Mrs. Wilson was kicked out of the house by Mrs. Bennett.
Even as her car pulled out of the driveway, Mrs. Wilson was still winking frantically at Tang Ning, signaling her to give the offer serious consideration.
Trading a sweet sesame pie for a luxury apartment in downtown New York?
No matter how one looked at it, it sounded like nothing more than a joke.
Even if it were real, given Tang Ning's principles, she would never accept a gift whose value was so wildly disproportionate.
It wasn't a matter of feeling guilty.
It was because free lunches usually came with far greater hidden costs.
She had already learned that hard lesson deeply back in the Great Yin imperial palace.
Seeing Mrs. Bennett standing at the front door holding a broom, looking as if she feared Tang Ning might pack up and run away in the middle of the night, Tang Ning let out a helpless smile. "Please rest assured, Mrs. Bennett. I am very comfortable living here, and I will definitely not move out."
Mrs. Bennett blushed, dropped the broom, and pulled Tang Ning back into the house.
Although Tang Ning had no intention of leaving, that didn't mean she had no conditions. Now that the timing was right, it was the perfect opportunity to negotiate with Mrs. Bennett.
"Mrs. Bennett, whenever I am home in the future, may I use the kitchen like I did today? I can pay extra for the utilities and ingredients."
Mrs. Bennett stared with wide eyes. "What kind of nonsense are you talking about?!"
Seeing her displeasure, Tang Ning bit her lip, still wanting to push a bit further: "As you know, I am truly unaccustomed to the local food. To avoid falling sick again and causing you trouble..."
"No, no, no, Ning."
Mrs. Bennett interrupted her. "What I mean is, you can use the kitchen whenever you want without paying a single extra cent! You can use any ingredient in the fridge as you please. If you need anything restocked, just tell me directly, and I'll have Susan drive to 99 Ranch Market to buy it for you."
Tang Ning was completely thrown off by Mrs. Bennett’s 180-degree turn in attitude.
"That... wouldn't be very fair, would it?"
Mrs. Bennett shook her head, her face filled with eager hope. "I have only one request: whenever you make food, you must share a portion with Susan and I. How does that sound?"
When saying this, she had long thrown the strict ban forbidding Tang Ning from entering the kitchen a month ago to the absolute back of her mind.
She looked ready to move the entire 99 Ranch Market into her house just to eat the dishes Tang Ning cooked.
Tang Ning froze for a brief second, then burst into a warm, bright smile that revealed two sweet dimples.
"Of course I can."
For a chef, nothing brought greater joy than having their culinary craft so whole-heartedly recognized.
Tang Ning was in an exceptionally cheerful mood. After wishing Mrs. Bennett good night, she returned to her attic room and browsed on her phone for a while. She noticed that her previous Xiaohongshu post had received two likes, and a fellow user had left a comment praising how delicious her shredded chicken noodles looked.
She replied with a happy emoji, then uploaded photos of the mushroom and chicken savory pies, sweet sesame pies, and tomato egg soup she had made tonight.
Perhaps due to algorithm recommendations, more and more food videos began populating her homepage feed.
Having been an Imperial Chef, Tang Ning had spent her past life preparing royal banquet cuisine. In Mrs. Bennett's home, she lacked the setting to execute those lavish dishes, making her increasingly intrigued by these novel, modern recipes.
Perhaps because it was all Chinese cuisine sharing fundamental roots, or perhaps due to her extraordinary natural talent, she could grasp about seventy to eighty percent of any dish just by watching it once. The rest was simply down to her personal understanding of culinary craft.
She subtly refined elements that seemed unideal, noting them down into a collection of synthesized recipes, planning to try making them one by one in the future.
Just thinking about it made her hands itch to get cooking.
‘I shouldn't look any further. It's almost ten o'clock, and I have to go to class tomorrow to stare at the blackboard like an uneducated wild monkey again.’
Before falling asleep, Tang Ning checked her WeChat once more. Her cheap excuse of a father still hadn't replied to her message.
Maybe he hadn't seen it yet?
Given the time difference, the Tang family should have woken up long ago.
After a moment of hesitation, she dialed Tang Yanchang's number—no answer. She then dialed Ms. Wu Meilan's number,still no answer.
Tang Ning felt an ominous foreboding.
