“Even if it’s Huangliang Yimeng, it’s still a beautiful dream.”
Before heading to the new branch of the internet-famous restaurant Huangliang Yimeng, Zhao Huaimeng carefully browsed through the shop’s online reviews and related news reports. Among them, she picked out the most impressive sentence to serve as the title for her exclusive interview.
If she really had to say, Zhao Huaimeng felt she had quite some fate with this restaurant.
On a midsummer day last year, she and her ex-boyfriend had once gone there out of curiosity. They broke up that very day, for no other reason—within just a few hours, the entire internet witnessed her ex-boyfriend let out girlish screams as he ran out of that restaurant, and soon after, he blamed this incident on her.
As one could imagine, due to this reason, Zhao Huaimeng had always felt that Huangliang Yimeng restaurant indeed had something mystical about it—
Not the good kind.
Hearing that this new branch of Huangliang Yimeng was again located in a “haunted house,” Zhao Huaimeng specially wore the Buddhist prayer beads her mother had blessed for her. She drove eastward all the way, finally stopping in front of Jiefang Road Pedestrian Street, not far from Guan Yinli.
Just like Guan Yinli, Jiefang Road was also Yu Jiang’s established commercial district. Not only was it riverside, but it was also a transfer station for Lines 1 and 2. Nearly ten years ago, the shop prices in the Jiefang Road commercial district had already skyrocketed. Looking around, almost all establishments that could establish themselves in this location were top-tier internet-famous dining establishments like “Tea Something Moonlight.”
Obviously, for an internet-famous restaurant, being able to open a branch in such a location meant something in itself.
Following the navigation, Zhao Huaimeng went deeper and deeper. Finally, after circling around a malatang shop for nearly fifteen minutes, the severely nearsighted reporter finally noticed an inconspicuous neon light sign at the entrance of an equally inconspicuous alley nearby.
Huangliang Yimeng was another twenty meters further in.
The narrow alley, which could only accommodate two people walking side by side, was long and deep. The latter half was actually an uphill staircase. Zhao Huaimeng fingered her prayer beads all the way. Just when she began to doubt whether she had taken the wrong path, finally, a cluster of opening flower baskets appeared out of nowhere on the small platform halfway up the stairs. As the overcast wind blew, the porcelain dolls hanging under the eaves swayed with the wind. She turned her head and saw a small storefront by the mountain path, with four characters written on the metal sign.
Huangliang Yimeng.
Opening a shop in a place like this… did they really want people to eat there?
While she was stunned, a tall, thin middle-aged man in a Chinese-style jacket hurriedly came out of the shop. Upon seeing her, he first squinted and sized her up for a moment, then immediately pulled a business smile across his face that would make even editors afraid, and came forward to shake her hand.
“You must be Miss Zhao. I’ve been waiting for you for quite a while… I’m Han Sha. I’m the one who contacted you on WeChat before.”
The middle-aged man had a faint medicinal smell about him. Zhao Huaimeng remembered him too.
At Huangliang Yimeng’s old shop in Guan Yinli, Han Sha was the Daoist who handled the cash register.
She instinctively asked, “Daoist Master, you not only handle mystical affairs in the shop but also external business cooperation negotiations?”
Han Sha smiled, “Daoists need to eat too, Miss Zhao. It’s hard to find suitable work these days. Learning more skills never hurts… Modern Daoists face quite intense competition.”
He ushered her inside. In an instant, Zhao Huaimeng’s vision opened up.
It turned out that behind Huangliang Yimeng’s modest storefront was a shop built against the mountain, with a very high ceiling. It looked like it used to be a grocery store, and even the original wooden structure had been completely preserved. There were six or seven tables inside, and above the cash register hung an old photograph showing a smiling woman applying cream to a child’s nose.
At this moment, the sound of a high-speed mixer was coming from the back of the shop. Han Sha said calmly, “The boss is in the back with two pastry chefs trying out new menu items. It might take a while longer. Miss Zhao… although our boss has strong technical abilities in cake-making, honestly speaking, for many business matters, you’d get better answers from me than from him.”
