All the people and all the affairs under heaven are nothing more than dishes on the dining table of us Tang people. Although the original ingredients possess their own primal flavors, Ethan Brooks still believes that the most delicious food must be processed—cut, cooked, prepared, and finally served at the table—to truly suit the stomachs of the Tang people. Steaming, braising, stir-frying, stewing... For every matter under heaven, there is a corresponding culinary technique. Whether it’s Goguryeo, the Turks, Tubo, Tuyuhun, Xueyantuo, Tiele... or great whales, fierce tigers, giant sharks, hungry wolves, all can be cooked into peerless delicacies in the iron cauldron that is the Tang Dynasty. Add to that the peerless seasonings of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, and so on, and no matter the flavor, there will always be one that leaves you unforgettable. Ethan Brooks hopes that at such a grand banquet, there must absolutely be a seat for himself! Now, the delicacies have been prepared—Ethan Brooks lays out the napkin, picks up the deer-carving knife, closes his eyes slightly, and prepares to enjoy an unprecedented feast to satisfy his hungry and thirsty stomach.

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Volume One: The Lump on the Flood Dragon's Head

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Preface

There has never been anything eternal in this world.

At least, for you personally, that’s how it is!

The world only truly begins to turn when you are born.

Just like a newly born sun in the universe!

You are the only protagonist in this world; everyone else exists because of you. Many people, many things, pretend to have existed since ancient times, just so you can truly blend into this world, so that your performance becomes real life.

The pleasure of the senses makes us lose our understanding of the real world.

Whether we live well in this world depends on your acting skills, and on whether the script you receive is a comedy or a tragedy, a Mary Sue script or a hard-fought struggle, a "Dragon-AoTian" script or a miserable documentary like "The Last Porter."

When you die, this world disappears. All the beauty we thought existed will vanish... How utterly WTF is that.

In another year, I’ll reach the age of knowing destiny, and I often feel deeply ashamed for having lived my past life too conventionally.

Even now, I still refuse to live perversely, and that is the greatest shame of my life.

Running naked in the wild, rolling in the bustling city, shouting into the wind, dancing in the pouring rain, asking the most beautiful woman her price, spitting at the most learned person, bowing to the ordinary, thrusting my genitals at the powerful...

I haven’t done any of the above, yet these are the things I most want to do right now.

The things I most want to do, I can’t do... so, I am a true failure!

Hiding in the dark, everyone looks like an idiot to me, proud as an emperor; standing in the light, I feel like I’m the only idiot in the world, as humble as a potato still covered in dirt.

This is another kind of suffocating, humble, wretched perversion, crushed under a boulder—there is no cure for this kind of perversion!

Fortunately, in the real world, where I’ve made a mess of my own life, I still have the ability to write stories.

In my stories, I—can fly freely...

I also love to eat, so I put my imagination, my mind, my five viscera and six bowels, my everything on the dining table, prepare the utensils, and savor it bit by bit, using my own flesh and blood to reward myself.

The following story is not about food, and yet it is about food. After all, on the Chinese dining table, from the stars of the universe to the dust and ants, everything can be placed on the table, savored with one’s own flesh and blood to taste its original flavor.

—Written by your loving 孑与2 on June 1st, before going perverse

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Chapter One: The Omnipotent Huihe People

The snow on the Tianshan Mountains is very white, and has been so for many, many years.

It looked like this the year before last, it looked like this last year, and today, it still looks like this, as if time has frozen at this moment, never changing.

Only when the setting sun falls on the white snow does change gradually occur, with a process of transformation from silvery white to golden yellow.

This process is neither too fast nor too slow, but the change is unwavering, until it is swallowed by darkness.

Sometimes, proud swans fly over the Tianshan Mountains, eventually turning into a tiny black dot and then disappearing, as if they have gone straight to the realm of the gods.

Golden eagles are different. They generally do not fly over the Tianshan Mountains, but prefer to soar among the cliffs and crags, riding the air currents, only folding their wings and swooping down from the heights when they spot prey.

Bar-headed geese are usually the main reason for the golden eagle’s dive, because they are too committed to their formation. Even if the last goose in the line is killed by the golden eagle, the formation remains unbroken, only the long, trailing cries of sorrow breaking one’s heart.

The sadness does not last long. The remaining bar-headed geese, under the lead of the head goose, sometimes form a straight line, sometimes a "人" shape, stubbornly crossing the last high ridge, and then burst into joyful honking, the short, crisp notes filling the Tianshan with happiness.

Grasshopper Lake lies beneath their wings, and is also the end point of their journey.