She leaped straight out of bed, nearly bumping her head against the slanted attic ceiling.
Finally, she dialed Tang Lin's number...
"We're sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service."
Tang Ning: "..."
What did that mean?
Was Tang Lin's number canceled, or had she blocked her?
Ding—ding—
A WeChat notification sounded. Tang Ning tapped open the message.
Wu Meilan: 【Ningning, the family company went bankrupt. Your father is busy trying to sell our properties to clear the debts and doesn't have time to answer your calls. Focus on your studies over there and don't worry about home.】
Wu Meilan: 【However, you'll likely have to cover your studying abroad expenses yourself from now on. This is all the money I have on me, and I'm giving it all to you. You must take good care of yourself.】
Wu Meilan: 【WeChat Red Packet】
Bankrupt?
So suddenly?!
There was no plot point like this in the storybook!
Her world felt as though it had gently crumbled in that single instant.
She wasn't shocked over the Tang family's bankruptcy.
Rather, starting from this very moment, she had to face a wildly brutal reality:
She was stranded in North America with zero living allowance!
She looked down at her phone, her fingers trembling as she tapped open the 200-yuan max red packet limit.
Received: 10,449 RMB.
Tang Ning: "..."
Still too ideal.
Converted to US dollars based on today's exchange rate, it came out to exactly 15 dollars.
Tang Ning: "..."
Added to the 10 dollars left on her, she couldn't even afford a plane ticket back home.
In other words, she was now a penniless pauper whose total net worth barely surpassed twenty-five bucks.
25 dollars.
Chopping her up into minced meat wouldn't even raise enough value.
Since things had come to this, complaining was useless.
She forced her brain to calm down rapidly, her slender white fingers swiping across her phone screen with lightning speed.
Tang Ning: 【Where are you going to live from now on?】
The second the message sent, it instantly turned into a bright red exclamation mark, accompanied by an exceptionally glaring line of text beneath it:
Message sent, but rejected by recipient.
Tang Ning: "?"
So.
Was she basically being exiled?
In the early morning, Susan woke up to a uniquely captivating aroma.
Having partied until midnight before coming home last night, she was woken up by the fragrance, so groggy she could barely keep her eyes open. Just as she was wondering where the scent came from, she suddenly remembered that her grandmother was learning how to make Chinese food for the poor little thing staying in their home.
She yanked off her sleep mask in annoyance.
Tang Ning was merely an exchange student living in their homestay; why was her grandmother constantly acting like her personal maid?
The thought made her thoroughly irritated. She rolled out of bed immediately, changed her clothes, and headed toward the kitchen.
The kitchen was open-concept. The closer she walked, the richer and more intense that unique aroma became.
At that moment, Tang Ning and Mrs. Bennett were sitting at the dining table having breakfast.
Looking at the reddish-brown noodles in their bowls, Susan knit her brows. "What are you eating?"
Tang Ning glanced up at her. Before she could respond through her translator, Mrs. Bennett spoke up first: "This delicious Chinese breakfast is called Scallion Oil Noodles."
Susan instantly flared up in anger: "Grandma! You actually ordered Chinese takeout for her?!"
There were no Chinese restaurants anywhere near their neighborhood. If someone wanted Chinese food, they had to take a bus or drive for over ten minutes downtown. Unless they ordered delivery—but delivery prices were outrageously expensive.
It was definitely not an expense a homestay host should be footing.
Yet Mrs. Bennett merely shot her a cool glance. "Don't be naive. How could takeout ever taste this heavenly? That stuff doesn't contain magic; it only contains weed."
Susan: "?"
What magic? What weed?!
"Stop lying to me! If it's not takeout, how could Chinese noodles suddenly appear in our kitchen?"
She refused to believe her grandmother could learn how to make authentic noodles in a single day.
Mrs. Bennett said calmly, "Of course Ning made them herself."
"What?" Susan had an expression of sheer disbelief. "Are you kidding me? She's as frail and skinny as a malnourished lamb on a farm..."
Before she could finish her sentence, she saw Tang Ning finish the noodles in her bowl and walk into the kitchen.
Tang Ning turned on the stove to boil water, washed her hands, and uncovered a dough ball resting beneath a white cloth on the counter. Dusting a thin layer of flour over it, she rolled it flat, folded it, sliced it into strips, and stretched the dough between her fingers—slapping it against the board a few times with practiced rhythm until uniform, smooth noodles took shape.
