HDRDTH -Chapter 1 A Drunkard With Cooking Skills Rivaling the God of Cuisine?

Year 2002, Hengdian.

The walls of the tiny rental room, which cost only 300 yuan a month, peeled like fish scales.

The pungent smell of burnt food mixed with the sour stench of cheap alcohol, twisting together like a rope tightening around Yu Xian’s throat.

“Mom… the eggs are burnt again…”

Outside the door, a little girl’s timid sobbing sounded like steel needles piercing his eardrums.

The headache from his hangover exploded in an instant!

Yu Xian suddenly sat upright.

Memories of working himself to death at fifty-five during a celebration banquet in his previous life collided violently with the drunken haze of this twenty-year-old body, making his stomach churn.

He had been reborn.

Back to this golden age of opportunity at the turn of the millennium.

But so what?

No amount of gold was more attractive than lying flat and fishing in peace. He had worked hard enough in his previous life. In this life, his only wish was to be a useless bum—a carefree fishing addict!

“You’re awake?”

A weary female voice sounded beside the bed.

The undisguised disgust in her tone was even more choking than the burnt smell in the room.

Su Wanyi.

The woman who had just officially registered their marriage yesterday in name only.

In her thirties, bare-faced, yet stunningly beautiful. Even a faded floral pajama set couldn’t hide her cold, ethereal elegance.

But the exhaustion and guardedness in her eyes made her seem like a thorn-covered ice rose.

“We need to talk!” Su Wanyi stared at him, her voice trembling. “That five thousand yuan dowry was borrowed money! It was supposed to save XiXi’s household registration and schooling! Not for you to waste on alcohol and drunken dreams! The money’s almost gone—what are we supposed to do now?!”

What should they do?

Yu Xian lowered his eyelids, tilted sideways, and flopped back onto the bed.

His actions answered for him—

He intended to continue lying there like a corpse.

Outside the room came Su Wanyi’s voice as she suppressed her anger while comforting her daughter.

“It’s okay, XiXi. Just scrape off the burnt parts and you can still eat it.”

Scrape it off?!

Yu Xian instantly froze mid-corpse pose.

He could tolerate poverty.

He could tolerate hangovers.

He could tolerate Su Wanyi’s cold attitude.

But this—this he absolutely could not tolerate!

As a gourmet spoiled by the finest cuisine in his previous life, these charcoal eggs were the ultimate insult to his soul!

Bang!

Yu Xian kicked away the thin blanket and stormed out of the bedroom with a dark expression.

In the living room, a little girl of twelve or thirteen sat at a folding table. Her face was pale and sickly, her body so thin only her large eyes stood out. She wore twin ponytails, but the lively sparkle a child should have was absent from her dull eyes as she stared worriedly at the two lumps of black charcoal on her plate.

The future Asian pop diva, Su Xi.

Right now, however, she was just a pitiful child who couldn’t even get a decent breakfast.

“What are you trying to do?!”

Seeing Yu Xian charge out like a grim reaper, Su Wanyi reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. She instantly bristled and pulled Su Xi protectively behind her, her voice sharp.

“There’s not a single cent left in this house! We don’t have money to buy you alcohol!”

This man was a down-and-out extra she had picked up from a film set. Other than drinking and sleeping, he was useless.

If it weren’t for her daughter’s school registration, she would never have invited a wolf into her home.

Yu Xian ignored her completely, his gaze nailed to the plate of burnt eggs.

“You’re feeding a growing child this?”

He raised his head.

The look in his eyes didn’t resemble that of a man in his twenties at all. It was more like a superior being looking down upon ants.

Su Wanyi’s heart trembled under that gaze, but even greater humiliation and anger surged up immediately afterward.

Like a furious tigress, she roared: “I only earn eight hundred yuan a month filming! Do you think everyone can shamelessly live like a useless parasite the way you do? She should be grateful there’s food at all!”

Too lazy to argue, Yu Xian simply pushed her aside and strode straight toward the kitchen.

“Are you crazy?! Are you going to smash things?!” Su Wanyi’s face turned pale as she nearly lunged at him.

Bang!

The kitchen door slammed shut.

It’s over!

Su Wanyi trembled with rage, fists clenched tightly.

This drunkard definitely wanted to vent his anger on the kitchen because he had no money for alcohol!

