Reborn in 1984

"I heard the girl Zhou Yan saved this morning was Deputy Director Lin's niece, here visiting family. A city girl, and a real fresh-faced beauty."

"Bullshit! Zhou the Second can't even swim, and he saved someone? A warty toad jumping off a cliff—was he trying to be Batman?"

"Zhou Yan had a perfectly good apprenticeship at the Textile Factory canteen. Why did he go off and open a restaurant? With his half-baked cooking, his dishes are either undercooked or all wrong on salt. He can't even get egg fried rice right. Not three customers a day—I bet he'll shut down within three months."

"Young people aim for the sky with their feet stuck in the mud. Who knows whose bewitching brew he swallowed? He buried himself in debt to open this restaurant and dragged his whole family into the pit. If it really closes, he'll have nothing left to sell but his ass."

"Is that information reliable? Zhou Yan's famous across all the neighboring villages for being a handsome young lad!"

"Oh, Sister-in-law Lin, you really are something..."

The head of Stone Slab Bridge was practically the town's intelligence center. Several middle-aged women scrubbed and rinsed clothes as they chatted, serving up gossip both clean and filthy.

Beside the road near the bridge stood a stir-fry restaurant, with a sign reading "Zhou Erwa Restaurant" above its entrance. Its doors were shut tight, though a little smoke still drifted from the chimney.

In the restaurant kitchen, Zhou Yan was feeding paper into the stove. The words "suicide note" stood out starkly in the firelight, which illuminated his handsome face.

The raucous laughter of those sharp-tongued matrons drifted through the half-open window now and then. Their dirty jokes were enough to make his ears burn.

Still, those women had a good eye for people. Zhou Yan really couldn't be Batman. But he hadn't jumped off a cliff—he had jumped into the Qingyi River.

The non-swimmer had plunged into Bailatuo, and before he could kick more than twice, his soul had returned to the great river.

When Zhou Yan, an upstanding young man of Generation Z, opened his eyes, he saw a pair of lotus-white arms bobbing in front of him. He himself had swallowed several mouthfuls of water and could barely breathe.

Having grown up by the sea, Zhou Yan was known as the White Streak in the Waves. The instant he came to his senses, he grabbed those arms and pulled their owner above the surface. Then, supporting her head from behind, he floated downstream to the riverbank and hauled her ashore.

A crowd promptly gathered and carried the girl away in a panic.

One second, Zhou Yan had been worrying about the effects of the China–US tariff war on his three-digit bank balance. The next, one hell of a lucky break had dumped him in 1984.

His head had been such a mess that he hadn't even gotten a proper look at how pretty the girl was. He only remembered that she was very fair and soft, and even her screams had sounded gentle.

Of course, none of that mattered.

Following his memories back to the restaurant, Zhou Yan spent half the day digesting all the memories belonging to the other "Zhou Yan" in his head. He accepted that he had transmigrated into a young man with the exact same name in a parallel world.

The original owner of this body was twenty. He had spent two and a half years learning to cook at the canteen of the Jiazhou Silk Factory across the road, but had been fired two months earlier after a clash with Director Wang, who ran the canteen.

The lad had roped his father into borrowing 868.52 yuan from anyone they could, added his father's 500 yuan in savings, and taken over this shop outside the factory gates. Then he had opened a restaurant, declaring that he would put the Factory Canteen out of business.

Unfortunately, he had overestimated his cooking skills, and his management was an utter disaster. The Factory Canteen hadn't collapsed, but his own restaurant was plainly about to.

The borrowed money was gone, his grand boasts had become a joke, and Director Wang had mocked him right to his face yesterday. Rent was due again in a couple of days. Unable to withstand the pressure, young Zhou had drunk all night, written 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 as well. What the hell was this supposed to be?

Having grown up in an orphanage, Zhou Yan loved money intensely. Only money could give him a sense of security.

And he had always lacked a sense of security.

He had worked countless part-time jobs since childhood. After entering college, he had boldly ventured into content creation. With a commentary style that was three parts humor and seven parts venom, plus looks that scored ninety out of a hundred, he had become a moderately famous food blogger with a million followers. He had saved some money and was planning to open his very first restaurant.

He had finally turned his life around, only to get dumped into 1984 and become a pauper again!

Zhou Yan: (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻

The good news was that he now had a restaurant.

The bad news was that he had inherited not only a restaurant on the verge of closing, but also a mountain of debt.

Before his transmigration, that amount would merely have covered filming a single meal.

But this was 1984. On the handwritten menu hanging on the wall, Garlic Sauce Pork cost 0.35 yuan, Salted Braised Pork 0.45 yuan, Twice-Cooked Pork 0.60 yuan, and Dongpo Pork Knuckle 1.20 yuan...

A permanent employee at the neighboring Jiazhou Silk Factory earned only 38.5 yuan a month.

Alongside the IOUs were 3.87 yuan, two meat ration coupons, and three grain ration coupons.

There were two types of food bloggers:

One possessed an innate sacred constitution for cooking, winning fans' affection and admiration by sharing recipes and cooking tips.

The other possessed an innate sacred constitution for eating. They excelled at devouring food and finding fault, sharing dishes through incisive commentary and exaggerated expressions that lured their followers into opening that accursed yellow app in the middle of the night.

Unfortunately, Zhou Yan belonged to the latter type.

He couldn't simply roll up his sleeves, show off a little, and bring this restaurant in a small southern Sichuan town back from the dead, packing it with customers.

Still, things weren't entirely hopeless. He shifted his gaze away from the stove, and with a thought, a panel appeared in his field of vision:

[Player: Zhou Yan]

[Profession: Chef]

[Wealth points: -858.52]

[Professional skills]:

Knife skills (intermediate): 8604/10000 (Your knife skills are sufficient for most dishes.)

