Stinky mandarin fish was one of the more unusual dishes in Chinese cuisine. Heath was actually very curious about what the person who created it had been thinking to come up with such a distinctive dish. Later, however, Heath realized that unless he could invent some kind of time machine and travel into the past, he probably really would never understand how people could create something as unique as stinky mandarin fish.
As its name suggested, stinky mandarin fish smelled bad. In fact, a fish would generally develop an odor after being marinated for seven days, unless it was being kept alive in water. Under those circumstances, food that had gone smelly would normally be thrown away, yet someone had actually invented a dish out of this stinky mandarin fish. That made Heath very concerned about just what sort of mental state its creator had been in when coming up with it.
Still, it had to be said that stinky mandarin fish really was distinctive. It smelled terrible, but its texture was actually quite good when eaten. Heath could not help thinking of a special traditional dish he had eaten in his previous life: stir-fried bean hornworms. Generally, when serving regional specialties like that, people would not tell their out-of-town friends what the stuff was until after they had eaten it. Otherwise, their psychological aversion might genuinely keep them from swallowing it. But bean hornworms were utterly child's play to Heath.
Heath still remembered how his friend back then had watched him calmly eating bean hornworms, hoping to have a laugh at his expense, only to discover that Heath was not afraid at all and did not even feel the slightest discomfort. Later, Heath treated that friend to an Insect Feast in Yun Province, and only then did the friend