Novel
Liang Chen is publicly humiliated in his ancestral restaurant by an auction-house courier and Xu Ren, but he notices the bid packet has been tampered with and begins tracing the corruption through a hospital procurement mark. Back in the kitchen, Old Chef Wei reveals the family’s old ledger page, seal impression, and hidden kitchen key code, proving Liang’s connection to the house is real just as the restaurant’s operating account is frozen.
Liang Chen was carrying three bowls of fish noodle soup when the first blow landed. Not on his body. On the house.
The ancestral restaurant’s front hall was packed for the noon rush, sunlight laying hard strips across the varnished tables. The air hummed with the clatter of porcelain and the low murmur of a hundred conversations, a familiar symphony of prosperity. Then, a sharp, alien note: