30 Smelling the wine (1/2)

As Xue'er was lost within her mind, at the place where she yearned to visit the most, Gan Tian Chi was in the deep of night, searching for something.

He went down into the cellar of the cottage, that was closed off by a rotting wooden door. Beneath the door, there was a fairly large space that would have been used to store food for the winter if this was the cellar of an ordinary family, but the only thing below was many earthen jars of wine that has been there for who knows how long. The jars were full of dust, but the cloth that sealed the wine was still a noticeably red color.

The temperature within the cellar was noticeably cooler than the temperature outside, as it would be used to keep food in a fresh state for a longer period of time.

Gan Tian Chi went deeper into the cellar, the place had stone walls and dirt floors that resembled more of a tunnel than an underground storage area. There were many shelves and wooden drawers that lined the cold stone walls.

His fingers reached out and pulled on a drawer to see what had been placed in there, it was a lump of a silvery metallic metal that sparkled under the dimness of the cellar. It looked to be quite valuable.

”Nope.” He quickly closed the drawer and went on to open the other drawers in the cellar.

He ended up dismissing most of them until he got to a particular drawer that was hard to open.

Inside, was a lump of metal that was a slightly dark gray color, that did not show any lusters under the dim light, it seemed to be strong, but plain.

”Perfect.” He smiled, as he took a small lump out, deciding that it would be perfect for what he was about to do. His smile was slightly evil and contained traces of slyness that shone within his eyes.

As he walked back out to where he had entered, his gaze landed on earthen jars of wine that had laid there untouched, for many years. He hesitated for a while, before sneakily taking a jar with him upstairs.

The place that he had taken the jar from, was a clean round disk impression, within a sea of dust. One could wonder how long it would take for the impression to be filled in with dust.

In the back of the cottage, there was a large empty stone pit, that had some remnants of old ashes and charcoal that had been there for a long time. There were years upon years of sediment that accumulates on the old equipment.

This place had once been a place that he would refine his weapons, there had been many famous weapons that were made in this very place, but time had turned this once sacred place into humble ruins.

Well, that didn't matter, as this place was going to become useful again, to the once famed weapons smith. Gan Tian Chi gave the ground a gentle stomp, but this stomp caused the layers of sediment to crumble from the equipment, and return to its clean state.

With the stomp, slight ripples of energy dispersed into the forest, many animals and insects were startled by the sudden force. The birds flew into the air and the insects scattered away. At the nearest village, the felt as if a slight movement had occurred in the ground beneath them, but because it was a short movement, they went on with their daily lives as if nothing had happened.