They Told Me to Build Good Karma by Selling Side Dishes - Chapter 73

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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73. Them (1)

From what I’d heard through the grapevine, Ji-gu was described as an arrogant chef with an iron will and a penchant for causing trouble. They said she ground people up in the kitchen and even stole recipes from others.

At least, the Ji-gu that Jung Song-i had encountered was nothing like that. Jung Song-i set down her chopsticks slowly, pulled a handkerchief from her pocket, and dabbed the corners of her mouth.

“The bento box is so neat and tidy. I like it even more now.”

Even as she ate the other side dishes, the fragrance of the fuki greens lingered delicately, refusing to fade.

“Hyang-suk’s Side Dish Shop owner would be perfect for the Spring Festival, don’t you think?!”
“Yeah. She would be.”

Yun Ga-rin’s eyes sparkled.

“I hope Ji-gu decides soon… I really want her to come…”
“Yeah.”

Yun Ga-rin gazed quietly down at the bento box. Rumors that circulate are merely rumors, after all. At least, anyone who had tasted the side dishes packed in this box would know the truth.

‘Who exactly is lying?’

Them?

“Ga-rin.”
“Hmm?”

It was Jung Song-i who called out to Yun Ga-rin, lost in thought. A faint smile played at the corners of Jung Song-i’s lips.

“The Spring Festival… I think it’s going to be more interesting than I expected.”

Perhaps because the truth would be revealed at the Spring Festival.

***

After saying goodbye at the Happiness Welfare Center, Song Ae-rim and I walked to the shop.

“I’ll enjoy that coffee.”
“You’re the one who bought it anyway!”
“What money does a kid like you have?”

Song Ae-rim adjusted her bag strap and looked up at me.

“But boss! Today was really fun! Like I said at the Welfare Center! If you need me again next time, please call me!”
“I’ll call you if I need you again.”
“Really! Promise!”
“Promise?”

Ae-rim was determined to seal the promise with a pinky swear.

“I’m heading out! See you next time!”
“Be careful on your way.”

‘Her spirits seem to have lifted a bit.’

Ae-rim turned back several times to wave before opening the door to Myeong-ja’s Bakery across the street and stepping inside.

Left alone in front of the shop, I gathered the sandwich board and set up the standing sign again.

“I’m back.”

I said it even though no one could hear, then stepped inside.

“Welcome back, meow.”
“Hae-tae?”

Hae-tae was waiting on the counter.

“Why didn’t you go to the Dimensional Space?”
“I was waiting, meow!”
“Were you hungry for lunch?”
“That’s right, meow!”

I hung my padding jacket on a chair and pulled a letter from my pocket.

“Before that.”
“What is it?”
“Let me read the letter from the grandfather who requested the butterbur greens side dish first.”
“Meow?”

I unfolded the crumpled letter and examined it.

[Hello.
Owner of Hyang-suk’s Side Dish Shop.
After eating the sautéed butterbur and butterbur salad this time, memories of the past came flooding back naturally.
I felt that the life I’ve endured all this time was not in vain.
Thank you.
I’ll greet you in person at the shop next time.]

I lingered for a moment, my gaze resting on the words.

“…Even receiving letters like this.”

It’s wonderful.

I folded the letter and placed it in the drawer beneath the counter. Just then, winter wind slipped through the gap in the door. It swept across the shop before coming to rest in front of the praise sticker board.

Beneath the winter sunlight, two transparent hands appeared. As always, unchanged, butterbur greens stickers adorned their fingertips as they affixed them to the praise sticker board. As if to say, “You did well.”

I gazed at the board as another butterbur greens sticker was placed upon it. Watching the stickers accumulate, a deep sense of pride welled up within me.

‘I accomplished this.’

[You have obtained Karma Points and unlocked detailed shop information.]

Simultaneously, the unlock window for detailed information appeared.

‘Unlocked!’

The detailed shop information window fully expanded.

