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

I set up a stall in the gap in the clouds west of Nantianmen.

They sell spicy hot pot, grilled skewers, and stinky tofu.

The stall is also called "Anti-Ancient Cuisine".

The immortals who came and went only glanced at it and left, finding the smell too strong.

At the end of the day, the money collected from incense offerings wasn't even enough to buy two peaches.

Having spent all these years in Heaven, I've seen it all.

Erlang Shen's celestial dog came and carried the sausage away.

The Thunder God and Lightning Goddess argued and came to fight over a table.

Laozi's green ox stole some of the chili pepper strings I had drying by the stall.

But recently, something really weird happened to me, and it really sent chills down my spine.

The first time I noticed something was wrong was about ten days ago.

I set up my stall in the morning and opened the food box.

The half-pot of spicy hot pot broth left over from last night was completely devoid of oil.

The inner wall is so smooth it reflects light like a mirror.

I was delighted. Which fairy godmother helped me wash the dishes?

On second thought, what kind of fairy godmother would only eat swill?

I didn't take it seriously for the first few days.

The things that were lost later became increasingly outrageous.

That day, a pot of braised chicken feet was prepared, along with scraps obtained from the Peach Banquet, making it extremely precious.

By the next day, the whole pot was gone.

I squatted in front of the empty pot, my heart bleeding.

Later, all the prepared fresh side dishes and freshly steamed snacks were completely devoured.

If this continues, the stall will be robbed of everything sooner or later.

That night I deliberately left a bunch of bait and hid behind the cloud curtain.

I've made up my mind: even if I have to wait until the end of time, I'll find this thief tonight.

As night fell, the sounds of the heavenly soldiers' armor grew fainter in the distance.

The moonlight through the clouds was sliced ​​into pieces of silver by the wind, falling one by one onto the stall.

I hid behind the cloud curtain, and when my legs went numb, I switched to the other leg. When my feet went numb again, I sat down on the ground.

My eyelids felt as heavy as lead, so I pinched my thigh twenty times.

  

Just when they thought they were going to miss their target again, a rustling sound drifted over.

The cloud curtain was lifted a crack.

Under the moonlight, a figure moved closer to the stall.

She walked and stopped frequently, glancing to the left and right every two steps.

His neck was hunched, and his shoulders were held high.

The footsteps on the cloud bricks made no sound at all.

That kind of walking style has nothing to do with natural lightness. It's something you develop through practice.

It was after being repeatedly scolded to "be quiet" and "don't make a sound" somewhere that the body learned this on its own.

She touched the edge of the food box and squatted down.

He rested his hands on the lid for a while without moving.

I thought she was leaving.

She lifted the lid and grabbed a piece of osmanthus cake left over from last night.

The cake had hardened long ago, the edges were dry, and a thin crack appeared.

She paused for a moment, looking at the cracked cake in her hand.

Then he shoved it into his mouth, puffed out his cheeks, and chewed quickly and urgently.

He choked while chewing, bent over, and covered his mouth tightly with the back of his hand.

Under the moonlight, I saw her shoulders trembling.

"Now let's see where you run to."

I rushed out and grabbed her sleeve.

She shuddered violently, and the food slipped from her hands with a thud.

He turned his head hastily, and the moonlight shone right between his eyebrows and eyes.

My mind went blank.

I recognize this face.

I saw it from afar last year when I was delivering food for the Peach Banquet.

She was standing in the middle of a group of fairy maidens.

Everyone else was as slender as bamboo poles, but she alone had a face like a full moon, skin like solidified cream, and a plump figure.

His overall presence was like a full moon fallen into a pile of stars.

A little fairy maiden beside her whispered, "Look, that's the Fairy Taizhen, Yang Guifei in the mortal realm."

But the fairy Taizhen in front of me looked much thinner than when I saw her last year.

That kind of thinness has absolutely nothing to do with being good-looking. It's haggard and listless.

Her once full, moon-like cheeks became sunken.

The cheekbones pressed against the skin, turning the soft lines of the face into harsh angles.

That once voluptuous figure, which could have supported the grandeur of the Tang Dynasty, had shrunk to the size of a peony wilted by the rain.

My shoulders have narrowed, my waist has narrowed, and even my fingers have become thinner.

The knuckles protrude, as if they are pushing outwards from the flesh.

The fairy dress at the waist had clearly been altered; the stitching was rough, and it had been tucked in several inches.

The waistline was crooked, and in some places it was sewn twice, making it so tight that she couldn't breathe evenly.

I gripped her sleeve tightly for a long time.

She didn't struggle, nor did she look up.

Frozen, like a cat being gripped by the scruff of its neck.

A crumb of osmanthus cake still clung to the corner of his mouth, trembling with his rapid breathing.

The harsh words swirled in his throat three times before he swallowed them back.

I let go of her hand, pointed to the corner of my mouth, and turned my head away from her.

"Here, wipe it."

She hurriedly raised her hand to wipe it.

Only after wiping did I realize what I had done, and my face flushed instantly.

The redness spread from the cheekbones to the base of the ears, and finally even the neck turned red.

She kept her head down, twisting the hem of her clothes with both hands until her knuckles turned white.

After a long silence, she suddenly raised her hand again and repeatedly wiped the spot on her lips where she had just been.

It was as if they were afraid it wasn't completely clean yet.

