The success of the "Xi Garden Red" sauce was instantaneous. Within forty-eight hours, Manager Sun had called three times, his voice frantic as he begged for more crates. The State-Run Store was seeing a "sauce riot" a phenomenon the 80s hadn't seen since the last sugar shortage.
But Lin Xi wasn't celebrating. She was sitting in the dim light of her bedroom, the rusted tobacco tin open on the quilt. Beside it sat a magnifying glass she had purchased from a street peddler.
The map wasn't of a mountain. Now that she looked closer, the jagged lines weren't ridges; they were the floor plan of an ancient, underground cellar in the Southern province of Yunnan.
"What were you hiding, Dad?" she
whispered.
She noticed a tiny, faint inscription in the corner, written in a specialized "Chef's Shorthand" that only a high-level practitioner would recognize.
'The Fifth Taste is not in the tongue, but in the earth. Seek the Fermented Gold.'
Lin Xi's breath hitched. In the culinary world, "Fermented Gold" referred to a legendary, century-old starter yeast a "Mother Culture" that could make even the simplest bread or sauce taste like it was blessed by the gods. If the Southern King found that, he wouldn't just control the black market; he would control the entire food industry of the country.
A sudden, sharp knock at her window made her jump. She instinctively threw the quilt over the map.
"It's me," a voice rasped.
She opened the window to find Gu
Shaozheng standing on the narrow ledge. His face was streaked with rain and soot. He didn't wait for an invitation; he climbed inside, his movements heavy.
"You're bleeding," Lin Xi gasped, seeing the dark stain on his olive-green sleeve.
"It's a scratch," he dismissed, though his jaw was tight. "The Southern King's scouts are already in the city, Xi'er. They didn't go to your shop. They went to the government archives. They're looking for your father's old residency permits from twenty years ago."
He grabbed her shoulders, his gaze intense. "Whatever is on that map, it's more dangerous than ten thousand yuan. You need to leave the city. I've arranged for a 'culinary study' trip to the coast. It'll get you out of the line of fire."
Lin Xi looked at the map hidden under the
quilt, then at the man who was bleeding for her.
"I'm not running, Shaozheng," she said, her voice like tempered steel. "If I run now, I'll be running for the rest of my life. The Southern King wants the 'Fermented Gold'? Fine. Let him come. I'll meet him at the Trade Fair next week. But I won't be there as a victim."
She reached out and began to unbutton his coat to tend to the wound. "I'll be there as the woman who's about to put his entire southern empire out of business."
Gu Shaozheng looked down at her—this small, fierce woman who refused to be a "cannon fodder" side character in her own life. He let out a low, defeated chuckle. "I should have known. You're not a girl who needs a shield. You're a girl who needs a sword."
"I have my knives," Lin Xi smirked, pressing a clean cloth to his wound. "Now, tell me
everything you know about the Southern King's son. If we're going to play this game, I want to know exactly where to strike."
_________
The production room of Xi Garden was a sanctuary of heat and spices, but tonight, the air felt heavy with a different kind of tension. Lin Xi had hired four local women to help with the "Secret Sauce" bottling, but she kept the final spice-blending stage strictly for herself. In the 1980s, intellectual property wasn't protected by law; it was protected by locked doors and a sharp memory.
"Lin Xi, you should go get some rest," Lin Jiaojiao said, stepping into the kitchen with a thermos. Her voice was uncharacteristically soft, dripping with a false sisterly concern that made the hair on the back of Lin Xi's neck stand up. "You've been at the stove for sixteen hours. I brought some mung bean soup to cool your liver."
Lin Xi didn't stop her rhythmic stirring of the massive iron cauldron. The red sauce bubbled like molten lava, releasing an aroma so potent it could be smelled two blocks away. "I didn't know you cared so much about my liver, Jiaojiao. Or is it that your father's demotion has left you with too much free time?"
Lin Jiaojiao's hand tightened on the thermos, her knuckles turning white. "We're family, Xi'er. Despite our differences, I don't want to see you collapse. Here, just take a sip."
Lin Xi finally turned, her eyes cold and piercing. She looked at the thermos, then at her cousin's twitching fingers. "If I drink that, will I wake up in three hours, or will I wake up in a hospital bed while someone 'accidentally' leaves the kitchen door open for the Southern King's men to take the recipe?"
The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the glug-glug of the simmering sauce. Lin Jiaojiao's face transformed, the mask of kindness crumbling into a sneer of pure hatred. "You think you're so smart. You think because you have Gu Shaozheng's favor, you've won. But my father still has friends in the Industrial Bureau. By tomorrow morning, your 'Secret Sauce' will be banned for containing 'harmful additives'."
