518: Chapter 206: The Medicinal Wine from the Ancestral Blacksmith Family_1 518: Chapter 206: The Medicinal Wine from the Ancestral Blacksmith Family_1 After the young lady finished making cold noodles, she ripped apart two pan-made griddle cakes she’d purposely set aside and tossed in some vegetables and scallion flowers to make a soup—a true Sancha River-style soup, called “Griddle Cake Slice Soup.” To finish, she would add a little sesame oil or something, which made it taste quite good.
Since oil was scarcely used for cooking back then and griddle cakes were inherently oily, this soup was quite popular.
Perhaps another reason was that not much oil or water was used in the pan.
Generally, when making a griddle cake, the first one seldom comes out successful; so, to avoid wasting it, it was kept aside and later was turned into soup.
“After a while, let’s go deliver the wine to Old He!
We’ll give him a jar and Senior Brother Wang a jar too.
This is Longevity Wine, which is beneficial to anyone of any age.
I’ve also brought an extra jar.
Would you like to taste some?” Yan Fei asked Xiaoyan as they cleaned up after dinner.
“I don’t drink!
I haven’t even finished the honey you gave me!” Xiaoyan replied.
“If you don’t drink wine, just keep on drinking the honey.
Take your time, I’ve brought few more bottles of honey; feel free to drink, there’s plenty.” Yan Fei responded unconcernedly since he was used to offering her delicious food and drink, so he didn’t mind this particular wine.
There was indeed a lot of honey, and Yan Fei himself didn’t drink much, so now he couldn’t even be bothered to collect it.
The two boxes of bees had plenty of food and their numbers were increasing, so it was time to divide the boxes, but he still hadn’t gotten around to it.
“I can’t finish all the honey either, why don’t you take some and give it to Professor He?
He’s done us a huge favor, and also Senior Brother Wang.
We can’t finish it all anyway.
What do you think?” Xiaoyan suggested.
“Sure!”
After cleaning up, they prepared to set out with two jars of wine and several bottles of honey.
Wine is usually sold in jugs, but Yan thought that these jars looked more comfortable, so he preferred to use jars for gifting.
Besides, ten catties in a jug didn’t look particularly impressive, but a five-catty jug would appear stingy.
As for the Medicinal Wine, how long would it take to finish if it were ten catties?
Five catties in a small jar seemed most appropriate.
Just as they were about to leave, Yan thought better of it and picked up the remaining jar as well.
“Who’s this jar for?” Xiaoyan asked, seeing him holding a jar in each hand and wanting to pick up another.
She came over to help him hold it.
“No need.
These ropes chafe with prolonged use; I can carry it myself,” Yan stopped her.
“We’ll give it to Professor Qi.
Who knows, he might feel embarrassed and then introduce us to some new technology!”
Xiaoyan promptly found a small towel from the side, pushed him away, and herself picked up the jar with the towel as padding, “This way it won’t chafe.
And there can’t be so many new technologies, and even if there are, we may not necessarily be able to apply them!”
Yan Fei chuckled, “Well, if there aren’t any, that’s fine.
Didn’t you say he’s very respectable!
Anyway, I’m too lazy to carry this wine back.
Maybe after drinking it, he’ll get motivated and research some new varieties that will benefit us common folks!”
The two of them chatted and laughed, ignoring the astonished looks of others—Boss Yan’s aesthetic sense clearly didn’t conform to popular taste.
The small jar he was carrying, pitch black with no label, was typically called a pickled vegetable jar in the countryside and was not really attractive.
Him carrying it wasn’t much of a problem; with his get-up, he looked rustic enough.
But the young lady next to him, radiant and beautiful, carrying one too, that contrast was quite drastic.
The two of them were oblivious to the observers and cheerfully made their way from the main street to the campus, then meandered to Professor He’s house.
When they knocked on the door, they were both pleasantly surprised and confused when they saw who answered it: “Senior Brother Wang, you’re here too?”
Wang Jiuming, who opened the door and saw them, forced a smile, “Oh, it’s you guys!
Come on in and sit down!”
He then muttered under his breath, “The professor isn’t feeling well.
He just kicked out a bunch of guests.
He hasn’t had dinner yet.
Can you guys try to cheer him up?”
The pair was taken aback, and then Wang Jiuming stepped aside and shouted inside, “Professor, look, someone’s here to see you!”
Old He was lying on the living room lounge sighing deeply.
When he saw Yan and Xiaoyan come in, he didn’t get up.
He weakly said, “You brought something too?
Is it pickles or what?
Why does it look like an urn to me?”
Alright!
It did look a bit like an urn.
Yan recalled from the few TV shows he’d watched, there was indeed a character who kept the ashes of a relative in such a jar and carried it to scatter into the sea.
An elderly lady who must have been his wife came out from the room when she heard guests, and she said irately, “Can’t you say something nice?
Look at you, is this how a teacher should act?”
“Speaking and laughing, he welcomed the two of them: “Don’t think too much of him, he’s always been like this, quick, have a seat!
Ahh…
this is honey right?!
Look at how pure the color is.
Old man, aren’t you going to get up to see?
Your students are here out of goodwill, just look at you…”
Yan Fei and his companion were not actually angry; primarily, because Old He’s image was too shabby at the moment.
His hair was a mess, and he was wrapped in an old blanket so faded that its original color was indistinguishable— it was hard to tell from which era it came from.
