In the Ming Dynasty 1498, my restaurant connects two worlds.

The mysterious ancestral signboard that Grandpa had hidden, "Song Family Restaurant," signed "Wenbi," was actually here! Grandpa had been bragging about it for so many years, but it turns out that he had earned his family's ancestral signboard by "venturing out into the world"!

"Sure! We'll write 'Song Family Heritage Restaurant' on it." Song Xiaoyi agreed without hesitation.

The signboard is one thing, but we still need to acquire the No. 3 "Divine Bird and Phoenix Painting".

After another free meal, the four of them happily helped each other and staggered out of the shop. The restaurant was empty then. Song Xiaoyi picked out more than a hundred copper coins of poor quality from the money box, strung them together with a rope, and went out to stroll around.

First, take a stroll through Taoye Ferry in the Ming Dynasty, explore the types, flavors, and prices of food at several shops, and know your options before making a purchase.

After walking around for a while, he had spent half of his coins, but his stomach was still not full.

The results of the restaurant visits revealed that each of the eateries had its own unique characteristics.

The first Sichuan restaurant, I don’t know if they were reluctant to use chili peppers or if they didn’t have any at all, the dishes were a hodgepodge with a strange taste, and the bulk liquor was a low-grade, inferior product from the official store. Song Xiaoyi took a small sip, couldn’t swallow it, and was too embarrassed to spit it out, so he reluctantly held it in his mouth until no one was around before spitting it out.

The second restaurant had a bit of a Huaiyang cuisine feel to it, but the flavor was mediocre, lacking salt and flavor, and couldn't compare to modern Huaiyang cuisine. However, the small pot of homemade wine, which cost 20 coins, did have a bit of the flavor of Feitian Yanghe Daqu.

The third restaurant serves home-style dishes and is always packed with customers. The knife skills and plating of their signature dishes are superb, far surpassing the chef's own skills, which shows that the local chef has a solid foundation. However, the seasoning is still limited by the scarcity of seasonings. The sourness comes from vinegar, the sweetness from sugar, the spiciness is not right, and there is no cumin at all.

No wonder people would buy his instant noodles even if they sold for 10 coins; Song Xiaoyi understood now.

However, Song Xiaoyi had no intention of using seasonings to "undercut" his competitors, lest he incur hatred, besiege, and unpleasant underhanded tactics. He wasn't in it for the money, so why risk a fight to the death?

On the contrary, when the time is right, he can also provide the farmers of Yingtianfu with seeds of chili peppers and tomatoes to increase the variety of ingredients available to the Ming Dynasty.

After a hasty first visit to the store, Song Xiaoyi returned to her own shop to clean up.

It was past five o'clock when Song Xiaoyi finished cleaning. He came out from the second floor, locked the door, and walked to the Confucius Temple Market to buy a few large picture frames from the neighbors. He also bought a roujiamo (Chinese hamburger) to fill his stomach.

When Song Xiaoyi returned home and put the two nearly dried "Divine Bird and Phoenix" paintings together in their frames and hung them on the wall, Zhu'er, exhausted like a dog, also returned from the Jinling Museum in the east of the city.

"Brother Yi, how's business today? Wait, something's not right, there are no flower baskets at the door. You're not even open for business. It's an auspicious day, aren't you open?"

"It's open. We sell breakfast and instant noodles. Those flower baskets are expensive and impractical, why would you want them?" After a day in the Ming Dynasty, Song Xiaoyi's speech was still a bit out of tune, with a touch of archaic accent, but it seemed that Zhu'er didn't notice.

Pearl followed Song Xiaoyi down from the second floor to the kitchen.

"Turn on the lights, turn on the lights! Brother Yi, is there any water? I'm dying of thirst!"

"The purified water is in the kitchen, I'll get it for you," Song Xiaoyi said, snapping the light switch on the door. "The plum rain season is almost here, and even though it's been ventilated all day, there's still a musty smell when it's closed."

"It even smells like instant noodles!"

