Chapter 40: Digging Up Mountain Wine
That day, it was a rare warm, windless, sunny day.
Taking advantage of the fine warm sunlight, Ying Kongtu sorted out some dried goods from the attic and laid them out beneath the sun to dry again.
Dried fruit, preserved vegetables, dried bamboo shoots, dried fish, dried pumpkin, dried yardlong beans, dried eggplant… Dried goods of all colors were placed on bamboo trays and lined up to dry. Even the roof of his house turned colorful.
It was as though the golden harvest season had returned.
Dried goods were delicious, but troublesome.
Even a mountain god had to take his household’s dried goods out to sun them from time to time. Otherwise, they might grow damp and moldy.
Frequent drying had its benefits too.
After being dried several more times, the dried goods seemed to absorb the scent of sunlight. They would become even sweeter and richer, carrying a faint fermented umami, completely different from the flavor of fresh ingredients.
Without finding it troublesome, Ying Kongtu carried the bamboo trays out one by one and placed them on the roof to dry, like the custom of airing the autumn harvest.
The wolf king Xian Niao followed beside him.
Ying Kongtu introduced, “That side is the snack basket. There are some homemade snacks in it. If you want to eat them, you can come up and get them yourself.”
Xian Niao and Tiaozhu were both little mountain gods. They had already left the category of ordinary animals and could eat human food.
Ying Kongtu sometimes fed them little snacks.
However, Tiaozhu was generally not that interested in all sorts of food. Its favorite thing was still lying on the courtyard wall and sleeping.
Only now that Xian Niao had come down did Ying Kongtu seize the chance to introduce his new snack basket.
Ying Kongtu took out a large piece of beef jerky and gave it to Xian Niao. “Try it. The seasonings for snacks nowadays are much richer. I think the taste is even better.”
Xian Niao held the beef jerky in its mouth. “Awoo.”
Ying Kongtu wiped his hands clean and stroked its neck. “Jingwei is still little and can’t eat these snacks. Don’t give any to it.”
Xian Niao said, “Awo.”
After introducing the attic to Xian Niao, Ying Kongtu brought it downstairs.
Dart and Jingwei were squatting downstairs, looking up at the mountain god and wolf king with envy in their eyes.
If one had to say who was most interested in snacks, it would have to be Dart and Jingwei.
Unfortunately, their stomachs were delicate. Dart especially would easily get diarrhea from eating random things, and its poop would be terribly smelly too.
So even though it had come early to Ying Kongtu’s house to act cute and beg for food, it still had not gained the right to go up to the attic.
“Meow.” Dart smelled the aroma of beef jerky, raised its tail high, and circled around Xian Niao’s legs, even squeezing out from beneath its chest and belly.
This fat orange raccoon cat cried in an extremely fawning manner, not feeling the slightest bit ashamed.
It even raised its head, bumped Xian Niao’s chin with its own, stood up on its hind legs, and patted Xian Niao’s leg with its paw pads.
“Dart!” Ying Kongtu picked Dart up by the scruff of its neck, supporting its bottom as he held it in his arms. “Why are you greedy again? Be careful, or tonight I’ll take you to the vet for an injection.”
Dart shrank its neck.
This fat orange raccoon cat could already understand scattered words like “vet” and “injection,” and it deeply feared them.
As a male cat that had lost its balls at the vet, the pet hospital was its place of heartbreak.
Seeing that the orange raccoon cat in his arms had behaved, Ying Kongtu carried it to the lounge chair and sat down to bask in the sun.
The two wolves lay on his left and right.
Jingwei had grown a little more. It no longer looked like a dirty rag and had begun to show the bearing of an adult wolf. When it was not grinning with its tongue out and smiling foolishly, it looked rather stern.
Of course, that sternness was only a kind of illusion. Most of the time, it was very obedient.
For example, right now, it was lying beside Ying Kongtu’s feet, even using its furry belly to warm them.
Ying Kongtu loved winter afternoons like this very much. The sunlight was warm, the furry ones kept him company, and lying in the courtyard was extremely comfortable.
He lay on the lounge chair, as if he too had been dried crisp and clean by the sunlight, his whole body fluffy and content.
That night, when he went to sleep, he lay in his warm quilt and almost immediately entered dreamland.
Perhaps because he had introduced snacks to Xian Niao during the day, he rarely had a dream.
In the dream, he was wearing a long robe, leisurely carrying a hoe and carrying wine on his back as he went up the mountain.
In the dream, the surrounding mountains were still his territory.
He quickly found a cool, dry valley, then took the wine jars out of the back basket and set them aside.
After identifying the wind direction, he dug a pit in the wind and buried the wine jars he had brought.
To bury the wine jars well, he had specially dug a pit as deep as a person.
At that depth, under normal circumstances, ordinary humans and animals would never dig them out.
It was wine!
Ying Kongtu suddenly realized it in the dream.
This was not a dream at all. It was wine he had truly buried!
Ying Kongtu abruptly opened his eyes, turned on the bedside lamp, and sat up.
Several hundred years ago, one year, a non-human friend of his had given him a batch of very good rice.
At the time, he could not finish that much rice alone.
If rice was stored too long and became old grain, it would no longer taste good.
So he found excellent wine starter, brewed that batch of rice into wine, and distilled it into strong liquor.
The wine he brewed tasted very good even then. It was sweet, crisp, mellow, and fierce. When poured out, it was as clear as fine mountain spring water.
There was a local habit of aging wine.
Seeing such good wine, he had simply set aside a portion, sealed it layer upon layer, and finally brought it into the mountains and buried it in a valley.
In the first few years after burying it, he still remembered.
It was just that the wine had not aged enough yet, so he did not dig it up.
Later, when more things happened, he busied himself settling the little mountain gods under him and completely forgot about it.
Unexpectedly, several hundred years later, he had remembered it again.
Ying Kongtu glanced at the gloomy sky outside the window, a little excited.
He would go dig up the wine tomorrow.
He wondered whether the wine was still there after several hundred years. Could it still be drunk? What would it taste like?
If it was still drinkable, it should have become excellent aged wine, right?
Ying Kongtu had drunk old wine before, but he truly had never drunk wine aged for several hundred years.
Just thinking about that taste made him feel it was a little unbelievable.
Ying Kongtu had some trouble sleeping for the latter half of the night. After finally waiting until dawn, he immediately called Wen Zhongshan.
Wen Zhongshan thought something had happened. When he answered the phone, he sounded a little tense. “Kongtu?”
Ying Kongtu’s excited voice came through. “Wen Zhongshan, we’re going up the mountain to dig up wine. Are you coming?!”
“Dig up wine?”
“I buried a batch of good wine in a valley before. Last night I suddenly dreamed of it, so I plan to dig it out today.”
“Was it buried several hundred years ago?”
“Yes. Buried more than three hundred years ago. I suddenly remembered it last night. If we dig it up today, it’ll be like opening a blind box.”
“I’m going. I’ll get up right now and come find you.”
“Then I’ll wait for you at home. After breakfast, we’ll go up the mountain. See you later!”
Five minutes later, the two met.
Ying Kongtu was still excited and explained the whole story from beginning to end.
“Speaking of which, it’s all thanks to you and Xian Niao. If you hadn’t given me faith power, my condition wouldn’t have recovered, and I wouldn’t have remembered. Maybe if I hadn’t talked to Xian Niao about snacks, I wouldn’t have remembered either.”
Xian Niao was beside them. Hearing its own name, its thick, soft ears twitched.
Ying Kongtu was attracted by its ears and casually rubbed them a few times.
The warm, soft, and very elastic wolf ears felt wonderful.
It was not enough for Ying Kongtu to touch them himself. He slightly moved aside, signaling Wen Zhongshan to touch them too.
Wen Zhongshan smiled and came over to stroke them as well.
After a simple breakfast, Ying Kongtu brought Wen Zhongshan and the furry ones up the mountain.
