1763 The bent Osmanthus in the Moon Palace (16)
“What kind of monster is that?” Vladimir exclaimed.
Richard, who was in the hood, was almost deafened by Chang ‘e’s scream. He cursed,””Stop shouting! Call you a big head! If you have the strength, go to the bed and scream!”
Fina and Vladimir’s vision was blocked by the cold fog, and they could only see the afterimage of Chang ‘e’s escape. They were about to jump onto the roof beam to chase after her, but they were stopped by Zhang Zian.
“Forget it. The enemy is in the dark while I’m out in the open. The situation here is complicated. Don’t chase after a cornered enemy.” Zhang Zian tried to stop her.”She’s only running away temporarily. She’ll definitely come back later. She won’t let us do whatever we want in the Moon Palace … We should find the Jade Rabbit first.”
To be honest, he was also scared to death just now. His heart was still beating violently, as if it could jump out of his throat at any time.
When he watched horror movies, he always laughed at the protagonists and supporting actors for being too stupid. They knew there were ghosts but still did stupid things. He even turned off the sound, turning the horror movies into comedy. But now that he had experienced the horror movies himself, he couldn’t even cry. If there was a third party watching him from a supernatural perspective, they would definitely call him stupid. Why didn’t they find a way to escape from this place?
He had a way to escape, and he could just ask the game to quit the challenge. However, he had already passed through five stages and was one step away from the end. Wouldn’t it be a pity to quit now?
He had to strengthen his defenses. The elves were responsible for the movement on the ground and around them, while he shone his flashlight back and forth on the beams in front and behind him, in case Chang ‘e did the same thing again.
The flashlight frequently shook in the dark, making him a little dizzy and adding to the psychological pressure. He returned the wooden stick that was too weak to hurt Pi, and took out his old phone. He turned on the flashlight function of both phones, and then stuck the screens to each other, one in front and one behind, so that he could see 360 degrees in front and back. This way, he only had to turn his head from time to time.
As they walked, the wine monkey suddenly let go of his clothes and ran in the other direction excitedly.
“Luan ‘er! Wine! I smell bad wine!”
Zhang Zian couldn’t help but frown. He had come here to find the Jade Rabbit, not the wine, but if they split up at this time, they would definitely be caught by Chang ‘e one by one, so he motioned for the other elves to follow.
The wine monkey sniffed and found a hidden side door in the cold mist, then pushed it open excitedly.
“Luan ‘er! Wine! Osmanthus wine!”
It rushed in happily, as if it had seen a long-lost relative.
Zhang Zian and the others had no choice but to follow.
It was a wine cellar with many large wooden barrels. The wooden barrels were about the size of a water tank, and the rich aroma of wine wafted in the wine cellar.
There were characters written on every wooden barrel. Some had the words ‘ 100 years’, some had the words ‘ 300 years’, some had the words ‘ 500 years’, and even the innermost barrel had the words ‘ 1000 years’.
If he was not wrong, this should be the year of cellared for each barrel of wine.
The wine monkey happily hugged a 100-year-old cellared barrel. It couldn’t find a way to open it, and it was so hungry that it lost its soul, so it kept biting up and down.
Zhang Zian couldn’t help but laugh. He groped for the wooden wedge on the barrel cover, inserted a small knife in the Switzerland army knife into the gap of the wooden wedge, and then suddenly pushed it to the side. The wooden wedge loosened.
He did the same thing and pried the other wooden wedges on the lid.
Bang!
The barrel’s lid popped open.
Even Zhang Zian, who didn’t drink much, was deeply attracted by the aroma of the wine in the barrel. It was a rich and sweet taste mixed with the fragrance of Osmanthus and a variety of wild fruits. After hundreds of years of precipitation and fermentation, it was by no means comparable to modern alcohol. Just one breath of it was enough to make one drunk.
The wine monkey couldn’t wait to stick its head into the barrel, but it was still a little short of the wine in the barrel. It couldn’t drink it, so it could only lick it with its tongue.
Zhang Zian saw its ugly state and was about to smile wryly, speechless. Suddenly, he seemed to have thought of something, so he walked to the wooden bucket and stuck his head in to look inside.
The wine was about twenty centimeters away from the barrel.
He didn’t know how to make wine, but he felt that it was better to eliminate the interference of air as much as possible for something that needed to be sealed in a cellar for a long time.
In other words, he believed that when this wooden barrel was first sealed a hundred years ago, the wine inside should have been full. After a hundred years of precipitation and concentration, some of the water evaporated, so the wine’s surface had declined, and the wine’s purity had slowly increased.
It was easy to prove this conjecture.
He told the elves to keep an eye on their surroundings to prevent Chang ‘e from ambushing them, while he put his phone aside, bent his knees, and took a horse stance. He then wrapped his arms around an unopened wooden barrel from a century-old cellar.
“Rise!”
He held his breath, tensed up all the muscles in his body, and carried the big wooden barrel. Of course, this was mainly because the gravity in the Moon Palace was low. If it was a wooden barrel filled with wine as big as the one on earth, he would not be able to carry it even if he broke his waist.
After picking it up, he put the barrel down again. He knew the weight of this 100-year-old wooden barrel in his heart, and then went to pick up another 300-year-old wooden barrel.
Sure enough, the 300-year-old wooden barrel was lighter than the 100-year-old one. With a slight shake, he could feel the wine inside shaking more violently.
