stalls.
The old lady at the vegetable stall happily picked out the vegetables: "Sixty yuan in total."
This is a big customer.
Gu Qingqiu paid, took the large bag of vegetables, and simply put them all into her shopping cart. If the vegetables were tasty, she would come back to this stall next time.
Then she bought three chickens, potatoes, lettuce, carrots, scallions, ginger, garlic, and chili peppers. She then went to the grocery store and bought wood ear mushrooms, soybean paste, soybeans, red dates, goji berries, and figs.
Having gathered all the ingredients she wanted to make, Gu Qingqiu left the market and walked into Suli Street.
She walked to a peach tree at the bend in the middle of the old street, took out her key, opened the wooden door, went into the kitchen, and put away the groceries she had bought.
This is an attic. The second floor is for living, while the first floor is the shop of Gu's private kitchen. Gu Qingqiu grew up here.
Her grandfather used to be a head chef at a restaurant. In his forties, he started his own business and bought this attic on Suli Street to open a restaurant. It was once very successful and was the most famous restaurant on Suli Street.
When Gu Qingqiu's parents took over the restaurant, their cooking skills were only slightly better than average, and the business was just so-so, barely enough to make ends meet.
Gu Qingqiu grew up surrounded by the aroma of food from her family's restaurant.
Unfortunately, her parents were in a car accident when she was a sophomore in college. Her father died on the spot, and her mother stayed in the ICU for a long time. They spent all the compensation money from the perpetrator and their own savings, but they couldn't save her. She left her forever.
Gu's Private Kitchen subsequently closed down, or rather, went bankrupt.
Gu Qingqiu majored in Chinese literature in college. After her parents passed away, she earned her living expenses through part-time jobs, successfully completed her studies, graduated, and got a job as a proofreader and editor at a long-established local publishing house.
When she was twenty-four, in her second year of work, she developed a fever and was hospitalized after working overtime to proofread book manuscripts. She even fell into a coma.
When Gu Qingqiu awoke, she found herself in a bizarre and fantastical world of cultivation, where the goal was immortality and the strong preyed on the weak. The original body she had transmigrated into had the worst five-elemental-root aptitude and was a menial disciple of the Qingyun Sect.
Gu Qingqiu couldn't find the reason for her transmigration, so she could only adapt to her identity as a menial disciple, diligently cultivating while tending the spirit fields to grow spirit rice for the sect.
Disciples who are only required to perform menial tasks can enter the outer sect of the Qingyun Sect if they reach the fourth level of the Qi Refining stage within three years of joining. Gu Qingqiu worked hard to cultivate, but unfortunately, his aptitude for the five spiritual roots was too poor, and he still failed to meet the requirements.
Realizing she might not find a way to succeed on the path of cultivation, she decisively gave up and used her accumulated spirit stones to get a job as a spirit chef at the largest restaurant in Yunjiang City, which was under the protection of the Qingyun Sect.
Unfortunately, cultivators like weapon refiners and alchemists require unique spiritual roots and vast resources to cultivate. Spirit chefs are considered relatively low-level beings in the cultivation world, but it is a suitable career path that Gu Qingqiu can think of.
In the cultivation world, cultivators above the Foundation Establishment stage can abstain from grains, but cultivators in the Qi Refining stage still need to eat. The restaurant uses spirit rice and spirit beast meat for cooking. The meat and dishes cooked by the spirit chef contain a lot of spiritual energy, which can enhance the cultivation level and help cultivators in their cultivation.
Therefore, restaurants are still very popular among monks.
Gu Qingqiu spent two months learning cooking techniques from the spirit chef at the restaurant, but the food she cooked only contained a tiny amount of spiritual energy. This amount of spiritual energy was probably just the spiritual energy from the spirit rice and spirit beast meat itself.
Seeing the doubtful and disappointed looks in the eyes of the chef and the shopkeeper, Gu Qingqiu knew she was in trouble. Who would have thought that with her spiritual power at the second level of Qi Refining and her five spiritual roots, she would still fail to become a Spirit Chef?
