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

The moment Venus bowed, even the sound of breathing ceased in the hall.

He bent over, maintaining the bowing posture, and remained motionless.

This inaction means that one dares not move.

The ink-written characters still hung in mid-air, and the crooked confession above his son's head had not yet dissipated, each character emitting a dim, dark light.

The light made his brand-new brocade robe on his back look like a document filled with accusations.

He bowed for a long time, so long that Wenchang Xingjun finally put down his wine cup, which clattered on the table with a very crisp sound.

"Li Changgeng." Wenchang Xingjun did not call him "Old Man Taibai" or "Old Master".

He called him by his real name, his tone devoid of anger, only filled with a deep weariness, "Is what this boy said true?"

Venus straightened up. The benevolent look on his face finally vanished.

It shattered on its own. That unchanging smiling face was like a bronze mirror that had been smashed on the ground, cracking into several pieces, revealing its true face that no one had ever seen before.

There were no treacherous villains or cunning ministers; he was just an old man who was willing to risk his reputation for his own children.

He lived in Heaven for tens of thousands of years, never offending anyone or suffering any loss. He was smooth and shrewd in dealing with everyone, but in the end, he revealed his true colors in front of his son.

He turned his head and glanced at his son. The boy was still gripping the edge of the table, his knuckles white, and the fear on his face had not yet faded.

But there was no reproach in his eyes when he looked at his father, only a quiet waiting, waiting for him to speak, waiting for him to give an explanation.

Venus withdrew his gaze and slowly uttered a single word to Wenchang Xingjun: "Yes."

The entire hall erupted in uproar.

Several old scholars put down their chopsticks at the same time. An old immortal with a white beard dropped his whisk on the ground. The fairy boy next to him picked it up for him, but he didn't take it.

Wenqu Xianguan sat in the corner. He was a guest lecturer at Wenchang Pavilion and also the teacher of the classics class for this year's freshmen. At this moment, his face was ashen.

He personally graded Shui Qingze's cultivation assessment paper and gave it a "passed" grade, but this "passed" grade was changed to "failed" in the file.

He stood up as if to say something, but his colleague tugged at his sleeve and made him sit back down.

Venus didn't look at anyone. He stood still and began to speak.

The voice wasn't loud, but every word was crystal clear in the deathly silent hall.

"I am the one who altered Shui Qingze's file," he said.

"The day before the Wenchang Pavilion's admission list was announced, I went to the Household Registration Department. Clerk Zhou was dozing at his desk, with Shui Qingze's file spread out on it. I turned to the section on the foundation of Daoist practices, took the vermilion pen from his desk, and added a line."

He paused, as if recalling the feel of the vermilion falling on the paper.

Venus, who hadn't done anything like this in tens of thousands of years, probably had trembling hands when he first altered the records. But he still wrote it down.

After finishing writing, he stamped the document with a blurry seal, closed the file, put it back in its place, and then smiled at the awakened clerk Zhou, saying, "I just happened to be passing by and took a look."

"The seal was affixed by me using my personal seal, deliberately made blurry so that the inscription wouldn't be recognized. The revision date and the basis for the revision are all blank. According to the rules of the Household Registration Department, without these three things, the revision is invalid. I've been in and out of the Household Registration Department for tens of thousands of years, and I know this rule better than anyone else."

"Since you know this, why did you still commit the crime?" Wenchang Xingjun's voice was as deep as a whetstone.

Venus remained silent for a long while. Then he said, "Because I know that no one has ever taken this rule seriously."

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After saying this, he suddenly chuckled softly. It wasn't self-deprecation, nor was it sophistry; it was an ancient immortal who had lived for tens of thousands of years finally admitting something.

He spent his entire life upholding the rules of Heaven, relaying the Jade Emperor's decrees, mediating disputes among the immortals, and cleaning up messes for everyone.

He thought he had long since become one with the rules of Heaven.

It wasn't until his son was about to start school that he realized those rules, those rules he had upheld for tens of thousands of years, were soft in the face of power, would bend in the face of personal relationships, and would be turned a blind eye in the face of "good old boy" face.