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[Ji-gu]
– Local Reputation 140 (People who know Ji-gu are spreading both negative and positive rumors about me.)
– Divine Being Realm Reputation: 70 (The Divine Being Group Chat is asking to know what’s being said about our Ji-gu.)
– Good Deed Points: 14 (Reward unlock conditions not met)
[Business Status]
Today’s Customer Count: 60/70
Regular Customers: 170
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I frowned as I examined the newly unlocked window.

“People who know me?”

I muttered the words as if swallowing them whole. Someone, somewhere, was quietly spreading rumors about me—that’s what this meant.

‘And I think I know exactly who.’

A bitter taste bloomed inside my mouth.

“Those bastards.”

When I’d stepped away from cooking and lived quietly, they’d spread no rumors at all. But the moment I returned to the kitchen, as if they’d been waiting all along, gossip clung to me like a shadow.

“What’s wrong, meow?”

Hae-tae’s voice pulled me back to myself.

“Hm? Oh…”

I lifted Hae-tae onto my lap and stroked his head.

“It seems like people who leak my information have come to our neighborhood.”
“Who are these people who leak, meow?”
“The ones who stole my recipes and ran away.”

The culinary world is smaller than you’d think. It’s the same old faces, the same old connections, all tangled together. Once you’ve crossed paths with someone, word spreads fast.

“They stole your recipes? What do you mean, meow?”

Hae-tae lifted his head straight and fixed his gaze upon me.

“When I was working as a sous chef at the second restaurant. Something happened back then.”
“The second restaurant, you say?”
“Yeah. Chef Cha Beom-seok saw me working hard at the first restaurant and scouted me.”
“Scouted you, you say?”
“Right. He said he’d make me a sous chef if I came with him. So I went.”
“You went, you say?”

Hae-tae tilted his head.

“There was nothing there. It was a place where you had to build everything from the ground up. That’s when it started. I was preparing to open my own restaurant back then.”
“Why, you say?”
“While following that chef around, I realized I needed a restaurant of my own.”

Thinking back on it now, I felt a bit wronged.

“So I took Grandmother Hyang-suk’s side dishes as inspiration and began organizing recipes one by one. Refining them into recipes that would suit the restaurant I was going to open.”
“You’d almost finished organizing them, you say?”
“Yeah. I was nearly at the completion stage.”

Even now, thinking back to that time made my blood boil.

“That day too, after work I changed clothes and picked up my bag. Strangely, the bag felt light.”
“The bag felt light, you say?”

I nodded.

“Yeah. The recipes. Someone took all of them.”
“What?!”
“They disappeared completely.”

Hae-tae lifted his head and looked at me.

“And you just stood there and watched?!”
“Do you think I’d be so spineless?”

I offered a bitter smile.

“First, I had to figure out who took it. But I was worried the thief might run away, so I quietly asked around. Eventually, I found out who it was. Those guys.”
“So what did you do?!”
“I went straight to their house.”

The memory of that day remained vivid.

“They’d destroyed my recipe book.”

I still couldn’t believe it.

“So I searched their entire house and tore up the recipe right in front of them. I told them to stop. Let’s end this here. I was under enormous stress.”
“Was it over?”
“No. They’d already transferred the files to a computer.”
“They transferred it again?!”
“I deleted all of that too.”

I nodded slowly.

“I told them to end it there, you know? But we’d been getting along well at the restaurant for several years anyway.”

It was true.

I’d begged them to stop, considering the years of camaraderie we’d shared together.

“Did it end well?”
“To some extent?”

Chef gossip spreads fast. Word got around that they’d messed up badly and couldn’t do well.

“I was trying to bury it to some extent too.”

What restaurant would hire thieves who stole recipes? But then they mention me? I’m doing just fine.

“The saying that being kind makes you a pushover is true. Being kind creates pushovers, they say?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I forgave them and buried it all, but they turned me into the sous chef who stole recipes at the restaurant?”

“If you’re going to live a certain age, then you’d better live up to that age.”
“That’s it?”
“After that, the two of them left the Restaurant. I thought it would end once they left, but…”

Stubborn ties, once severed, always leave their mark.