In order to stay at the restaurant, Gu Qingqiu recalled the time when she was a child watching her grandfather cook in the kitchen, and when she grew up watching her parents cook in the kitchen.
The longing was undoubtedly painful. She desperately missed her deceased relatives and the days she spent with her family in the modern world, from which she learned cooking skills. Then she searched for similar seasonings in Yunjiang City.
With her innovative seasonings and modern cooking techniques, Gu Qingqiu's meat dishes, though only containing a tiny amount of spiritual energy, were incredibly fragrant, far surpassing all other meat dishes in the kitchen.
A cultivator with a voracious appetite paid to order meat dishes prepared by Gu Qingqiu. After devouring the food, he said with a look of enjoyment, "This glacial fish sashimi and braised pork hock are truly delicacies of the cultivation world. It's just a pity that there's only a tiny bit of spiritual energy in them."
Many cultivators with spirit stones in their pockets, greedy for that one bite of fragrance, paid to eat the meat dishes made by Gu Qingqiu, and Gu Qingqiu successfully stayed at the restaurant.
She constantly recalled the delicacies she had eaten and seen in modern times, and used the spiritual beasts and vegetables of the cultivation world to make various delicacies, attracting many cultivators to spend spirit stones to taste them, retaining many repeat customers, and slowly she gained a place in the kitchen of the restaurant, and no one dared to look down on her.
Ten years in the cultivation world is but a blink of an eye. Gu Qingqiu got used to the days when she could look up and see cultivators flying by on magical artifacts in the sky, and cultivators fighting on the ground from time to time by forming hand seals and displaying spiritual power. She lived a very successful life in the restaurant.
Who would have thought that on this day, two cultivators would fight over the last dish of stir-fried clams she cooked in the restaurant? The manager called her over to break up the fight. Gu Qingqiu rushed over but before she could even speak, she was swept by a powerful sword aura and instantly fell against the door frame leading to the kitchen, unconscious.
When Gu Qingqiu woke up again, she found herself back in the modern world, still in the hospital receiving an IV drip.
Only one night had passed. If Gu Qingqiu hadn't carefully sensed the tiny bit of spiritual energy in her dantian and noticed that her five senses were more acute than before, she would have almost doubted that everything in the cultivation world was just a pipe dream.
Regardless, Gu Qingqiu was still happy to be able to return to the peaceful and stable modern society, to the place where she had grown up, and to the place she had longed for in her countless dreams in the cultivation world. Even though her parents had long since passed away, leaving her all alone.
Gu Qingqiu took three days of sick leave and spent those three days half recalling and half getting to know the basics of modern life.
She tried to explore the tiny bit of spiritual energy in her dantian, but the spiritual energy in modern times was so scarce that it was impossible to cultivate.
Amazingly, while cooking, she could see the black mist on the ingredients taken from the refrigerator. After she processed and cooked them, the black mist disappeared completely, and the dishes she cooked gained a tiny bit of spiritual energy, probably a hundred times smaller than the tiny bit of spiritual energy in her dantian.
Gu Qingqiu tasted the stir-fried meat dish, and it tasted better than any meat dish she had eaten long ago. The main advantage was its freshness, which perfectly showcased the aroma of the meat and vegetables. The texture was so good that it was almost comparable to the spiritual rice and spiritual beast meat of the cultivation world.
Of course, such a tiny bit of spiritual energy has a negligible effect on the human body.
The skill he possessed in removing impurities from ingredients was extraordinary, almost like a gift from years of experience in the cultivation world.
Looking at Gu's Private Kitchen, which had been run by her grandfather and parents but had been closed for several years, and considering that she had been away from the literary field for many years and was no longer familiar with it, Gu Qingqiu decided to resign from her job at the publishing house and start running Gu's Private Kitchen again, after thinking about her culinary skills that she had honed for many years in the cultivation world.
