1984: Starting from a bankrupt Sichuan restaurant

Chapter 1 Rebirth 1984
"I heard that the girl Zhou Yan rescued this morning is the niece of Deputy Factory Director Lin, who came to visit relatives. She's a city girl, and she's quite pretty."

"Nonsense! Zhou Erwa, who can't even swim, is trying to save people? This toad jumped off a cliff, does he want to be Batman?"

"Zhou Yan was doing well as an apprentice in the textile factory canteen, so why did he start his own restaurant? His mediocre cooking skills are terrible. The dishes he makes are either undercooked or not salty enough. He can't even stretch out his fried rice properly. He doesn't get more than three customers a day. I estimate he'll go out of business in three months."

“年轻人眼高手低，不晓得喝了谁的迷魂汤，欠一屁股债开这个餐馆，把一家子都带坑里去了，真要倒闭就只能去卖钩子了。”

"Is the news reliable? Zhou Yan is a well-known handsome young man in the surrounding area!"

“林二嫂你还真是……”

The stone bridgehead was practically the town's intelligence hub, where several middle-aged women chatted idly while washing clothes, indulging in both meat and vegetables.

Near the bridge, there's a stir-fry restaurant on the roadside with a sign that says "Zhou Erwa Restaurant," but the door is tightly closed, with only a little smoke puffing out of the chimney.

In the restaurant's kitchen, Zhou Yan was burning paper money in the stove. The words "last will and testament" stood out prominently in the firelight, illuminating his handsome face.

The laughter of the feisty older women drifted in from the half-open window from time to time, their bawdy jokes making one's ears burn.

But the old woman's judgment was spot on; Zhou Yan was definitely not cut out to be Batman. But he didn't jump off a cliff, he jumped into the Qingyi River.

The landlubber jumped into Bailatuo, but before he could even kick his legs twice, he was gone.

Z世代大好青年周砚一睁眼，便看到了一双藕白的手臂在面前浮浮沉沉，自己更是被呛了好几口水几乎喘不过气来。

Zhou Yan, who grew up by the sea, was known as the "White Streak in the Waves." Once she came to her senses, she immediately grabbed the arm and pulled the person out of the water. Then, she supported the person's head from behind and floated downstream to the shore, where she pulled the person ashore.

Then a group of people surrounded her and hurriedly carried the girl away.

One second Zhou Yan was worried about the impact of the Sino-US tariff war on his three-figure savings, and the next second he hit the jackpot and was brought back to 1984.

His mind was a mess, and he didn't even see how pretty the girl was. He only remembered that she was very fair and delicate, and that her screams were soft.

Of course, these are not important.

Following his memories back to the hotel, Zhou Yan spent half a day digesting all the memories belonging to the other 'Zhou Yan' in his mind and accepting the fact that he had transmigrated into a parallel world and into the body of a young man with the same name as him.

原主今年二十，在对面的嘉州丝绸厂食堂学厨两年半，两个月前因为和食堂王主任发生冲突给开除了。

This kid scraped together 868.52 yuan from his dad, and with his dad's 500 yuan savings, he took over the shop at the factory gate and opened a restaurant, vowing to bankrupt the factory canteen.

However, he did overestimate his culinary skills, and his business management was a complete mess. The factory canteen didn't go bankrupt, but his restaurant was really on the verge of collapse.

The borrowed money was all spent, the boasts he made became a joke, and yesterday he was even mocked by Director Wang. In two days, he would have to pay rent again. With such a low stress tolerance, Xiao Zhou drank all night, wrote a suicide note, and jumped into the Qingyi River at dawn.

Looking at the stack of IOUs in his hand, Zhou Yan resisted the urge to throw them into the stove and burn them. What the hell was this?
Zhou Yan, who grew up in an orphanage, is extremely fond of money; only money can give him a sense of security.

He has always lacked a sense of security.

Having worked countless part-time jobs since childhood, he ventured into the world of social media after entering university. With his humorous and sarcastic commentary style, coupled with his handsome looks, he became a well-known food blogger with millions of followers. He has saved up some money and is planning to open his first restaurant.

After finally turning their lives around, they were ruined until 1984, when they became poor again!

Zhou Yan: (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻

The good news is that a restaurant is available.

The bad news is that not only did they inherit a restaurant on the verge of bankruptcy, but they also ended up with a mountain of debt.

This amount of money would have been enough for a meal before he time-traveled.

可这是1984年，墙上挂着的手写菜单上：蒜泥白肉3角5分、咸烧白4角5分、回锅肉6角、东坡肘子1块2角……

The monthly salary of a full-time employee at the neighboring Jiaozhou Silk Factory is only 38.5 yuan.

Along with the IOU, there were also 3 yuan and 87 fen, two meat coupons, and three grain coupons.

Food bloggers fall into two categories:

One type is someone who is born with a knack for cooking, skilled at sharing cooking tips, thus winning the love and admiration of fans.

Another type of person is naturally gifted at finding fault with food, and can share food with precise reviews and exaggerated expressions, enticing fans to open those wicked pornographic apps in the middle of the night.

Unfortunately, Zhou Yan belongs to the latter category.

He doesn't have the ability to simply roll up his sleeves and show off his skills to revive this restaurant in a small town in southern Sichuan and make it a booming success.

However, the situation wasn't too bad. He shifted his gaze from the stove, and with a thought, a panel appeared in his field of vision:
[Player: Zhou Yan]

Occupation: Chef

[Wealth Points: -858.52]

[Professional Skills]:
Knife skills (intermediate): 8604/10000 (Your knife skills are sufficient for most dishes)

Cooking skill (beginner): 668/1000 (poor, needs more practice)

Seasoning (Beginner): 695/1000 (Please be gentle with the salt).

