Celestial Food Stall: I Set Up a Food Stall in Heaven

The flames on the bluestone stove gradually died down, and the warm yellow light flickered in the evening breeze, casting the three people's shadows on the wall in a distorted and intertwined manner.

The aroma of charred steak hadn't yet dissipated when a chilling sensation crept in, sending shivers down one's spine.

Meng Po was cornered against the wall.

Her pale face was frighteningly white, and the chill emanating from her body almost solidified into icicles.

She gripped her skirt tightly, her knuckles turning white. Her eyes darted back and forth between me and the Matchmaker, as if she were looking at two madmen.

"Chang Baiwei, are you really going to get involved?"

Her voice was as cold as a stone pulled from the bottom of the River of Oblivion.

"The recipe for Meng Po's Soup is an ironclad law of the underworld. It requires eight tears as a catalyst; even the slightest deviation will not only ignite the pot, but also ignite the emotional tribulations of the three realms!"

"Can you handle the responsibility?"

The Matchmaker had long since run out of options.

He took a step forward, straightening his hunched back, and stood between me and Meng Po.

He bowed deeply: "Miss Meng, all the blame lies with me for being blind and naive back then! Punish me if you must, don't implicate the shopkeeper. I'd rather my soul be scattered than see another pair of unhappy couples like you and me in this world!"

These words were like a needle, piercing through Meng Po's malevolent aura.

She looked up at the sky.

There, the sea of ​​clouds stretches endlessly.

But what she saw reflected in her eyes were clearly the lovesick men and women in the myriad lights of the mortal world.

She has guarded this bridge for a thousand years, seeing countless souls depart, and this is the one thing she can't bear to see most.

After a long while, a crack appeared in the frost in her eyes.

"If the foundation is destroyed, I will not let it go."

She gritted her teeth and squeezed out those words.

After saying that, she raised her hand and gently wiped the corner of her eye with her fingertips.

A crystal-clear teardrop slowly rolled down.

The teardrop hung in mid-air, shimmering with a faint, luminous white halo, surrounded by wisps of the fragrance of spider lilies.

It looked as pure as a clear spring, but my eyes, accustomed to the hustle and bustle of the world, could clearly see that deep within that halo lay an unyielding, rich tapestry of colors.

The teardrop fell into the white porcelain bowl in my palm without making a sound, yet it made my wrist tremble slightly.

The Old Man of the Moon held his breath, and Meng Po stared intently at the bowl, her eyes filled with complex emotions.

I took a deep breath, and gently dipped my fingertip into the bowl to touch the drop of Meng Po's tear.

boom!

  

In an instant, a tremendous suction force rushed from his fingertips straight to the top of his head.

What lay before me was no longer a food stall, but a vast expanse of sand and dust.

The first level is suffering.

Those are mountains of white bones piled up at the foot of the Great Wall.

It's the metallic sweetness that rises in your throat after you've cried all your tears.

This bitterness is extremely domineering, carrying a thousand years of resentment, like a rusty, dull knife, sawing away at the soul again and again.

That was Meng Jiangnu's indictment of her fate—blaming heaven, blaming earth, blaming this damned separation.

Then, amidst the bitterness, a hint of sweetness emerged.

The second layer is sweetness.

That was the heart-pounding moment when I first met Wan Xiliang; it was the warmth of sharing a hot steamed bun on a cold night.

This sweetness is extremely faint, yet incredibly resilient, like a broken and reconnected red thread, tightly entwined within the deepest part of the bitterness.

Even if I've hated her for a thousand years, even if I've become Meng Po (the goddess of forgetfulness in Chinese mythology

The softest spot in her heart still holds a place for that man.

However, just when I thought that was all, a nauseating, rotten smell suddenly emerged from the gap between the sweet and bitter tastes.

The third element is its fishy smell.

The smell was extremely faint, yet it sent chills down your spine.

It wasn't as turbulent as the previous two emotions, but rather like some kind of old, moldy foot binding.

It was like an invisible mountain pressing down on my chest.