The valley where they were digging up wine today was on Yehang Mountain, not far from that enormous masson pine.
Xian Niao and Tiaozhu still went through the shrine.
Dart and Jingwei were transported there in the farm tricycle by the two of them.
After parking the vehicle at the foot of the mountain, Ying Kongtu handed Wen Zhongshan a hoe. “It’s been too long. I don’t know what the situation is with the wine on the mountain. I hope it’s still there.”
“It definitely is. Since the tree is still there, the wine must still be there too.”
“Let’s go. We’ll know once we dig it out.”
Their group followed the slope up the mountain and then walked into the valley.
Several hundred years had passed, yet the terrain here had not changed. It was just that the valley was now filled with miscellaneous trees and weeds.
In winter, these waist-deep weeds had basically all withered.
Ying Kongtu held a machete, chopping as he identified the direction.
“It’ll probably be a little difficult to dig.” Ying Kongtu scraped the ground with the hoe and discovered that beneath it were dense, tangled roots.
These roots were interwoven in a complicated mess. When the hoe struck down, it could not even sever them. They had to be chopped apart with the machete.
“Good thing I buried it deep. Otherwise, the wine jars definitely would have been pierced by roots.” Ying Kongtu dug hard with the hoe. “Digging in winter really isn’t easy.”
Wen Zhongshan dug with him. “Are you sure it’s underneath here?”
“Not sure.” Ying Kongtu panted lightly and called Xian Niao over as it was using its paws to dig soil beside him. “Xian Niao, help smell it. See if you can catch the scent of wine.”
“Awoo.” Xian Niao came over, lowered its head, sniffed the soil, then sniffed toward the side.
Ying Kongtu quickly followed its movement and dug to the side.
After chopping away the weeds and shrubs above the soil and digging open the surface layer, it became easier to smell the wine scent underneath.
After sniffing for a good while, Xian Niao stopped and scraped the soil beneath with its paw.
“Are you sure it’s here?” Ying Kongtu asked.
Xian Niao gave a soft cry. “Awoo.”
Ying Kongtu said, “Then let’s dig down!”
Ying Kongtu pushed Jingwei’s furry backside, making it move away. Then he swung the hoe and dug downward with Wen Zhongshan with all their strength.
The two dug hard for quite a while, and the pit grew deeper and deeper.
When Ying Kongtu dug out another hoe of soil, he suddenly smelled the scent of wine in the earth. “It’s right here!”
Ying Kongtu’s spirits lifted. “Be careful. Don’t break the wine jar.”
They no longer swung the hoes in large strokes. Instead, they carefully scraped the ground with the hoe, loosening the soil little by little.
“Ding—”
The hoe suddenly struck a hard object.
“It’s the wine jar!” Ying Kongtu said, jumping down into the deep pit and touching it. “This is the wine jar I buried.”
“Can it be carried out now?”
“No. We still need to dig a little more around it first and clear away the soil.”
The two once again swung their hoes, expanding the earthen pit with effort.
After digging for almost twenty minutes, the wine jar inside the pit gradually revealed its full appearance.
This wine jar had been underground, soaked and stained by soil for several hundred years. Its color had already turned earth-brown.
Ying Kongtu carefully lifted it up and could feel the wine sloshing inside.
“A lot has evaporated. Only half a jar is left.” Ying Kongtu shook the wine jar, then handed it to Wen Zhongshan.
Ying Kongtu’s jar had a lid. The lid was sealed with mud, the mud was covered with thick paper, and another layer of mud sealed the outside of the paper.
It was sealed tightly layer upon layer, and its condition looked very good.
Wen Zhongshan said, “It should still be drinkable.”
Ying Kongtu said, “I think it should be drinkable too. I just don’t know what it tastes like.”
With their sense of smell, they could catch a very faint wine aroma.
It was refreshing and penetrating, so it definitely had not gone bad.
Ying Kongtu said eagerly, “Let’s open it. Once we open it and smell it, we’ll know.”
Wen Zhongshan said, “All right.”