"Zhu'er, have you had dinner yet? Why don't you come upstairs and sit for a while? I'll cook you a bowl of noodles."

"Okay, shrimp and fish cake noodles, thank you."

"Your tastes haven't changed at all."

......

"Hey! Brother Yi! Where did you come from?!"

"What came from where?"

"Brother Xiao Yi, come here! I'm talking about this! 'The Divine Bird and Phoenix'! Tang Bohu's 'The Divine Bird and Phoenix'!"

Zhu Zhu'er pointed to the "Divine Bird and Phoenix" painting at the top of the stairs and jumped up and down excitedly.

Oh no, I was careless. I forgot that this girl is studying cultural relic restoration!

"Look at you, you're not very good at this, you've misjudged it, haven't you? This is a 'Chicken Eating Rice' painting, it's not from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, not from the Western Zhou Dynasty, not from last week, and not from the Ming Dynasty, it's from this week." Song Xiaoyi poked half his body out of the kitchen and replied casually, "And it was freshly made yesterday afternoon."

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! Look at this opening seal! And this corner seal—it's so professional, it's definitely a genuine Tang Bohu work! Our teacher took us to Suzhou to observe the mounting and restoration of Tang Bohu's paintings!"

"It's easy to forge seals. Don't make a fuss, do you think I don't know my paintings? I just painted this yesterday."

"Brother Yi! Impossible! Absolutely impossible! This vermilion seal of Tang Bohu, and the seal of Zhu Zhishan on this side, are exactly the same as the original!"

Pearl was so excited she didn't know what to do. She couldn't reason with Xiao Yi, and after checking three times from all angles, she suddenly remembered, took out her phone, and said, "I'll take a picture and show it to the teacher!"

"Oh, Pearl, don't bother, drink some water. You won't believe me, but it was just painted yesterday. Just yesterday afternoon, two guys who cosplay like you, dressed in ancient costumes, one cosplaying as Tang Bohu and the other as Zhu Zhishan, didn't have money for food, so they traded this painting for two bowls of instant noodles from me."

"Plus two eggs and two sausages."

"I bought the eggs and sausages from your convenience store."

"No, the eggs and sausages were a gift from your mother; I didn't spend any money."

"My teacher told me to wait and not leave, he'll be right there!"

Well, all that was said in vain.

"Huh? Coming right away? At this hour? Where is he?"

"The Nanjing Museum."

"Holy crap, are you all crazy?"

"The evening rush hour is almost over; it will take him at most half an hour to drive here."

……

It seems I can't fool them anymore.

"Pearl, what makes you so sure it's genuine? This ridiculous painting has been hanging in our Song family's house for decades and nobody has mentioned it. I only found it yesterday in the attic storage room."

"Hmph, I knew you were lying. How could this be painted on the spot? I don't know if there's any historical record of the 'Divine Bird and Phoenix Painting,' but these seals look very much like the original. We'll know for sure when the teacher arrives."

Suddenly, Song Xiaoyi thought of something, and his expression became serious.

"Then I'll go back to the warehouse and check if anything's been missed." After saying that, Song Xiaoyi handed the cooked shrimp and fish cake noodles to Zhu'er. "Zhu'er, you eat your noodles first, I'll go upstairs and take a look."

"Okay." Pearl's eyes never left the painting as she casually replied.

After careful consideration, Song Xiaoyi decided not to accept the newly hung items No. 2 and No. 3. It was too late to frame them. If they were identified as fakes or imitations, he would just hang them as decorations. If they were identified as genuine, he would sell them to raise money to invest and start a business in the Ming Dynasty. However, they were not framed yet, and they did not look like them at all.

Then, Song Xiaoyi thought for a moment and pulled out the old signboard from a hidden compartment at the bottom of the cashier counter.

The inscription reads "Song Family Heritage Restaurant," and the signature is "Wenbi." Back then, my grandfather claimed that it was written by Wen Zhengming himself, but the neighbors, including Song Xiaoyi himself, did not believe it.