Susan: "...?"
Tossing the noodles into the pot of boiling water, Tang Ning pulled a bowl from the cabinet. Once cooked, she scooped them out, shocked them in cold water, and opened another steaming pot on the side.
The moment the lid was lifted, the exact same enticing aroma that had awakened Susan burst forth, sweeping through the entire room.
Tang Ning ladled a scoop of dark, rich sauce,resembling a witch's mysterious brew,out of the pot and drizzled it over the noodles. Tossing them evenly with chopsticks, she placed the finished bowl on the dining table.
"Please enjoy your meal. I'm heading off to school first."
Tang Ning knew Susan didn't like her, so she wasn't about to press her face against a cold shoulder, but she still adhered to her agreement regarding kitchen rules.
With that, she grabbed her backpack and walked out the door.
In Susan's eyes, however, Tang Ning was blatantly ignoring her. The appetite that had been stirred up by that rich, irresistible aroma was instantly smothered in her stomach out of spite.
"Susan, why are you just standing there?" Mrs. Bennett called out to her granddaughter. "Come and try it! Ning said it tastes best while it's piping hot."
Susan turned and walked toward the kitchen. "I'm not eating her breakfast. It's all yellow and black—it looks absolutely hideous."
Mrs. Bennett: "..."
If this could be considered unappetizing, she was seriously going to suspect whether Susan was doing drugs behind her back, to the point of losing both her sense of smell and taste.
"Grandma, do we still have any of that delicious pizza-bread left in the fridge?"
Susan buried her head in the fridge, rummaging through the shelves.
When she came home starving last night, she had initially intended to make a bowl of oatmeal. But when she opened the fridge for milk, she discovered a few pastries that looked neither like pizza nor bread. They smelled amazing, so leaning against the fridge door, she took a few bites.
With a single bite, the flavor was so out-of-this-world delicious she almost screamed!
She had never tasted such sensational pizza-bread in her entire life, devouring four pieces straight in a single go!
"What pizza-bread?" Mrs. Bennett asked.
"You know, that bread is stuffed with filling! There was one with chicken and mushrooms, and another sweet one filled with crispy sesame sugar. It was cold, crunchy, and incredible!"
Mrs. Bennett: "..."
"So that's where they went. I wondered why they vanished, it turned out you ate them all."
Susan turned around, a look of deep disappointment on her face. "Are there no more? Where did you buy them? I can drive out right now to get more! That was hands down the best thing I've ever eaten; I've never had such a unique pizza-bread before."
Mrs. Bennett stared at her with a thoroughly complex expression.
Susan: "?"
"What's wrong, Grandma?"
"That wasn't pizza-bread."
"What?"
Mrs. Bennett smiled faintly. "Those were the Wild Mushroom & Chicken Savory Pies and Sweet Sesame Pies that Ning made."
Susan: "..."
‘H-How on earth is that possible?!’
Mrs. Bennett looked at her with a helpless sigh. "Stop throwing childish tantrums. Come try these noodles Ning made,they taste even better than the pies."
Susan wanted to decline out of pride. She refused to believe Tang Ning could cook such delicious food. But the second she recalled the divine taste of those "pizza-breads," saliva started flooding her mouth uncontrollably. Glancing back at the bowl of hot, steaming noodles on the table...
Though they still looked unfamiliar, the overpowering, rich scent of fried scallion oil kept wafting into her high-bridged nose. As if possessed, she slid into a chair at the dining table.
Fine.
‘Since Grandma insists on it, I'll see for myself whether she's just exaggerating!’
Susan picked up a fork, twirled a few strands of noodles, and popped them into her mouth.
The noodles were cooked to springy, silky perfection,each strand distinct, bearing a delightful, toothsome bounce. They were not only coated in a luscious, savory sauce, but also infused with a rich, velvety aromatic oil. Biting into a piece of crispy, caramelized scallion delivered a satisfying crunch,an explosion of texture that felt like fireworks going off on her tastebuds. The rich, savory-sweet umami flavor melted across her tongue, releasing a burst of toasted fragrance that shot straight to her head.
Susan: "!""Oh, my God..."
What kind of absolute garbage had she been eating for the past twenty years of her life?!
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