In that place where the fishy smell was strongest, a scene suddenly flashed before my eyes:

In the spring garden, Meng Jiangnu was reaching out to retrieve a fan that had fallen into the water.

That section of arm, originally as white as snow, was now exposed to the air without any cover.

Under the willow tree not far away, Fan Xiliang's eyes were fixed on the severed arm.

There was no allure, no excitement, only a chilling scrutiny.

That nauseating, fishy smell emanated from this arm, which was being relentlessly scrutinized by feudal ethics.

It is because "to have one's clothes or sleeves exposed is to be considered a loss of chastity".

That one glance sealed her fate, plunging her into an abyss of no return.

I suddenly opened my eyes, my forehead already covered in a fine layer of cold sweat.

I looked at the Old Man of the Moon, who was completely astonished, and Meng Po, who looked utterly bewildered.

His voice was a little hoarse, but every word was firm and resolute: "This tear is not right."

"Besides resentment and love, there is a third thing hidden here," I said slowly, staring into Meng Po's eyes.

"Something that you were kept in the dark about, yet it truly ruined your life."

Meng Po shuddered, staring incredulously at the seemingly pure tear in the bowl, her eyes filled with bewilderment.

"That's... the taste of how the rigid social norms can devour people," I said softly.

Meng Po stood frozen in place, her cold eyes fixed on the white jade bowl, her whole body radiating disbelief and bewilderment.

She guarded this tear of sorrow for a thousand years, believing she had tasted all the love, hate, and resentment within it.

She never imagined that beneath those layers of bitterness lay a festering sore that she dared not even look at.

"I...I only hate my bad luck, I only hate that you made the wrong choice..." she murmured to herself, her voice as light as dust in the wind.

Millennia of understanding collapsed at this moment, and her originally straight back hunched slightly.

Even the Old Man of the Moon was stunned. His hand, holding the red thread, hovered in mid-air, his fingertips trembling slightly.

He had been in charge of marriage for a thousand years, but he only thought that he was bound by the laws of heaven and had his hands and feet tied by the rules of heaven.

But looking back now, how many of those red threads he cut with his own hands weren't against the rules of heaven, but rather because he felt they were "not a good match"?

He looked down at his hands and suddenly felt that they were very dirty.

No one spoke.

The fire in the stove dimmed, leaving only a ring of pale blue flames licking the bottom of the pot.

Meng Po stood there, her back hunched, staring at the tear in the bowl, as if seeing what it looked like for the first time.

I didn't rush her.

The knowledge accumulated over thousands of years cannot be digested in a single sentence.

After a long time, she raised her head.

The bewilderment in his eyes hadn't faded, but the bone-chilling coldness seemed to have melted away.

She didn't look at the God of Love, nor at me, but spoke in a hoarse voice, as if talking to herself: "So all these years... I hated the wrong person?"

These words aren't harsh. They're so light they sound like a question posed to oneself.

But when the Old Man of the Moon heard this, his shoulders trembled violently, his lips quivered, and he couldn't utter a single word.

Meng Po shifted her gaze from the teardrop and slowly turned to the stove.

Her eyes were still unfocused, but there was something more in that unfocused look.

It's not about letting go; letting go was too early.

It is loose.

Like someone who has clenched their fist for a thousand years, finally loosening their fingers a crack.

"Make soup," she said.

It was neither an order to me nor a compromise with the God of Marriage.

It was her own decision.

I glanced at her, nodded, picked up the white jade porcelain bowl filled with Meng Po's tears, and walked towards the bluestone stove.

With a flick of his wrist, the seven kinds of tears he had prepared beforehand—tears of birth, tears of old age, tears of bitterness, tears of regret, tears of longing, tears of illness, and tears of parting—were all poured into the bowl.

Finally, I grabbed a handful of bright red spider lily petals from the side of the Bridge of Helplessness and sprinkled them into the soup.

"Old Man of the Moon, may I lend you a wisp of the flame of destiny for marriage?"

