Royal Chef Transmigrated into the Real Daughter - CHAPTER 6

 

Chapter 6: The Hole-in-the-Wall Eatery

After a grueling fifty-minute lecture, Tang Ning felt completely drained, the spark in her eyes extinguished.

The school dining hall wasn't short on server positions, nor did it lack cooks. As for trying to find a server job in the nearby streets, her English was far too poor, there was virtually no chance she would be hired.

Other kinds of work were even further out of the question.

After weighing her options over and over, the only skill that could actually keep her alive was cooking.

With all her afternoon classes finished, she planned to spend what little money she had left to take the subway to Chinatown and try her luck.

Lost in her thoughts, she accidentally bumped into someone the moment she stepped out of the classroom door.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you alright?"

Tang Ning quickly stepped back out of the person's arms, checking to see if they were hurt. "Oh—it's you?"

Lily was a full head taller than Tang Ning and twice her size. Bumping into her barely registered as a scratch. In fact, when Tang Ning collided with her, she had bounced right off her soft body. If Lily hadn't caught her, Tang Ning might have sent herself flying backward.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't dodge out of the way in time! Are you hurt?"

"It's not that dramatic! I'm not made of paper," Tang Ning waved a hand dismissively. "What are you doing here?"

Lily raised a plump finger and pointed at the classroom. "I'm in Professor Thomas's class, too."

Tang Ning blinked in confusion. "Wait... you're saying you're a marketing major, too?"

Lily nodded.

Tang Ning asked, "What... What year are you?"

"I'm a freshman."

"And what's your name?"

"Lily Kaye."

Tang Ning was left speechless.

Like all universities in the United States, Harston University had no concept of set homeroom classes. Socializing among students relied entirely on group projects, campus clubs, and dorm circles.

Because of this, a month into the semester, Tang Ning—who didn't belong to any clubs and didn't live on campus was essentially unfamiliar with all her classmates.

She could, however, recognize a few distinct, familiar faces.

Yet looking at Lily,with her slightly curly auburn hair, looking as adorable as a giant, fluffy lop-eared rabbit logic dictated that Tang Ning should have had some impression of her. But it felt as though she was seeing her for the very first time.

Recalling how she hadn't noticed Lily right away back in the student lounge either, it suddenly made sense.

What a truly astonishing lack of presence.

"My name is Tang Ning. You can just call me Ning. It's nice to meet you, Lily."

Tang Ning warmly extended a hand toward Lily, but Lily froze completely. Her eyes widened, staring at Tang Ning in absolute shock.

Tang Ning had no idea what was going on. Seeing Lily's reaction, she almost wondered if shaking hands was illegal in the United States. Just as she was about to pull her hand back, the tips of her fingers were gently pinched by two soft, round fingers delicate and cautious, as if afraid of hurting her.

"I'm very glad to meet you too, Ning. You're the first friend who has ever been willing to shake my hand."

Lily spoke in a very quiet, soft voice.

The translator didn't catch it, but Tang Ning understood.

She smiled. "You're the first friend to shake my hand, too."

In her original era, people didn't shake hands,  they usually cupped their hands in a respectful bow. Tang Ning had only learned this modern social etiquette from watching TV dramas.

"That's wonderful! Lily, you made a new friend!"

Suddenly, a girl with the exact same auburn hair as Lily popped up, looking eagerly at Tang Ning. "Hey, Kung Fu Girl! Remember me? We met at the Student Service Center. I'm Lily's older sister, Lisa Kaye. I'm an academic counselor."

Tang Ning paused for a moment, clearly caught off guard by the fact that they were sisters.

What a coincidence.

"Hello, Lisa."

"By the way, thank you for the rice ball at noon! I've never eaten sticky rice balls that were so delicious! Did you make it yourself?"

"Yes. I'm glad you liked it."

"Awesome! So, does that mean you agree to come be the head chef at our restaurant?!"

Tang Ning was bewildered.

‘What restaurant?

What head chef?

When did I ever agree to that?’

Seeing Tang Ning's bewildered expression, Lisa turned to look at Lily. "Haven't you told her yet?"

Lily shook her head innocently.

"Looks like I got ahead of myself," Lisa gave Tang Ning an apologetic smile.

She then went on to explain, "My family runs a Chinese restaurant. It's located at 28 Berry Road, just two blocks from campus. But because my dad's cooking is so terrible, the restaurant makes no revenue at all, and it's on the verge of closing."