"Then it's a good thing I didn't use the recipe you're trying to steal," Lin Xi replied, stepping closer. "The jars you saw me filling earlier? They're filled with colored salt water and chili flakes. The real sauce is already at the State-Run Store, locked in Manager Sun's personal vault."
Lin Jiaojiao let out a strangled cry of frustration and lunged toward the cauldron, intent on knocking it over. Lin Xi didn't flinch. She grabbed a heavy wooden paddle and blocked her cousin with the practiced ease of a martial artist.
"Get out," Lin Xi hissed. "Before I show you exactly how 'spicy' I can be."
As Jiaojiao fled into the rainy night, Lin Xi didn't celebrate. She knew this was just the opening act. She turned back to the iron pot, but her mind was on the tobacco tin hidden in her bodice.
Later that night, once the shop was locked and the "Bicycle Brigade" had gone home, Lin Xi sat by a single candle. She pulled out the map. With the magnifying glass, she studied the "mountain range" again.
'The Fifth Taste is not in the tongue, but in the earth. Seek the Fermented Gold.'
She remembered a story her father had told her when she was six, a story about a "King of Flavors" who had lived in the Southern mountains during the Qing Dynasty. He had allegedly discovered a way to harvest "Stone-Salt," a rare mineral that acted as a natural catalyst for fermentation.
"The earth," Lin Xi whispered. She looked at the map's coordinates. They didn't lead to a cellar. They led to a specific salt mine in the South that had been closed during the war.
If her father had found a vein of that Stone-Salt, the value wouldn't just be in the money. It would be the key to creating a food empire that could last centuries. But how did the Southern King know about it?
Clack.
A small pebble hit her window. Lin Xi extinguished the candle instantly, her hand flying to the heavy kitchen knife she kept under her pillow.
She eased the window open. Gu Shaozheng was there, but he wasn't alone. He was supporting a man she didn't recognize—a
man in a tattered traveler's coat with skin the color of parched earth.
"Let us in," Gu Shaozheng commanded, his voice strained.
Lin Xi helped pull the stranger inside. The man was dehydrated, his pulse thready. Gu Shaozheng quickly shut the window and drew the heavy curtains.
"Who is he?" Lin Xi asked, already moving to the stove to boil water.
"He's a survivor from the Southern mines," Gu Shaozheng said, his eyes meeting hers with a grim intensity. "I found him hiding near the railway tracks. He's been running for two weeks. He says the Southern King isn't just looking for a map, Xi'er. He's already started digging. But he can't find the 'heart' of the mine without the key."
The stranger reached into his ragged sleeve and pulled out a small, heavy object wrapped in oilcloth. He handed it to Lin Xi
"Your... your father..." the man wheezed. "He told me... if I ever saw the girl with the red birthmark on her wrist... I must give her this."
Lin Xi's heart hammered against her ribs. She didn't have a red birthmark. But then she remembered—in the original book, the "Cannon Fodder" Lin Xi had a faint, strawberry-colored mark on her left wrist. In this life, it was so faint it was almost invisible, but it was there.
She unwrapped the cloth. Inside was a heavy iron key, its handle shaped like a coiled dragon. But it wasn't a normal key; the teeth were irregular, designed for a complex, ancient lock.
"The key to the Fermented Gold," Lin Xi breathed.
Gu Shaozheng looked at the key, then at the girl who was now the most hunted person in the country. "The Southern King is coming to the Trade Fair next week not to collect a debt, but to collect you. He knows the key is useless without the map, and the map is useless without the key. He needs both."
Lin Xi gripped the iron dragon so hard it bit into her palm. The 1980s were supposed to be about building a business, selling sauce, and finding a bit of peace. But she was now at the center of a centuries-old culinary war.
"Then I'll give him what he wants," Lin Xi said, her eyes flashing with a dangerous, modern light. "I'll invite him to a private 'tasting' at the Trade Fair. But I won't be bringing the map. I'll be bringing a trap."
Gu Shaozheng stepped closer, his hand covering hers over the key. The heat from his body was the only thing keeping her grounded. "You're playing with fire, Lin Xi. If this goes wrong, even my military status won't be enough to pull you out."
"Then don't pull me out," she said, looking up at him. "Push me in. Help me set the stage. If we win this, the Southern King's empire collapses, and my 'Xi Garden' becomes the foundation for the National Food Bureau."
Gu Shaozheng stared at her, his admiration warring with his fear for her safety. Finally, he nodded. "One week. We have one week to turn this shop into a fortress and your sauce into a weapon."
As the rain continued to lash against the windows, the "Cannon Fodder" and the "Ice Mountain" stood in the dark kitchen, bound by a secret that could change the history of the nation. The "Business Empire" was no longer just about money—it was about survival.