The Old Man of the Moon dared not delay, and with a flicker of pale red celestial fire at his fingertips, he sent it to the stove.

The originally flickering warm yellow flames were instantly tinged with a warm red, tightly enveloping the porcelain bowl.

As the broth boiled under the heat, the originally clear liquid became translucent and emitted an enticing aroma.

"It smells so good... This is the real Meng Po soup." Meng Po subconsciously took a deep breath, and the anxiety in her eyes dissipated considerably.

In her view, this bowl of clear, watery soup is the authentic way to drink soup and the best medicine to cure all worries.

"Authentic? That stuff only makes people stupid."

I gave a cold laugh, my eyes suddenly turning sharp.

"Look closely, this is what this soup should look like."

Before I could finish speaking, the aura around me suddenly changed. A hazy, gloomy aura surged from my body and instantly enveloped the stove.

That wasn't celestial energy, nor demonic energy, but rather a misfortune that everyone wanted to avoid at all costs.

"What...what are you doing?!"

Meng Po felt the nauseating, ominous aura, her face changed drastically, and she retreated in shock.

"Don't back away." I said without turning my head. "Didn't you want to see clearly? Then look carefully."

Meng Po paused in her steps.

She hesitated for a moment, then took half a step forward without retreating.

Just half a step.

That was the moment when her recipe, which she had guarded for a thousand years, was tampered with right in front of her, and she chose to approach rather than stay away.

Ignoring everything else, I made a hand seal with my fingertips, condensing this bad luck into an extremely thin gray thread, and then plunged it into the boiling soup!

It's sizzling!

The originally clear and bright soup turned into something like a bucket of dirty water the moment the gray line entered the body.

The clear soup churned violently, and the originally enticing aroma vanished instantly, replaced by a murky, muddy smell.

The bright luster quickly faded, and the broth became increasingly thick.

It grew increasingly murky, eventually turning into a bowl of grayish-brown muddy soup that looked utterly disgusting!

"Stop! You're ruining my soup!" Meng Po finally couldn't hold back anymore and screamed.

She had guarded this thing for a thousand years, watching her soup turn into a pot of mud, and instinct still overcame reason.

The flame of fate in the Old Man of the Moon's hand flickered violently, almost going out.

He hurriedly steadied his fingertips, and another layer of sweat seeped from his forehead.

"Keep your temper in check! Don't move!" I shouted sharply, staring intently at the murky mud in the bowl.

Stirred by the threads of misfortune, a faint yet stubborn dark aura was being forcibly peeled away from the depths of the muddy soup.

That was Meng Po's subconscious fear and hatred of feudal ethics.

It clings to the bottom of the soup like a parasite; if it is not completely removed, the Old Man of the Moon will surely die if he drinks it.

Misfortune is the bane of such hypocritical, cannibalistic rules.

The gray thread tightly bound the wisp of black energy and suddenly pulled it upwards!

boom!

The moment the wisp of black smoke left the soup, it was instantly ignited by the love fire under the stove, turning into a wisp of green smoke that dissipated into the air.

Meng Po watched the wisp of green smoke rise and dissipate in the night wind, and suddenly fell silent.

The scream got stuck in his throat, and he didn't make a sound.

She stared in the direction where the wisp of smoke disappeared, her lips moving slightly.

"This is it." Her voice was dry, but unusually firm.

"This is what's been hidden at the bottom of my soup for a thousand years..."

She recognized him.

She didn't find out from others; she figured it out herself.

Every time she cooks soup at the bridgehead, a very thin layer of oil film, invisible to others, always floats on the surface of the soup.

She thought it was because the water of the River of Oblivion was not clean.

Now she knows what it is.

As this obsession was withdrawn, the murky soup in the bowl miraculously calmed down.

It was no longer clear; it still looked like a bowl of inconspicuous muddy water.

The suffocating chill had vanished, replaced by a rich, gentle warmth, carrying the bittersweet flavors of life.

I slowly retracted the threads of misfortune, dispelling the unlucky aura emanating from my body, and let out a long sigh of relief.