Heat control (beginner): 668/1000 (You suck. Keep practicing.)

Seasoning (beginner): 695/1000 (Go easy, Lord of Salt.)

Speaking skills (advanced): 88888/100000 (A pig nudging aside a door curtain—all mouth.)

[Mastered dishes]:

Salted Braised Pork (beginner): 26/1000 (Little brother went out for a stroll—walking, huh, bro? Still no skill.)

Twice-Cooked Pork (beginner): 55/1000 (A freshly paved road is smooth—not a speck of gravel, nor a scrap of skill.)

Dongpo Pork Knuckle (beginner): 12/1000 (Diligence can make up for lack of talent.)

Smashed Cucumber (intermediate): 1871/10000 (Master Huang, you're so capable.)

...

[Main quest: Become the God of Cooking! Make your name resound across the world!]

[Beginner quest: Bind a restaurant. Quest reward: Beginner gift pack.]

[Wealth Marketplace]: Unlocks at 1,000 wealth points.

This was the player panel from a cooking-god development game Zhou Yan had just accepted an advertising gig for. Ever the professional, he had even spent two days playing it. He hadn't expected it to follow him through his transmigration.

The stats reflected his actual current abilities, explaining from every angle why Zhou Erwa Restaurant was facing closure.

Excellent knife skills paired with lousy heat control and seasoning meant young Zhou was only a prep cook, not a proper chef.

Of all the dishes on that wall-sized menu, only the Smashed Cucumber passed muster.

His cooking really was too dreadful to look at.

But the system's reviews were dripping with passive-aggressive sarcasm. Had they actually been personalized?

Like all the Daniel Wus reading along, Zhou Yan enjoyed webnovels. Transmigration and systems were nothing new to him, and he quickly accepted them with delight.

While reading, he would curse: Another damn system!

When it happened to him: Oh, this is sweet!

To Zhou Yan, 1984 was far too distant. He had neither a nostalgic filter nor memories of it.

Still, he had filmed many long-established restaurants and interviewed plenty of restaurant owners who had built their businesses from nothing. Making the stories behind the food a highlight of his videos was one of his trademarks.

Opening a restaurant in the eighties meant being among the first to taste crab after restrictions on private businesses were lifted. It was far better than scratching a living out of the fields.

Zhou Yan had worked part-time as a waiter, spent four years as a food blogger, and prepared for six months to open his own place. Aside from his lack of cooking skills, he basically had what it took to run a restaurant.

And this system could fill precisely that gap.

Zhou Yan stood up and selected the binding option.

[Ding! Zhou Erwa Restaurant successfully bound. Beginner gift pack issued. Please claim it!]

Zhou Yan opened the gift pack with his mind:

[Dry-Mixed Suihua Beef Noodles], [Braised Beef Noodles], [Spare Rib Noodles], [Pickled Vegetables]

Four selectable recipes popped up at once.

Zhou Yan's eyes lit up. Three noodle dishes and a side of Pickled Vegetables—was this pushing him to turn the place into a noodle shop?

The generosity of this beginner gift pack exceeded his expectations.

With a mental tap, he opened all four recipes at once. His head buzzed as though a great mass of things had been stuffed into it, leaving him briefly dizzy.

Soon, delight spread across Zhou Yan's face.

These weren't four lifeless recipe sheets, nor online cooking lessons playing inside his skull. The knowledge had gone directly into his brain!

From preparing dough to pulling noodles, from processing beef to making Braised Beef, from simmering bone broth to seasoning noodles—it was a complete body of experience. Like the memories he had inherited from young Zhou, it was vivid and felt entirely natural.

Zhou Yan was a competent food blogger, and he had inherited young Zhou's basic cooking skills. From the recipes in his head, he could tell these three noodle dishes would be good.

He had learned to make three kinds of noodles, but that wasn't all.

Looked at another way, Two-Pepper Beef was a divine accompaniment to rice, Braised Beef with Bamboo Shoots was a classic Sichuan dish in its own right, and who could resist tender Braised Spare Ribs that fell off the bone?

Zhou Yan had attended college in Chengdu for four years and built his food-blogging following by filming Sichuan cuisine. He knew Sichuan food all too well.

Every good noodle shop had a highly skilled Sichuan chef in its kitchen.

When it came to loving noodles, the people of Sichuan were no less enthusiastic than northerners.

Here, anything could become a topping. He had eaten Ginger Duck Noodles, Pork Intestine Noodles, Eel Noodles, Chicken Giblet Noodles, Pork Liver Noodles, Rabbit Noodles... and even the outrageous Tofu Pudding Tossed Noodles.

One major problem with Zhou Erwa Restaurant was that it had taken too large a stride. Young Zhou hadn't had the abilities to match, and had ended up tearing his balls.

A prep cook who could only make Smashed Cucumber had given himself a menu of thirty or forty dishes. The daily cost of ingredients alone was enough to drag down this restaurant, whose doorway was quiet enough for sparrows to gather.

Of course, a single Smashed Cucumber dish couldn't sustain a restaurant either.

The monthly rent was fifteen yuan. Add the required management fees and various other expenses, and the costs came to a full twenty yuan.

This restaurant was no coveted sweet bun. In an ordinary person's hands, it would be a scalding-hot potato.

Now that Zhou Yan had learned three noodle dishes and a refreshing, palate-cleansing Pickled Vegetables recipe, he had a way out of the deadlock.

Leaving the kitchen, he tore the handwritten menu off the wall and crumpled it into a ball.

From today onward, every new dish on Zhou Erwa Restaurant's menu would have to pass his inspection first. No compromises.

Starting tomorrow, he would sell noodles!

The rent was due in three days. First, he had to earn enough to pay it.