Zhao Huaimeng: “…”
Actually, when she watched the interview about Huangliang Yimeng’s haunting last time, she had already discovered that this shop’s spiritual boss was indeed someone else.
She hesitated for a moment but couldn’t help whispering, “Um, I heard this shop is also in a haunted house. Is that true?”
As if not expecting her first question to be this, the Daoist paused, but then nodded without hesitation, “Indeed. The place where you’re standing now had a child who hanged himself three years ago. It was suicide.”
Zhao Huaimeng: “……..”
Was this something that could be said so casually?
The reporter’s scalp tingled, and for a moment she felt uncomfortable all over. Her hands rapidly worked the prayer beads as her mouth went dry, “Then… you people are…”
Han Sha noticed her nervousness and gently shook his head, “Miss Zhao, you don’t need to be nervous. That child has long since passed on… Three years ago, she chose this path because she was diagnosed with a rare disease and didn’t want to burden her parents. Originally, her parents couldn’t bear to sell this house because they missed their daughter, but now, their second daughter has been diagnosed with the exact same condition…”
Though the words weren’t finished, the rest of the story was self-evident.
Suddenly, Zhao Huaimeng felt as if she had been choked. She remembered that Han Sha had mentioned before that Huangliang Yimeng’s branch, like the main store, was also an internet-famous restaurant with a charitable nature.
It was said that recently, the shop owner had reached cooperation with Yu Jiang Rare Disease Care Association, recruiting family members of rare disease patients who urgently needed money but had limited working hours to work as servers or delivery staff in the shop. This both supplemented their living needs and allowed more people to understand rare diseases, contributing to rare disease charity work.
As an internet-famous restaurant that was already quite unconventional, even after its transformation, Huangliang Yimeng was still playing an unexpected card.
Han Sha said, “Miss Zhao, I can understand your confusion, but we chose to open a shop here not because this is a haunted house, but because the original homeowners really needed financial help. After all, ‘haunted house’ is just what outsiders call it, but actually, for those who once lived here, all so-called haunted houses are irreplaceable existences. Can you understand what I mean?”
For some reason, when saying these words, Zhao Huaimeng vaguely felt that a trace of melancholy appeared in the Daoist’s eyes, but soon, he resumed his ethereal, sage-like appearance and began carefully explaining the charitable model of this branch to her. Finally, he didn’t forget to show her all the shop’s qualification certificates.
“That’s basically it. We spent nearly a year preparing this shop, and there were quite a few difficulties in the early stages. But because we recently got new overseas investors, we’ll finally be opening the day after tomorrow. Miss Zhao, is there anything else you’d like to know now?”
After talking at length, Han Sha invited her to sit at a corner table. As lemon water was placed before her, Zhao Huaimeng’s spirits lifted.
She knew that her exclusive interview was truly beginning from this moment.
After all, she couldn’t allow her column to be filled entirely with advertisements, even though her editor had initially wanted her to write a sponsored article and had even come up with the title: “Horror Internet-Famous Restaurant Opening Guide.”
Zhao Huaimeng couldn’t help but roll her eyes massively in her mind.
Saying something about just needing to clearly describe Boss Bai’s arduous shop-opening process, and saying that readers would definitely love to read cool stories with both hauntings and case-solving. But please, she was a columnist for Yu Jiang Daily, not a novelist. With her professional integrity, she couldn’t possibly produce such sensationalist material to fool her readers.
No matter what—
Zhao Huaimeng took a deep breath, pulled out her notebook to look at the homework she had done beforehand, and said, “Actually, after the case at 29 Guan Yinli was solved, the controversy about haunted houses has gradually subsided. Mr. Han, please rest assured that I won’t focus on writing about this in this column either, because compared to the house itself… actually, what I want to know more about is the stories of the people in the house.”
“…People?”
“That’s right, your stories.”
Zhao Huaimeng finished speaking concisely and looked intently at the person across the table.
“I want to know more about why you initially chose to work in such a horror-themed internet-famous restaurant? And what is the reason that makes you continue to follow Boss Bai of Huangliang Yimeng… Mr. Han, could you please tell me first?”