"I say, fairy," I lowered my voice, "you are the Fairy Taizhen, residing in the Jade Terrace. A concubine of the Tang Dynasty, a woman of unparalleled beauty. How did you become so thin?"

She remained silent for a long time.

The clouds moved over, obscuring half of the moonlight.

Her face was half in the light and half in the shadows.

Then her voice came from behind her bangs, so softly it was as if she didn't want to disturb anything.

Do you also think I should lose weight?

I froze for a moment.

She didn't wait for my reply and continued talking.

Her voice was even softer than before, as if she were talking about something that had nothing to do with her.

"On my first day back in heaven, I went to a gathering of celestial maidens. I wore my favorite pomegranate-red dress in the mortal world, with golden peonies embroidered on the hem. In Chang'an, I wore it to perform the Rainbow Feather Dance. After the dance, the palace painters painted portraits of me based on my figure, and the portraits depicted me as a beauty of unparalleled grace. I thought it would be the same in heaven."

She paused for a moment.

My fingers unconsciously touched my waist.

"As soon as I walked in, everyone was looking at me. I thought they were amazed by the dress. Later I realized they were looking at the fat on my waist."

"Some people say that I must have been eating rice with lard every day during my tribulation, while others say that I am an eyesore in the celestial realm."

"The person who said these words spoke at a moderate volume, just loud enough for me to hear."

"In the mortal world, everyone says I am beautiful. The portraits of court ladies in the Tang Dynasty were painted based on my figure, and the result was that I was a beauty of unparalleled grace. But when I return to heaven, my appearance is wrong."

"Who says being plump is wrong?"

"Everyone."

She looked up, her eyes red-rimmed.

"At the Queen Mother of the West's Peach Banquet, I stood among a group of celestial maidens, and I was the only one who was wider than the others."

"Chang'e floated past me with a wine cup in her hand, her eyes lingering on my waist for half a second. Just half a second. I never wore that pomegranate-red skirt again after that."

Her voice choked up at this point, and it took her a long time to continue.

"Then I started to lose weight. I tried everything: Nezha's Universe Ring, He Xiangu's light meals, and Taibai Jinxing's elixir."

"Nezha's Universe Ring?" I frowned. "That thing weighs over a thousand pounds; it's a magic weapon used in battle."

He said he lost three pounds by spinning around.

"I put the ring around my waist, and he chanted incantations to make it spin. It didn't just spin once and stop; it kept spinning, getting tighter and tighter. My waist felt like it was going to break, my internal organs were all squeezed into my chest, and I couldn't breathe."

He was still counting laps beside me, one lap, two laps, three laps. I told him to stop, and he said to hang in there, it's almost over.

"Where's He Xiangu's lotus flower light snack?"

"On the third day, I started seeing stars. On the fifth night, I was so hungry I couldn't stand it anymore, so I stuffed all the fresh flowers offered in my bedchamber into my mouth and chewed them up. My mouth was full of bitterness, and I cried as I chewed."

Chewed flower petals are sticky and get stuck in your throat; you can't swallow them or spit them out.

"The elixir of immortality from Venus..."

She suddenly trembled and hugged her shoulders with both hands.

That action was completely different from before.

She covered her mouth earlier because she was afraid someone would hear her, and now she's hugging herself because she's afraid someone will get close.

fear.

His fingers dug into the fabric of his clothes on his shoulder, causing the fabric to wrinkle into a ball.

"After swallowing it, the bones felt like they were burning. It wasn't exactly hot, it was just burning."

"It felt like a fire was burning inside my bones, from my spine to my ribs, from my ribs to my finger bones, every bone was melting. I wanted to scream for help, but I couldn't."

"I curled up on the floor all night, thinking I was going to die. The floor was ice-cold, my back was pressed against it, my bones were burning, and my back was ice-cold. I felt like I was being split in two."

I didn't say anything.

The Qiankun Ring is an innate spiritual treasure used in battle.

The light meals contain addictive ingredients.

The elixir was made from evil medicinal materials.

These people don't want to help her lose weight, they want to kill her.

"So you were so hungry that you stole leftovers?"

She nodded and buried her face even deeper.

"Your leftovers are the most human-like food I've eaten in the past few months."

I sighed, bent down to pick up the broken piece of osmanthus cake from the ground, and threw it into the trash can.

The fragments hit the bottom of the bucket with a dry, hard sound.

Looking at the fairy Taizhen with her face buried in her knees, I couldn't quite describe the feeling in my heart.

The imperial concubine of the Tang Dynasty was a woman of unparalleled beauty.

Squatting in a corner of the South Heavenly Gate, he covered his mouth with the back of his hand, afraid that someone would hear the sound of him chewing.

"Stop crying. If you cry and get hungry, I won't have any leftovers for you."

I stood up and relit the fire on the stove.

Flames leaped up, reflecting off the spice jars beside the stove.

The shadows of those bottles and jars were cast onto the cloud bricks, some long and some short.

"Wait. Since you've ended up at my stall by some strange twist of fate, you're not going to eat leftovers."

"What are you going to do?"

I put on my apron.

The apron was made of coarse cloth, with worn-out edges and stains of chili oil and soy sauce.

I've washed it countless times but it still won't come off.

Those oil stains are not only dirt, but also a record of every dish I've made over the years.

Make something you need. Something that will fill you up.