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

The anti-ancient cuisine stall at the corner of Tianting Street has been set up for another half month.

Ever since he defeated Yi Ya, the self-proclaimed celestial culinary god, with a single dish of "Honor and Disgrace Offering Soup," that old geezer has completely fallen silent. I thought that having lost the bet, he would finally drop his arrogant attitude and obediently withdraw from the celestial culinary competition, but I never expected—

This is just the beginning of his big move.

That day, I was squatting in front of the stall tidying up the ingredients when I heard the chatter of the immortals coming and going in twos and threes.

"Have you heard? Yi Ya is personally in charge of cooking for this year's Peach Banquet!"

"It's said to be an unprecedented delicacy, meant to avenge our past humiliation..."

"What delicacies?"

"Dried dragon liver and phoenix marrow."

My hands paused for a moment.

The words "dragon liver and phoenix marrow" were like a spark thrown into a hot oil pan when they reached my ears.

Not long after, a commotion arose from the street corner. I looked up and saw Yi Ya, dressed in a magnificent immortal robe, casually toying with a gleaming boning knife in his hand, swaggering toward my food stall surrounded by a group of sycophantic little immortals.

His slender fingertips were stained with a trace of barely perceptible dark red spiritual blood.

That's the unique blood essence of the dragon race.

"Chang Baiwei." Yi Ya stopped in front of my stall, looking down at me with a contemptuous smile. "Your shoddy, anti-ancient cuisine dares to swindle and cheat in the Heavenly Realm, violating the rules of the culinary world."

He smoothed his sleeves, his voice not loud, but loud enough for the surrounding immortals to hear clearly: "At the Peach Banquet, I will present dried dragon liver and phoenix marrow. That is the kind of celestial delicacy worthy of the nobles of the Heavenly Court. Your unorthodox methods will only become a laughing stock."

I put down the ingredients I was holding, looked up at him, and waited for his next load of nonsense.

  

Yi Ya met my gaze and slowly uttered his utterly cold-blooded and twisted logic, his tone as certain as if he were reciting divine law: "Dragons and phoenixes are celestial beings, having cultivated for a thousand years, they are naturally born treasures. The strong preying on the weak is the law of nature—taking their liver and marrow as food is their honor, so how can it be considered harming living beings?"

These words immediately caused an uproar among the surrounding immortals.

I glanced at the crowd. Some were whispering, some looked reluctant, and some nodded slightly as if they thought there was some truth to what was said—but no one stood up.

not a single one.

A young apprentice medicine boy, who had recently attained immortality, looked on with pity and was about to speak when he was immediately pulled back by his colleague, who gave him a warning look. That last shred of conscience was instantly extinguished in the crowd.

My heart turned cold.

What so-called Heavenly Dao and Laws of the Strong? They are nothing more than the vested interests justifying cruel killing to satisfy their appetites, using the lives of the weak as stepping stones to curry favor with the powerful and make a name for themselves. In this Heavenly Court, the powerful are always like this—packaging their plunder and cruelty as self-evident rules, wantonly trampling on the weak, and never caring about the lives of the lowest beings.

Yi Ya seemed quite pleased with the silence around him. He took a step closer, lowered his voice, and said in a volume only I could hear, "Your 'Honor and Disgrace Offering Soup' is nothing but opportunism. At the Peach Banquet, I will show you with your own eyes what true culinary art is."

The boning knife in his hand lightly grazed my cutting board, leaving a dark red bloodstain.

"Dragon blood, freshly scraped off." He chuckled softly. "Guess if it remembers which dragon it came from?"

After saying that, he turned and left, his back view arrogant and haughty.

The onlookers scattered like birds and beasts. Most were indifferent, showing no concern for the matter. A few who sympathized with the dragon and phoenix clans only dared to lower their heads and hurry away, not daring to express any dissatisfaction.

I tidied up my messed-up food stall and set up the stove again. Just as I was about to light a fire and cook some soup to calm my frustration, I heard the sound of a violent somersault cloud tearing through the sky—the wind, carrying anger, hurtled straight towards my food stall.

It's obvious that the only person who could rampage through the Heavenly Court like this, with such intense anger, is none other than the Great Sage Equaling Heaven, Sun Wukong.

The next second, Sun Wukong landed in front of the stall, golden cudgel in hand, looking extremely angry. His monkey fur stood on end; he plopped down on a stone bench, grabbed a rough porcelain bowl from the table, slammed it down, and roared in a muffled voice, "I'm furious! These gods in Heaven are all a bunch of scoundrels who can control everything!"

I handed him a bowl of herbal tea, raising an eyebrow at him: "Who has angered you this time, Great Sage? Judging by your temper, it's almost reached Flower Fruit Mountain."

Mentioning Flower Fruit Mountain only fueled Sun Wukong's anger, causing him to pound the table and spin his golden cudgel several times in his hand as he bitterly complained, "It's all because of that damned Peach Banquet! The Heavenly Court has its hands tightly controlled by the Peach Orchard, exaggerating the peaches as the only top-tier celestial fruit in heaven and earth, and elevating the Peach Banquet to the only high-end feast in the celestial realm. And that's not all—those bastards even went so far as to say that the peaches from Flower Fruit Mountain are 'ordinary,' and anyone who dares to buy them is tainted by worldly impurities, ruining their immortal roots, and will never be allowed to stay in the Heavenly Court again!"

He grew angrier as he spoke, grabbing a cup of herbal tea and gulping it down: "In previous years, even the Peach Banquet would sell quite a few. But this year, all the immortals in the heavens are afraid of being implicated, and they dare not buy a single one! The monkeys and their offspring work so hard to plant and tend these peaches, relying on them to exchange for immortal essence. Now, with the sales completely cut off, even the old and young monkeys are having trouble getting enough to eat."

My heart skipped a beat.

This is not a case of the immortals not recognizing it; it is clearly the Heavenly Court establishing a monopoly—using its power to elevate its own fruits to a divine status, and then using the big stick of "identity politics" to suppress all competitors, keeping all the profits in its own hands, completely disregarding the lives of the lower-level beings.

However, before Sun Wukong could finish speaking, the basket of Huaguoshan peaches that I had just bought in the corner of the food stall, which I was preparing to use in a new dish, suddenly emitted a piercing "sizzling" sound.

My expression changed, and I lifted the shroud.

The once plump and juicy peaches visibly shriveled and turned black, their spiritual energy dissipating, and in the blink of an eye, they rotted into a puddle of sewage. A golden talisman emerged from the rotten peach, bearing only a single line of cold divine script:

"Smuggling ordinary goods will serve as a warning to others."

Sun Wukong's face instantly turned ashen.

I stared at the talisman and remained silent for a long time.

Today they can shut down the peaches from Flower Fruit Mountain, tomorrow they can shut down my stall on the grounds that "anti-ancient and bizarre cuisine is unsightly." The saying "if the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold" applies here—this is not only a predicament for Sun Wukong and Flower Fruit Mountain, but also a crisis for me.

Sun Wukong gripped his golden cudgel tightly, then suddenly smiled through gritted teeth. That smile held a hint of the arrogance he displayed during his rampage in the Heavenly Palace, but it quickly faded.

"I was so angry just now that I really wanted to hit the Lingxiao Palace with my stick again... but I'm not alone now, I have a mountain of monkeys and their offspring behind me."

His knuckles turned white, and in the end he could only sigh heavily, looking troubled.

"This restrictive force has been moved from the head to the heart."