“It wasn’t the end?”
“Of course not.”

I rested my chin on the table and recalled that moment. I thought I’d forgotten it, but the memory was far clearer than expected.

“If it had ended there, I wouldn’t even be angry.”
“So what happened?”
“They uploaded the recipe to YouTube.”

I was speechless. Even now, whenever that memory surfaced, my entire body trembled.

“How did you find out?”
“I was busy with the shop, so I turned on YouTube during a break. That’s when some video popped up. And it had over a million views, no less. The algorithm these days is something special, isn’t it?”
“You checked it?”

I nodded.

“Even as I clicked on that video, I was hoping it wouldn’t be true.”

It wasn’t about trusting them. I was hoping my faith wouldn’t be shattered.

“But it was.”

It was my recipe.

“Any chef can recognize a dish made from their own recipe. The way the seasoning is balanced, the timing of the heat. It was all my method.”

That wasn’t something you could imitate.

‘I made that.’

It was born from dozens, no—hundreds of failures. It wasn’t some recipe casually thrown together. They took all that time, all that effort, and walked away with it.

‘Am I angry or not?’

“…This is insane!”

Like Hae-tae’s voice, mine grew louder with each word.

“The higher the view count climbed, the angrier I became. And then they started posting hate comments about humanity itself?”
“Why didn’t you say something! It’s so unfair!”

I let out a bitter laugh.

“The world is so filthy. I couldn’t do it.”
“Why?”

There was no way to drag down a YouTube channel that was already riding high on popularity.

“I had no one to protect me.”

I had to protect myself. If I spoke carelessly, I’d be the one to suffer the consequences.

“In the end, those bastards became even more famous, and I abandoned everything and came down here. That’s why Grandmother worried.”
“About what?”

I recalled the warmth of Grandmother Hyang-suk’s hand when she held mine. I stroked Hae-tae’s head as I continued.

“That I wouldn’t cook anymore.”
“Did you really try not to?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“But you know what’s funny?”
“What?”
“I thought I could really let it go.”

I realized it while taking care of Grandmother.

Watching cooking shows on TV and wanting to cook, observing the flavors at restaurants, noticing how I still couldn’t shake my professional habits.

“I couldn’t let it go… It wasn’t something I started just to look good in front of Grandmother. I wanted it too. Cooking.”

Watching the chef cook, my hands moved of their own accord. I disliked it, so I deliberately turned away even harder.

“Aren’t you glad you did it now?”

If I were to speak of this moment….

“Yeah. It was the right choice.”

I’d made the right call.

“And I met Hae-tae because of it.”
“Meow?”

Hae-tae blinked. Perhaps that’s why I felt the urge to protect this shop, this place.

“I need to deal with those bastards.”
“Deal with them, meow? You’re thinking of killing them?”
“Of course not.”

I laughed quietly.

“I’ll face them head-on.”
“That’s right, meow!”

Soon the truth would come out. The recipes they’d stolen couldn’t last forever.

It was already approaching two years.

‘They must be getting anxious by now.’

The recipes would run dry, and I was already making a name for myself as a chef.

“This time, I won’t run away.”

Back then, I’d wanted to abandon everything and leave.

“But running away only leaves regret behind.”
“So that’s why you’re facing them, meow?”
“Yeah. Now time is on my side. And I’ve gained allies too.”

I rolled up my sleeves, pushing the fabric all the way to my elbows.

The scars on my exposed palms, the fine cuts from knife work—they hadn’t faded. These were still a chef’s hands.

“But how are you planning to face them?”

Hae-tae lifted himself from my lap and stood.

“Next spring at the Spring Festival, those things that stole my recipes are coming as participants, aren’t they?”
“They’re coming as participants in the Regional Festival?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know their intentions well.”

But this much I know.

“They must be furious.”
“Why would they be?”
“Because I picked up a knife again.”

I adjusted my apron and turned on another light in the shop.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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