He didn't exploit a loophole in the rules. He *was* the rules.

His kind-hearted face is the strongest pass to Heaven.

"When I go to the Household Registration Office, I don't need a permit. When I see the manager of Wenchang Pavilion, I don't need an appointment. When I send a few jars of immortal wine, everyone in Wenchang Pavilion thinks that I am showing consideration for my elders, and no one thinks that I am using connections."

His voice grew softer and softer, but he didn't stop. "My old face is the biggest back door."

No one in the hall responded.

The Immortal Official of Literature finally couldn't hold back any longer. He stood up, pointing at him with trembling fingers: "Li Changgeng! Do you know that with this stroke of your pen, you're not just changing the file—you're changing another celestial child's entire life!"

"I know." Venus turned around and looked at the father and son in the corner.

Shuiyuan was still standing in the same spot, holding her son's hand with one hand, her other hand clenched so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

Shui Qingze stood beside him, her slender figure standing out among the brocade robes and fine clothes filling the hall.

He looked at Venus, without anger or resentment, only with a clear and distinct confusion unique to an eleven or twelve-year-old boy—he didn't understand why this unfamiliar old deity would personally cross his name off the list.

Venus slowly bent down towards the water source.

This time, it wasn't a bow to the God of Literature, but an apology to a low-ranking water gate official.

He bent very slowly, so slowly that everyone could see that a patch of his brocade robe on the back was soaked with sweat, leaving an irregular dark stain.

"Friend of Water Source,"

He spoke, his voice hoarse as if it had been sanded.

"I have no right to ask for your forgiveness. I hereby return your son's place to you in public. If the Wenchang Pavilion can make an exception, please re-enter your son into the roster. I will bear all the responsibility. I will also cover all the costs of the re-entry."

Shui Yuan lowered his head and looked at his son. Shui Qingze looked up at his father, his lips moved as if he wanted to ask something, but in the end he just gently tugged at his father's hand.

Shuiyuan looked up, his eyes still red, his lips moving for a long time before finally uttering only two words: "Go."

Shui Qingze released her father's hand and slowly, step by step, walked to Venus.

He didn't help Venus up, nor did he speak; he simply stood in front of him and looked at him intently.

That glance held confusion, curiosity, and a premature calm that shouldn't be there for someone that age.

Then he turned around and walked in the direction of Wenchang Xingjun.

Wenchang Xingjun picked up a vermilion pen from the table, opened the list of admitted students, and added a new name at the end.

Venus straightened up, looked at the new ink mark, his Adam's apple bobbed twice, and finally said nothing more.

He turned around and walked towards the exit of the hall. He paused for a moment as he passed his son.

The celestial child remained seated in his original position, but the ink characters above his head had vanished.

A drop of ink splattered on the table; it had leaked from the corner of his mouth while he was drinking soup.

He looked down at the ink stain, neither wiping it away nor looking up at his father's back.

Wenchang Xingjun rose from his seat, surveyed the entire room, and announced in a deep voice: "Starting today, Wenchang Pavilion will thoroughly investigate all admission files for this year. Any irregular revisions, regardless of who is involved, will result in the revocation of the admission quota and a new review."

There was another uproar in the hall, but this time the uproar was mixed with a few sighs of relief.

Parents who got their children into school through merit, without using connections, have finally heard this.

Shuiyuan stood there, watching his son walk away towards Wenchang Xingjun, his expression complex.

There was relief, exhaustion, and a touch of bewilderment.

He probably hadn't realized that he had only planned to bring his son to this teacher appreciation banquet to "see what other people were doing," but before he knew it, the celebration had turned into something special for his own family, and the spot had been returned to him.

I took off my apron, folded it neatly, and draped it over my arm.

Old Xu crept over from the corner and stood next to me. He opened his mouth three times before finally managing to utter a sentence: "Your soup—never again should you make it in my kitchen. I'm afraid the God of Literature will seal off my kitchen."