Then, he tried a wooden barrel that had been kept in the cellar for 500 years, which was even lighter.
In order to verify his feelings, he opened them separately. The wine inside was indeed less and less, and the wine fragrance was getting richer.
Finally, there was the thousand-year-old wooden barrel. There seemed to be only a fifth or less of the wine left in the barrel.
He thought for a while and decisively opened the only barrel of osmanthus wine that had been stored in the cellar for a thousand years.
In the beginning, he did not smell anything.
However, the wine monkey, who was greedily licking the hundred-year osmanthus wine, suddenly straightened its back and looked at him with a dull expression, as well as the wooden barrel of the thousand-year osmanthus wine beside him.
“So fragrant. Bengong has never smelled such a fragrant smell.” Fina narrowed its eyes in intoxication.”Like a girl on the Nile River throwing flowers …”
“Meow!” Galaxy sniffed deeply.
“Let the wine flow, and the tide of the heart rise!” Vladimir was in a poetic mood.
Snowy Lionet’s interest was also piqued, and it murmured,””I don’t see the man in the Black Hat, but I’m still thinking of holding the wine and serving it to the lady~”
“Squeak squeak.” Pi’s cheeks were slightly red.
“Ga … Ga … I want to fly higher …” Richard stomped his bird claws in his hood.
Just by smelling the fragrance of the thousand-year osmanthus wine, the elves seemed to be drunk.
Great sound, great elephant, and great fragrance?
He did not smell anything, but that was only because the human’s sense of smell was too bad, and the fragrance of the thousand-year osmanthus wine was too strong and pure. For example, the sun was clearly seven colors, but the human eye could not separate the seven-colored spectrum, and only thought that the sun was a warm yellow.
“Since I’ve entered Mount treasure, how can I return empty-handed? I can’t afford to drink it in Maotai. Let me try this thousand-year osmanthus wine and see if it’s better than Maotai so that I can brag to others when I go back …”
Zhang Zian muttered to himself, then lifted the very light wooden barrel of the thousand-year osmanthus wine. He put the barrel to his mouth and took a big gulp.
In the eyes of those who knew how to drink, this kind of rare thousand-year-old wine had to be tasted in small mouthfuls. Before drinking, one had to take a bath, change clothes, burn incense, and pray. Then, they had to gargle with the best pure water more than ten times before they could take a small sip in fear. This way, they could live up to the reward given by their ancestors. If Zhang Zian drank like a whale, it would be a waste of God’s gift. They would definitely scold him for forgetting his ancestors.
Thump.
Zhang Zian put the wooden bucket back on the ground and wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Luan ‘er! Is it … Good? I want to drink too! Leave some for me!” The wine monkey said, his heart aching.
It had originally planned to start with the 100-year-old wooden barrel and slowly taste it from low to high. Otherwise, it would feel dull if it drank the 1000-year-old osmanthus wine at the beginning. However, Zhang Zian did not play by the rules. He drank the 1000-year-old osmanthus wine directly and took a big gulp. From the sound, there was not much wine left in the barrel.
Zhang Zian still kept his head down and didn’t answer.
He seemed to be drunk as well. His body was shaking slightly as if he could not stand steadily.
“Luan ‘er! One look and I can tell that you’re a young child who hasn’t drunk much wine. How can a thousand-year-old wine be drunk in one gulp?” The wine monkey shook his head and sighed.”I’ll need to sleep for at least three days and three nights before I wake up.”
“Keke! He can’t wake up!”
A gust of cold wind blew over the drunkard monkey’s head, causing it to shrink back in fear. It was so scared that it was half-awake from the alcohol.
Just as Zhang Zian and the Elfins were intoxicated by the fragrance of the thousand-year osmanthus wine, a pale shadow quietly climbed on the roof beam and slipped into the wine cellar from the outside.
Chang ‘e was overjoyed to see that the elves were all intoxicated by the aroma of the thousand-year-old osmanthus wine, and Zhang Zian had fallen asleep standing on the spot after taking a big sip. He had also put his phone aside.
Only the drunkard monkey had a strong resistance to alcohol because of his long-term excessive drinking. Even after drinking a few mouthfuls of the hundred-year osmanthus wine, he still maintained his usual half-drunk and half-awake state.
She didn’t care about the wine monkey at all. She wanted to take this opportunity to bite Zhang Zian’s throat, drink his blood, and then kill the cats and monkeys. Finally, she would torture the stinky bird, pull out its feathers one by one, and then kill it.
She quickly slid along the beam to the top of Zhang Zian’s head, her legs hooked onto the beam, her head and upper body hanging down, and her chicken claw-like fingers reached for Zhang Zian’s neck.
At this moment, Zhang Zian suddenly raised his head and met her eyes. His eyes were clear, and he was clearly not drunk.
His cheeks were puffed up, and he seemed to have something in his mouth.
Chang ‘e felt like laughing. Did this guy think he was a giant toad from the ocean?
Before she could understand, the next second,
He raised a small object to his mouth with his right hand. It was his windproof lighter.
Pfft!
A large cloud of intoxicating wine mist spewed out of his mouth and enveloped a large area in front of him. Chang ‘e was caught off guard and had no place to hide.
At the same time, he flicked a lighter with his right hand.
Sparks flew as the wine mist transformed into a powerful Fire Dragon that swept toward Chang ‘e.