"I originally wanted to apply for a job in the school cafeteria on my dad's behalf, but after witnessing Johnny's humiliating scene firsthand, I doubt he'll let that opportunity fall into my hands. I was feeling completely discouraged, until Lily told me you gave her a delicious rice ball!"

"I remembered you mentioning at the service center that you were looking for a job as a cook."

"So, I wanted to invite you to work at our family's restaurant. What do you think?"

Tang Ning gave the two sisters a hesitant glance.

"A Chinese restaurant?"

"That's right!"

Tang Ning went silent.

It wasn't that she was overthinking things.

The two sisters had faces paler than the next, practically glowing in the sunlight. Paired with high nose bridges and light brown eyes, they were the absolute picture of typical Americans.

They ran a Chinese restaurant?

It lacked any shred of credibility.

‘They aren't scammers, are they?!’

...

Fifteen minutes later.

Lisa's compact car drove out of campus with Tang Ning and Lily inside, turning into an isolated, rarely frequented commercial street.

The street featured plenty of pizzerias, burger joints, steak houses, and even coffee shops and bars, but visitors were few and far between.

‘Maybe it's just because it's three-thirty on a Thursday afternoon,’ Tang Ning comforted herself.

After parking, the three of them stepped out of the car. Lisa and Lily headed toward a dark, deep alleyway. Tang Ning looked up and noticed a row of weathered, beaten-up old shoes hanging from the utility pole overhead.

‘Umm...

Is it too late to run away now?’

As if sensing Tang Ning's hesitation, Lisa turned back to explain, "Don't worry, Ning. Those shoes weren't put up there by drug dealers or gangs. It's just a ritual for graduating college students. This street is very safe."

Just as the words left her mouth, a Black guy wearing a green baseball cap darted out of nowhere. He slid right up to Tang Ning, rubbing his chocolate-colored fingers together, and said conspiratorially, "Wanna buy some stuff?"

Tang Ning was speechless.

She silently turned her head to look at Lisa.

‘Is this Safe?’

Lisa instantly leaped forward, kicking the guy right in the butt.

"Mading! If you dare scare my friend again, don't even dream about free meals at my house ever again!"

"Just a joke, sweetheart, don't take it so seriously!"

The guy flashed a bright white smile, raised his hands in surrender, and then casually walked back to a delivery van, driving off in a cloud of dust.

Lisa rolled her eyes and said to Tang Ning, "He's the delivery driver for the grocery store next door. He's not a bad guy, just a bit of a jerk who likes scaring girls. You can just ignore him."

So that was it.

Tang Ning nodded and caught up with their footsteps.

Passing by an abandoned sofa, she nonchalantly pulled a steel pipe out from it and tucked it up her sleeve. Together, the three of them arrived at the innermost spot of the street.

"We're here! This is my family's restaurant."

An ultra-modern floor-to-ceiling glass window, white walls covered in graffiti, a wooden door made of tree bark, a pitch-black sign, colorful ambient lighting, and gold-foiled letters that spelled out three Chinese characters that felt both warmly familiar and utterly foreign:

醉仙樓 (Zui Xian Lou / Drunken Immortal Pavilion)

Tang Ning's gaze lingered on the sign for a long time, unable to snap out of it. An overwhelming sense of absurd incongruity welled up inside her.

Stepping inside, the restaurant was less than eighty square meters, offering an immediate view of the kitchen. The door curtain was made of dark blue tie-dyed cloth, stamped with a massive, greasy handprint. The tables, chairs, and benches in the dining hall were all wooden, polished to a shiny finish as if coated in decades of patina.

If one were to ignore Jerry and Lu Bu racing around under the tables, the overall place actually had a bit of an authentic vibe reminiscent of an old town restaurant back home.

Yet, Tang Ning felt like fainting.

If this were back in the Imperial Palace and the Imperial Kitchen were this filthy, the eunuchs responsible for sweeping and cleaning would have been dragged out and executed!

"Dad?"

At the call, a middle-aged man wearing an apron walked out of the kitchen. He was covered in dust, looking like a giant Totoro.

Lisa stepped forward to introduce Tang Ning and explain the situation.

After listening, the man looked at Tang Ning in disbelief. "Are you kidding me? She looks... like an underage high school student. How could she possibly be a chef?"