Yet the expected sounds of smashing never came.

Instead—

A rhythmic chopping sound echoed out.

Tok-tok-tok-tok—

Rapid. Crisp. Every beat so precise it sounded like a machine performing music.

Su Wanyi froze.

That knife skill… even the old master chef on the film crew who claimed to cook state banquet cuisine didn’t seem this smooth.

Three minutes later—

Sizzle—!

The explosive sound of hot oil bursting rang out.

The next second, an overwhelmingly rich aroma burst violently through the kitchen door crack and instantly occupied the entire living room.

The fragrance seemed alive, drilling madly into their noses and awakening the most primal hunger.

Gulp.

Su Xi swallowed hard, sniffing desperately with her little nose, eyes wide open. Her chopsticks slipped from her hands and clattered onto the floor.

Su Wanyi was stunned as well. All the angry words she had prepared were blocked in her throat by that aroma, leaving behind only rapidly forming saliva.

How… how was this possible?!

Clunk.

The kitchen door opened.

Yu Xian walked out carrying two dishes, still wearing that half-dead expression of disdain, as though cooking had been an utterly disgusting task.

One dish was scrambled eggs with scallions.

The golden eggs were fluffy like clouds, dotted with vibrant green scallions. The fragrance of eggs and scallions intertwined into an invisible net that hooked the soul itself.

The other dish was stir-fried shredded potatoes.

Every strip had been cut into perfectly even threads, crystal clear and translucent. Bits of dried chili gave them an enticing touch of red, while the tangy aroma made one’s cheeks tighten in anticipation.

“Eat.”

Yu Xian placed the dishes heavily on the table, then served himself a bowl of porridge and began eating as though no one else existed.

He had simply been disgusted by Su Wanyi’s dark cuisine.

He only made extra because the broken wok in this house was too large to control portions properly.

As for this mother and daughter?

Whether they ate or not was none of his concern.

Su Xi stared longingly at the golden scrambled eggs, nervously clutching the corner of her clothes as she looked pleadingly at Su Wanyi.

Su Wanyi kept staring at Yu Xian, her eyes filled with vigilance and suspicion.

“Who… who exactly are you?”

Yu Xian picked up a bite of shredded potatoes.

Crunchy, sour, spicy—perfect in texture and flavor.

Finally, his brows relaxed slightly.

Hearing her question, he couldn’t even be bothered to raise his eyelids.

“Poisoned it. Eat it or don’t. If you won’t eat, I’ll dump it out for pigs.”

“I’ll eat!”

Su Xi finally couldn’t hold back anymore. She grabbed her chopsticks and stuffed a huge piece of egg into her mouth.

The little girl’s body instantly froze.

The next second, those once-dull eyes burst with dazzling light!

“Mmm—!!”

A muffled cry of happiness escaped her lips. She chewed rapidly, completely unwilling to speak, her chopsticks moving so fast they almost left afterimages.

It was too delicious!

She had never eaten eggs this good in her entire life! Soft, tender, fragrant, juicy!

Watching her daughter devour the food, the last of Su Wanyi’s defenses completely collapsed.

With trembling hands, she picked up a strand of shredded potato and placed it into her mouth.

The instant it touched her tongue, the ultimate combination of sourness, spiciness, crunch, and freshness surged through her like electricity, awakening taste buds that had long since gone numb!

This level of cooking—

Forget the film crew’s chef. Even a five-star hotel head chef couldn’t produce flavors like this!

This man… was definitely not some ordinary background actor!

All his previous misery, laziness, and alcoholism… it had all been an act!

A short while later—

The two plates were spotless, not even a single scallion piece left behind.

Holding her round little belly, Su Xi let out a satisfied burp, her eyes sparkling like stars as she looked at Yu Xian.

“Uncle Yu… a-are you the God of Cooking?”

“Tastes awful. Barely acceptable.”

Yu Xian wiped his mouth, returning to his salted-fish mode. Yawning, he shuffled back toward the bedroom.

“From now on, the kitchen’s mine. You buy the ingredients. Don’t let me see that garbage again. Ruins my mood for sleeping.”

Bang!

The bedroom door closed.

In the living room, Su Wanyi stared at the tightly shut door with an extremely complicated expression, waves crashing violently in her heart.

Barely acceptable?

This divine cooking was only “barely acceptable”?!