Eloquence (Advanced): 88888/100000 (Pig Arches the Curtain - All About Words) [Mastering the Dishes]:
Salted Pork Belly (Beginner): 26/1000 (Little brother went out for a walk, walking, bro.)

Twice-cooked pork (beginner): 55/1000 (The newly paved road is flat and has no pebbles)
Dongpo Pork Knuckle (Beginner): 12/1000 (Diligence can make up for lack of talent)
Cucumber Salad (Intermediate): 1871/10000 (Master Huang, you're so capable!)
……

Main Quest: Become a Master Chef! Become Famous Worldwide!

[New Player Task: Please bind your account to a restaurant. Task Reward: New Player Gift Pack.]

[Wealth Mall]: Unlocked when wealth value reaches 1000.

This is the player panel from the chef-raising game advertisement that Zhou Yan just accepted. The dedicated player even played it for two days, but unexpectedly, he was transported to another world along with it.

The data section shows his current true skill level and provides a comprehensive explanation of why Zhou Erwa's restaurant is facing closure.

His superb knife skills, coupled with his poor control of heat and seasoning, indicate that Xiao Zhou is merely a kitchen helper, not a chef.

Of the menus displayed on one wall, only the smashed cucumber dish was acceptable.

The cooking skills were truly appalling.

However, the evaluation style of this system is really sarcastic. Is it still customized?

Like Yan Zu, who was also present, Zhou Yan usually enjoyed reading online novels and was quite familiar with time travel and systems, which he readily accepted.

While watching, I angrily cursed: "It's the system again!"
When it lands on me: It smells so good!
1984年对周砚来说实在是太遥远了，没有滤镜，也没有回忆。

However, he has filmed many time-honored restaurants and interviewed many self-made restaurant owners. Making the stories behind the food the highlight of his videos is also one of his special features.

Opening a restaurant in the 1980s meant being among the first to try something new after the lifting of restrictions on the private economy; it was much better than toiling in the fields for a living.

Zhou Yan worked part-time as a waiter in a restaurant, then worked as a food blogger for four years, and spent half a year preparing to open a store. Apart from his lack of cooking skills, he basically had the ability to open a store.

And this system can just fill this gap in his knowledge.

Zhou Yan stood up and chose to bind.

[Ding! Zhou Erwa's restaurant account has been successfully linked. New player gift pack has been issued, please claim it!]

Zhou Yan used his consciousness to open the gift pack:

Dry-mixed ground beef noodles, Braised beef noodles, Spare rib noodles, Kimchi noodles

Four menu items popped up all at once.

Zhou Yan's eyes lit up. Three bowls of noodles with a side of kimchi? Was he being asked to turn his business into a noodle shop?

The richness of this newbie gift pack exceeded his expectations.

With a thought, he opened all four recipes at the same time. His mind went blank for a moment, as if a lot of things had been stuffed into his head, and he felt dizzy for a short time.

Soon, a look of joy appeared on Zhou Yan's face.

It wasn't four dry recipes, nor was it an online course video; it was knowledge directly entering his brain!
From dough preparation to noodle making, from beef processing to braised beef, from bone broth simmering to noodle seasoning, it's a complete set of experience, just like the memories he inherited from Xiao Zhou, vivid and without the slightest sense of incongruity.

Zhou Yan is a qualified food blogger, and he has inherited the basic cooking skills from Xiao Zhou. He can tell from the recipes in his mind that these three noodle dishes will not be bad.

He learned three methods of making noodles, but that wasn't all.

Looking at it from another angle, minced beef with double peppers is a perfect dish to eat with rice, braised beef with bamboo shoots is a classic Sichuan dish, and who can resist tender and fall-off-the-bone braised pork ribs?
Zhou Yan studied at university in Chengdu for four years and is a food blogger who started by filming Sichuan cuisine. He knows Sichuan cuisine very well.

Good noodle shops all have a skilled Sichuan cuisine chef in the kitchen.

When it comes to their love for noodles, Sichuan people are in no way inferior to northerners.

Here, everything can be used as a topping. He has eaten ginger duck noodles, pork intestine noodles, eel noodles, chicken giblet noodles, pork liver noodles, rabbit noodles... and the outrageous tofu pudding noodles.

One of the biggest problems with Zhou Erwa's restaurant was that it took too big a step, but Zhou Erwa didn't have the corresponding ability, which led to a complete disaster.

A guy who only knows how to smash cucumbers has created a menu of thirty or forty dishes for himself. The cost of preparing ingredients every day is enough to bankrupt this deserted restaurant.

Of course, a single dish of smashed cucumber can't support a restaurant.

The restaurant's monthly rent is 15 yuan, plus management fees and other expenses, which add up to 20 yuan.

This restaurant isn't exactly a hot commodity; if it fell into the hands of an ordinary person, it would be a hot potato.

Now that Zhou Yan has learned to cook three kinds of noodles and a refreshing and palate-cleansing kimchi dish, he has found a way to break the deadlock.

As he walked out of the kitchen, he ripped the handwritten menu off the wall and crumpled it into a ball.

Starting today, every new dish on Tuesday's restaurant menu will have to pass his approval first, without exception.

Starting tomorrow, I'll be selling noodles!

The rent is due in three days, so I need to earn the rent first.

(End of this chapter)