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Lin Wei’s entry into the Red Smoke Pavilion was indeed cause for great celebration among the Lin family members, especially since Madam Cheng held her in extremely high regard. Whether or not she could open her own embroidery workshop in the future, this was a fortunate event in her life.

But in contrast to Lin Wei, Tian Xuan was much more unfortunate.

Thinking of the scene when Madam Tian pushed Tian Xuan onto the carriage, Lin Yuan couldn’t help but feel extremely worried. The moment she returned home, she sent Shui Xian to the Tian Mansion under the pretense of delivering a gift, to inquire about news from Tian Hui.

As expected, the result was not surprising. Once at home, Madam Tian found more than twenty portraits of men and embroidery works in Tian Xuan’s room, which were virtually identical to the one she had shown at the competition stage.

This infuriated Madam Tian who was left reeling. After discovering it once before, she had expressly forbidden Tian Xuan from embroidering again, yet this girl had been deceiving her with a pretense of obedience.

In fear of escalating the situation, Madam Tian ignored Tian Xuan’s cries and tantrums, stuffed all those portraits and embroidery works into a fire to burn them, and even found excuses to dismiss all the maids close to Tian Xuan.

Fortunately, these people were not aware of what Tian Xuan had done, so there was no need to worry about her reputation being tarnished.

Tian Xuan was also confined to her quarters, and it seemed unlikely she would come out for ten days to half a month.

What worried Lin Yuan even more was that Madam Tian had already begun to seek out a husband for Tian Xuan.

It wasn’t that Madam Tian was overly anxious, setting aside whether Cheng Haoxuan and Tian Xuan could end up together, just the lukewarm attitude that Madam Cheng had shown to Tian Xuan had already disgraced Madam Tian.

No matter how you looked at it, the Tian Mansion was also a family of officialdom and had produced Consort Tian. Tian Xuan’s favoring Cheng Haoxuan was a blessing for him, but Madam Cheng’s disdain for Tian Xuan, from the position of a mere merchant family, had both angered and annoyed Madam Tian.

Hearing about these issues, Lin Yuan shook her head, feeling that it was unjust for Tian Xuan and also felt sorry for Madam Tian and Tian Hui.

With such incidents occurring with Tian Xuan, and considering the concubines and sons of concubines in the Tian Mansion, it seemed that their mother and daughters were in for an uncomfortable time ahead.

However, Lin Yuan did not have the luxury of time to worry about Tian Xuan, as she was busy preparing new recipes for Dong Tian. Regarding the new plans for Dong Tian, she had the following ideas.

The three floors of Dong Tian were divided into three sections.

The first floor had a portion of the hall partitioned off into elegant rooms, serving common dishes, mainly those from Yi Ran Residence’s previous menu.

This section was to be managed by Sun Qian since he had mastered all of Yi Ran Residence’s dishes as a helper and Lin Yuan had tasted his cooking, which was very good.

Besides these dishes, Lin Yuan naturally developed several signature dishes and taught them to him personally. These signature dishes mainly included tofu, potatoes, and glass noodles, as these ingredients were unseen in other restaurants, not even in Drunken Immortal Tower.

Stuffed tofu, lotus root stuffed with tofu, glutinous rice tofu balls, fan-shaped potatoes, ants climbing trees, and so on, all were extremely delicious and appealing dishes, sure to catch everyone’s attention.

The second floor was defined by Lin Yuan as the Five Lakes and Four Seas Pavilion.

As the name suggests, it gathered specialty dishes from places all across the land, north to south.

In other words, the widely recognized ’Eight Major Cuisines’ from later ages, which were Shandong, Sichuan, Cantonese, Jiangsu, Fujian, Zhejiang, Hunan, and Anhui cuisines.

Each of the eight major Chinese cuisines has its own unique features and flavors, among which the most widely known are naturally the spicy and fragrant Sichuan cuisine and the original-flavored Cantonese cuisine.

Lin Yuan had made the signature dishes of these eight cuisines part of her signature offerings at the Dong Tian.

For instance, the famous dishes from Sichuan cuisine such as Spicy Shredded Pork in Garlic Sauce, Kung Pao Chicken, Husband and Wife Lung Slices, Mapo Tofu, Twice-Cooked Pork, and Dongpo Pork, along with the famous Cantonese dishes such as Chicken and Snake Soup, Dragon and Tiger Fight, Roast Suckling Pig, Taiye Chicken, Salt-Baked Chicken, Boiled Shrimp, White Cut Chicken, and Roast Goose, were all special dishes Lin Yuan custom-made for her Five Lakes and Four Seas Pavilion.

Unlike the common dishes on the first floor, the Five Lakes and Four Seas Pavilion on the second floor was managed by different master chefs, each of whom learned only a subset of the dishes and were unaware of each other.

Every time, Lin Yuan would issue the recipes and teach the process individually.

She did this not for any other reason but out of fear that if there were a "traitor" leaving the Dong Tian in the future, at most only one cuisine would be compromised, rather than a significant loss for Dong Tian.

The third floor, on the other hand, was defined by Lin Yuan as The World’s Granary.

Although the name sounded simple, the dishes inside were far from plain.

This level covered a variety of cuisines including Japanese, Thai dishes, Korean barbecue, and even Western-style steaks.

If it were not for the difficulty in finding certain ingredients, Lin Yuan would have even considered including modern drinks like coffee and cola.

Unlike the dishes on the second floor, those on the third floor didn’t require extremely exquisite culinary skills, so Lin Yuan had equipped this level with one master chef and a few helpers, which was completely sufficient.

After completing this series of recipes, Lin Yuan felt as if her mental energy had been completely drained.

However, looking at the dense recipes and diagrams, a sense of satisfaction and pride spontaneously emerged in her heart.

In her previous life, she had dreamed of opening a grand edifice of gastronomy like this, encompassing all styles of cuisine; limited by her energy and financial resources, she never fulfilled this wish before being targeted by criminals.

It was unexpected that, having crossed over into this different world, her long-held dream would actually come true—fate really plays tricks on people!

After distributing the recipes to the master chefs and helpers, Lin Yuan asked them to go back and study on their own and to come to her whenever they encountered something they didn’t understand, agreeing to check in a month later.

And then Lin Yuan began training these master chefs one by one. When everyone was shocked by the recipes, they had never imagined that this seemingly gentle and delicate young lady would possess such an incredibly superb culinary art. It almost made everyone’s jaw drop.

No wonder Lin Yuan had used such a method to test the various master chefs before—it turned out that she herself was an undeniably great master who didn’t show off. As a result, Lin Yuan’s status in the hearts of these master chefs and helpers rose even higher.

After several days of continuous work, on the eighth day of the second lunar month, the Lin family received exciting news: Liu Limin and her husband, Liu Siliang along with Zhao Suxin, were already on a horse cart just thirty miles outside of the Capital city and less than twenty miles from He family village.

Hearing this, Lady Liu and Lin Jiaxin quickly told everyone to get ready and head to He family village to meet them.

Lin Wei was no longer going to the Red Smoke Pavilion, and Xiao Linshuang was no longer sneaking off to the Hall of Salvation. Everyone was in high spirits and boarded the horse carriages bound for He family village.

Although they had only been apart for a month, the reunion felt as if many years had passed.

Lady Liu burst into tears the moment she saw Liu Limin. After all, the Capital city was not her home, and seeing her own relatives here brought her indescribable joy.

Jeng Ruyue was about to give birth and Lady Fan, not wanting to leave her side, naturally would not come to the Capital city.