Moreover, the tone of his voice was such that he spoke like a child throwing a tantrum, it was truly difficult to get angry with him.
“Alcohol!
Good alcohol!” After placing the honey, Yan Fei untied the rope wrapped around the jar.
“Have a smell and it’ll lift your spirits.
Are you ill?
This is medicinal wine, a panacea.”
“Ah…
I’m not in the mood to drink any kind of alcohol anymore.
You guys don’t know, do you?
Old Qi is almost done for!” Old He began mumbling incessantly after being mentioned by his wife, completely ignoring Yan Fei and his friend.
He was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, he tightened the old blanket around him.
“If Old Qi hadn’t given me this blanket back then, I might be the one lying in bed right now, decades have passed in the blink of an eye, and his current physical condition can be traced back to the lack of this blanket in his youth…”
Wang Jiuming quietly explained to them so they gradually understood why Old He was acting this way.
Back in the day, Old He and Professor Qi had lived together in the countryside where conditions were poor— their residence was a cowshed, how could that have been decent?
Furthermore, the weather was extremely cold during the winters.
Old He, having grown up in the city, had never experienced hardship, so during the nights, he was so cold that he couldn’t even sleep.
Professor Qi then gifted him a blanket, leaving himself with only a tattered quilt.
As a result, he developed health problems and his physical condition began to decline, and now, having grown old, he suddenly collapsed a few days ago.
When he collapsed, it created such an uproar that it even reached the capital, yet the renowned experts and professors who arrived were at a loss for what to do.
Professor Qi was already very old, and his life had been kept going by sheer willpower alone.
He was now at the brink of his lifespan, the severity of his condition was so dire that not even surgery nor medicine would work, it was beyond anyone’s capability to help.
Upon receiving this news, Old He returned home in anguish, forever haunted by the thought that he was at fault for Old Qi’s condition.
Wrapped in the blanket that Old Qi had given to him all those years ago, Old He looked more miserable than a sick person would, even though he wasn’t ill.
Yan Fei and Xu Xiaoyan did not expect to encounter such a situation upon their arrival.
They had even prepared a bottle of longevity wine for Professor Qi!
Upon hearing about his condition, they did not know whether it would be appropriate to deliver the gift.
Yan Fei opened the jar of wine with the intent of letting Old He smell its scent, but after listening to the entire story, he immediately resealed the jar.
But at this moment, Old He sniffed the air and seemed to lighten up a bit, “This is indeed fine wine, you made it yourself didn’t you!
I haven’t smelled something so rich in a long time, you must have stored it for quite awhile!”
“Yes!
This jar was filled last year, we had planned to give it as a gift but had some leftover.
It has been stored untouched since.” Yan Fei replied.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have opened the jar and let the scent out so intentionally.
The aroma of the grain wine, left sealed for almost a year, was truly rich.
“I recently made some medicinal wine.
I brought a jar for each of you, and originally there was another one for Professor Qi…”
He didn’t need to say the rest.
Since many experts and professors said that Professor Qi was beyond help, what was the point of delivering medicinal wine?
“Ah!
You know how to make medicinal wine?” Old He sighed heavily upon hearing this, sounding somewhat weak.
“You didn’t just mix random things and call it medicinal wine, did you?
Making medicinal wine isn’t something that can be done arbitrarily!”
“He sells wine back home!
The medicinal wine we made before has cured many people!
Everyone in our village knows about it, it’s not made haphazardly.
The medicinal wines made previously can even cure paralyzed patients, allowing them to walk again at the very least.
If you don’t believe it, you can ask around in our village…” Hearing Old He belittle Yan Fei’s wine, Miss Xu Xiaoyan hurriedly defended him.
“Could it really be that magical?” Old He was astonished.
“Does your family have a history of being traditional Chinese medicine doctors?”
Not only was Old He surprised, but Wang Jiuming and Granny He were also slightly astonished.
To think that Yan Fei, despite his young age, was capable of such things.
“No, our family comes from a line of blacksmiths.” Yan Fei’s explanation made the others laugh helplessly, wondering what relation a smith has with medicinal wine.
Was he making iron shavings wine?
“This wine is different from the medicinal wines.
This one is meant for revitalizing the body and prolonging life.” Yan Fei, oblivious to the surprise on their faces, continued, “Actually, it’s just an old recipe.
I happened to get my hands on the ingredients, so I made some wine.
The ingredients for the previous wines are no longer available, so I’ve switched to other herbs.
It’s not the same as before.”
“What materials?” Wang Jiuming asked from the side.
“Mainly tortoise shell.” Yan Fei saw no reason to hide the truth now that they have a tortoise.
“There are also other ingredients, but the effects are definitely good.
I’ve been selling it for some time.
It’s only those who have tried it that have said it’s good that I have made more using last year’s wine.”
“Tortoise shell wine!” Wang Jiuming was quite disappointed upon hearing this, and Granny He was too.
Seeing this, Yan Fei thought and then added, “My tortoise shell wine is a bit different from others.
Anyway, you will know once you drink it.”
It was already quite precious that he could remind them this much, Yan Fei was not generous in giving his wine to others.
As long as his good intentions were recognized, if they didn’t want to drink it, there was nothing he could do—of course, aside from not knowing whether Xiao Wu from the antique market, who once helped him sell antiques, drank it or not, everyone else thoroughly enjoyed the wine.