"Daiwei, how can you judge a book by its cover?!" Lisa addressed him by his first name, voicing her strong disapproval.

"Lisa, I know you mean well, but you don't need to persuade me anymore. I'm going to close the restaurant down."

"The Food Inspection Bureau came by at noon and issued a massive fine, requiring me to overhaul the restaurant's hygiene, or else they won't let me stay open. Since we don't have any revenue anyway, I don't plan on fixing it up. I'll just sell the restaurant directly to pay for Lily's future tuition."

When Daiwei was young, he had studied abroad in China, where the local cuisine left an indelible impression on him.

After graduating and entering the workforce, he joined a multinational corporation, traveling back and forth between China and the US. Over time, he became a hardcore fan of Chinese food. Once Lisa graduated and started working, his financial pressure lightened, so he resolutely gave up his profession and went to a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown to apprentice. In just one short year, he graduated from his apprenticeship.

His dream was to open a restaurant of his own and serve delicious Chinese food so that Americans could taste such wonderful flavors, too.

However, things didn't go as planned.

The restaurant had been open for less than three months, and business dwindled day by day. In the end, not even takeout orders came in.

Daiwei looked around at his life's work, covering his face in agony.

It was obvious how desperately reluctant he was to let it go.

"Since she's your friend, I can't let her leave empty-handed. I'll go into the back kitchen and fry up a bowl of rice for her."

With that, Daiwei turned to walk back into the kitchen.

"Wait a moment."

Tang Ning stepped in front of Daiwei and opened her translator. "May I ask you a few questions?"

Daiwei didn't know what she was up to. He looked at Lisa, then had his arm tugged by his younger daughter, Lily, before finally looking at this extremely young Chinese girl. "Of course."

"Why did you choose to open your restaurant in such a remote location? Is it because the rent is cheap?"

"Of course not," Daiwei replied, mixing a couple of broken Chinese phrases into his English. "You have an ancient saying in China: 'Good wine needs no bush'—or as you say, 'The aroma of wine fears no deep alley.' I searched through several neighborhoods just to finally find a small alley that was so 'fathomless and deep'."

Tang Ning was left speechless.

Is that how "fathomless" is supposed to be used?!

‘And isn't the whole point of "The aroma of wine fears no deep alley" supposed to be the aroma of the wine?!’

‘What sane person specifically looks for a godforsaken middle-of-nowhere spot to open a store?!’

Tang Ning unconsciously turned to look at the quiet Lily, her eyes clearly communicating: ‘Aren't you a marketing major? Why didn't you tell your dad such a fundamental truth?’

Lily understood in a split second and defended herself softly: "I'm a freshman."

Tang Ning was silenced.

Fine.

"Second question."

She rubbed the space between her eyebrows. "Did you not hire servers or cleaners? You can see the filthy tables and chairs right through the window from outside. Customers won't be willing to step into a restaurant like this."

David frowned slightly. "Aren't you Chinese? How come you don't even understand this?"

Tang Ning had a question mark over her head.

David explained, "The most delicious food is always found in 'fly-head eateries' those rustic, hole-in-the-wall joints! I specifically spent top dollar to hunt down these wooden tables and chairs from secondhand markets. If they didn't have that thick, greasy patina, I wouldn't even have wanted them!"

Tang Ning couldn't believe her ears.

‘No, seriously.

What kind of bizarre misconception did he have about hole-in-the-wall eateries?!’

If she hadn't beaten Johnny up at the Student Service Center, indirectly causing Lisa to lose the chance to apply for a cafeteria stall she would never have come to a place like this to look for a job!

Granted, part of it was because she was at the end of her rope and wanted to take a gamble.

But seeing the scene before her, all she wanted was to land two hard punches on whoever had brainwashed David with such absurd ideas.

Tang Ning took a deep breath, lifted the door curtain directly, and stepped into the kitchen.

Fortunately, the kitchen itself was clean.

Seeing this, David tried to stop her. "Hey, Chinese girl, how can you just walk into a restaurant's back kitchen like that?"

Lisa had originally thought that upon seeing how terrible the restaurant was, Tang Ning would turn around and walk away. Just as Lisa was feeling utterly disheartened, she saw Tang Ning walk into the kitchen without a word. Instantly understanding what was happening, Lisa grabbed her father.

"Dad, I suggest you don't go in there and disturb her. She knows Chinese Kung Fu."

"..."

"Besides that, she is an incredible chef!"

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