Moreover, since her parents passed away, she has deeply felt the impermanence of life and that it is better to enjoy the present. After she started working and earning money, she basically spent all her salary each month to improve her quality of life. She lived a good life, but she really didn't have much money in her pocket.
She desperately needs to make money!
Gu Qingqiu spent four days first changing all the licenses and permits related to Gu's Private Kitchen to her own name, then reapplying for the business license and health certificate, and finally using her remaining savings to renovate Gu's Private Kitchen.
Gu's Private Kitchen is decorated in a light wood color scheme. There is a cashier at the entrance, followed by a shop with four small tables and three large tables. The kitchen is connected to the right and is separated by a transparent glass partition, allowing customers to see the cooking atmosphere in the kitchen.
Connecting the kitchen and the shop is a half-height freezer, used to store daily ingredients, which can be displayed to customers and make it convenient for them to directly select ingredients and order food.
Gu Qingqiu also liked this kind of decoration, but replaced the old and damaged wooden tables and chairs, cleaned the freezer, threw away or replaced the various kitchen utensils and bowls in the kitchen, and replaced the light bulbs in the main room.
She went to the market to buy groceries today, also in preparation for the opening of her business today.
Given her ability to select ingredients by observing the black silk mist, coupled with the reputation of her private kitchen, Gu Qingqiu does not plan to have a fixed menu. She will decide the dishes each day based on what good ingredients she can buy.
She opened the wooden door, letting the sunlight stream in, and first swept and mopped the floor, then wiped the tables and chairs with a rag.
After cleaning the restaurant as usual, Gu Qingqiu rested for a while before writing today's menu on the blackboard hanging on the left wall of the entrance, and then went into the kitchen to prepare the ingredients.
She took out freshly chopped pork ribs, put them in a bowl, added starch and water to soak and wash away the blood, rinsed them clean and set them aside for later use, this way she could remove the fishy smell.
Then he picked up a cleaver and chopped the garlic into small pieces on the cutting board, and then chopped the ginger.
To prevent the minced garlic from turning black and bitter when frying the ribs, she rinsed the minced garlic with water and put it into the bowl with the ribs. Then she added minced ginger, salt, white pepper powder and light soy sauce, mixed it well and set it aside to marinate.
Gu Qingqiu began processing the four chickens again. The stall owner had already plucked their feathers, so she washed them again and picked up a cleaver to chop them. With each swift stroke, the chicken meat was cut into even pieces, with the chicken feet set aside separately.
She turned on the gas stove, filled a pot with water to blanch the chicken feet, took them out and put them in a soup pot, then added washed soybeans, figs, red dates and ginger slices, added water, covered the pot and turned on the heat to cook.
Gu Qingqiu started by peeling the potatoes, cutting them into chunks with a knife, and soaking them in water in a bowl. She also soaked the wood ear mushrooms and sliced the lettuce and carrots.
She brought the water to a boil again, then added the evenly chopped chicken, along with ginger slices and cooking wine to remove any unpleasant odor.
Next, heat the wok next to her, add oil, ginger, and garlic, then add the drained chicken pieces and stir-fry with a spatula. The tender chicken pieces quickly turn slightly brown. Gu Qingqiu adds light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and oyster sauce to the wok and stir-fry until fragrant and colored. The chicken pieces gradually release their aroma.
During this process, the original black mist on the chicken pieces gradually dissipates.
Gu Qingqiu poured the potatoes, cut into chunks, into the pot and stir-fried them. When she thought they were almost done, she poured in water until it covered the chicken and potatoes, then covered the pot and simmered them.
I don't know how business is today. Half of the ingredients are for tonight, and half of the ones from lunch are still left. I'll put them in the freezer for now. After putting them away, Gu Qingqiu came back and washed two bunches each of bok choy and water spinach.
Then it's just a matter of waiting for the customers to arrive.
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