Who exactly was he?

Why would someone like him disguise himself as a useless bum and “marry” into her family for a mere five thousand yuan?

What was he after?

Alarm bells rang wildly in Su Wanyi’s mind.

This man was far too dangerous!

He had to be plotting something earth-shattering!

At that moment, Yu Xian’s annoyed muttering drifted out from the bedroom.

“So annoying… not even a decent set of fishing gear…”

“Need to get a few hundred yuan for a good rod first…”

Fishing?

Su Wanyi’s pupils contracted sharply.

This was definitely a code phrase!

“Fishing”… what kind of “big fish” was he trying to catch? Was he passing information to accomplices?!

Yu Xian: …

Evening.

Su Wanyi dragged her exhausted body home, her expression even uglier than it had been that morning.

At the film set, she had been publicly humiliated by an assistant director. Even a tiny extra role without dialogue had been snatched away from her. She hadn’t earned a single cent today.

At the dinner table, despite the shredded pork with green peppers and mapo tofu Yu Xian had cooked, she had no appetite at all.

“XiXi, isn’t your school having a parent-teacher meeting soon?” Su Wanyi asked heavily.

Su Xi’s body stiffened. She quietly answered with an “Mm,” lowering her head even further.

Su Wanyi sighed.

“Mom… probably won’t have time to go.”

But the real reason wasn’t lack of time.

Every time she attended a parent meeting, the looks from teachers and classmates toward the mother and daughter pair cut like knives.

Single-parent family.

Non-local household registration.

Children like Su Xi were always bullied at school.

Su Xi gripped her chopsticks tightly as her eyes slowly reddened.

“I’ll go.”

A lazy voice suddenly sounded.

Mother and daughter both looked up at the same time.

Yu Xian had apparently already finished eating and was now leaning against the doorframe, picking his teeth.

Su Wanyi instantly became wary.

“What are you trying to do?”

Yu Xian glanced at her, then at the little girl who looked on the verge of tears, feeling increasingly irritated.

All this crying was interfering with his thoughts about which reservoir he should go fishing at.

He just wanted to quickly solve this family’s messy problems so he could finally have some peace and quiet.

“On the household registration book, I’m her father. If I go to the parent meeting and shut those people up, what’s the problem?”

His tone sounded perfectly matter-of-fact, mixed with thick impatience.

“In the future, don’t talk about this kind of thing during meals. It affects my appetite.”

With that, he turned around and returned to the bedroom, leaving behind only his lazy silhouette.

In the living room, Su Xi lifted her head. Her reddened eyes carried a trace of unbelievable hope as she softly asked:

“Mom… will he… really go?”

Su Wanyi didn’t answer.

She only stared fixedly at the bedroom door, her heart pounding wildly.

The parent meeting?

He was finally making his move!

Using the parent meeting as an opportunity to approach XiXi’s school—

What exactly was his purpose in getting close to XiXi?!

The more she thought about it, the more terrified she became, and the more unfathomable this man seemed.

Ring ring ring—!

The shrill sound of the telephone suddenly exploded through the room, startling Su Wanyi badly.

She hurriedly picked up the phone, and a sharp, mean middle-aged woman’s voice came through the receiver.

“Su Wanyi! This is Su Xi’s homeroom teacher, Teacher Wang!”

“I’m informing you for the last time! Tomorrow’s parent meeting requires Su Xi’s father to attend! School regulations state that single-parent families need special supervision!”

The woman’s voice suddenly rose higher, filled with contempt.

“And another thing! The tuition fees have already been overdue for half a semester! If you still can’t pay in full tomorrow, don’t blame me for making Su Xi stand in the hallway during class in front of everyone! Let’s see whether she can continue studying at all—might as well just withdraw from school!”

Click.

The call ended.

Holding the receiver, Su Wanyi felt ice-cold all over, all color draining from her face.

Humiliation.

Anger.

Powerlessness.

They pierced into her heart like countless needles.

The bedroom door had somehow opened a crack.

Leaning against the doorway, Yu Xian showed little expression. He merely glanced calmly at the ashen-faced Su Wanyi, then at the old telephone.

Yawning, he spoke lazily, his voice still hoarse from sleep.

“So noisy.”

“It’s only a few hundred yuan in tuition.”

“Is it really such a big deal?”