High on the mist-shrouded northern cliffs of the safe hall, where cold mountain springs plunged into mossy ravines, grew an ancient grove of wild Mountain Frost-Peach trees. Their gnarled, lichen-dusted trunks twisted like sleeping dragons among the grey stone crags. Their branches were heavy with fist-sized, velvety fruits that glowed with a faint, crystal-clear pink soft glow.
Lin Xiao bounced along the damp granite ledges, riding securely on Tie Shan’s broad, fur-covered shoulder. To their left, trailing like a brilliant vermilion comet through the mountain ferns, was Su Ling’er, with a dozen nimble deer gatherers carrying deep wicker hampers.
“Watch your footing near the edge, little Lord,” Tie Shan rumbled in a low deep. He stepped over a slick patch of mountain lichen. “One gust of wind from the upper gorge. A round fellow like you might roll all the way down to the Clear Stream before dinner.”
“If I roll, Uncle Tie, I just bounce,” Lin Xiao replied with an amused ripple of his azure mantle. “No broken bones for a slime. But let’s make sure none of these peaches drop into the deep pit. Fruit this ripe is far too precious to waste on gravity.”
Lin Xiao extended a long, elastic blue tendril into the nearest peach bough. Wrapping gently around a plump, pale-pink fruit, he plucked it from the stem with a clean snap. The skin of the frost-peach was coated in a delicate layer of frozen morning dew that crackled like fine sugar.
Bringing the peach to his mouth, Lin Xiao engulfed a small sliver into his mantle to sample its qualities.
A burst of crisp, floral sweetness exploded across his sense matrix. It was like biting into chilled summer nectar combined with high-mountain snowmelt. It was followed by a faint, tingling warmth of packed wood-qi that rang straight down into his core.
“Test complete,” the Omniscient Dao Spirit chimed smoothly within his mind. “Target: Wild Mountain Frost-Peach (Grade-1 High-Tier Botanical). Fructose concentration: twenty-four percent. Pure Yin-wood spiritual essence: exceptionally high. Acid-burn profile indicates optimal compatibility for anaerobic yeast fermentation.”
“These are amazing,” Lin Xiao said aloud, turning his crescent eyes toward Su Ling’er. “Ling’er, have the gatherers pick only the fruits whose tips have turned deep crimson. Those are packed with natural fruit sugars.”
“Understood, Lord Xiao,” Su Ling’er answered with a graceful nod. Her three white tails flicked with cheerful elegance as she guided the deer gatherers across the ledges, their slender hooves moving with sure-footed care across the stone.
By midday, the wicker hampers were brimming with over two thousand jin of frost-peaches. Before dropping the cliffside, Lin Xiao led the team toward a sheltered southern hollow where wild golden spirit bees had built giant, golden wax combs beneath an overhanging granite shelf.
Rather than smoking the bees or damaging their nests, Lin Xiao approached peacefully. He opened a small sky-slit in his fluid flank and deposited a pool of pure, diluted chaos spring water into a carved stone trough beneath the ledge. Smelling the rich, unbound life-force of the ancient fluid, the spirit bees buzzed in thrilled thanks, willingly parting to allow Lin Xiao to harvest several clay pot jars of thick, amber cliffside honey without a single sting.
“Even the wild insects understand our Lord’s virtue,” one of the young deer gatherers whispered in awe. He grabbed a jar of glowing honey. “Any fighter from the sects would have burned the hive to cinder to claim the comb.”
“Burning a hive is like chopping down an apple tree to pick three apples,” Lin Xiao remarked as they made their way back down the mountain. “Treat the bees with respect, leave them enough water and sugar to thrive. They’ll make you honey every season. Good farming is just good business.”
Back in the underground cellar beneath the roots of the Primordial Spirit Willow, preparations for the safe hall’s inaugural fermentation were already underway.
The cool, cavernous space had been excavated by Lu Ba’s badger masons and paved with flat quartz flat stone slabs. Along the western wall stood twenty huge fermentation casks, each crafted from five-hundred-year-old mountain cedar by Tie Shan’s master hands. The interiors of the casks had been lightly charred over glowing oak coals, imparting a rich, toasted smokiness to the wood grain while sealing the seams against unwanted wild bacteria.
Lin Xiao hopped onto the rim of the central wooden mash vat. “Uncle Tie, are the barrels ready?”
“Charred to a crisp, Lord Xiao!” Tie Shan declared, banging his star-iron fist against the thick oak staves with a hollow thump. “Tighter than a royal war-drum. Not a drop of liquor will escape these beauties.”
“Good. Now comes the fun part,” Lin Xiao said.
He slipped down into the massive vat. It had already been filled with thousands of washed, pitted frost-peaches. Rather than relying on wooden pestles, Lin Xiao transformed his azure body into a heavy, stretchy rolling mass. He surged back and forth across the fruit with high-pressure driving force. It crushed the peaches into a fragrant, pulpy pink puree that quickly filled the underground room with an intoxicating peach perfume.
Next, Su Ling’er stepped forward, tilting the clay pot jars to pour the thick, golden cliffside honey into the mash. The amber honey spiraled through the pink fruit pulp like liquid sunlight.
To complete the brew, Lin Xiao added thirty jugs of pure stone spring water drawn from the deepest stalactite pool in the grotto, enriched with packed drops of stalactite milk to provide stone complexity.
“Starting potion-made fermentation protocol,” the Dao Spirit announced. “Formulating optimal indigenous yeast culture. Synthesizing heat-tough yeast strains from wild fruit bloom. Suppressing undesirable acetic and muscle burn bacteria. Calculating moving agitation curves.”
Lin Xiao extended twenty fluid tendrils from his core, dipping one into each of the twenty charred cedar casks as the rich mash was funneled into them. Activating his innate [Thermal Regulation], he channeled an exact, steady heat pulse through the staves, stabilizing the mash at a steady, spring-like cellar warmth.
“Seal the bungs with beeswax,” Lin Xiao instructed, his voice muffled slightly as he packed on maintaining the heat balance. “No air leaks. We let the yeast do its quiet work.”
Su Ling’er and the badger assistants melted pure beeswax over small fire bowls. She poured the molten wax around the wooden bungs to form an airtight seal.
For two weeks, the underground cellar remained sealed. While the valley bustled with terrace farming, cottage construction, and border watches, the magic of natural chemistry unfolded within the darkness of the cedar casks. Guided by the Dao Spirit’s tiny heat shifts, the wild yeast broke down the peach sugars and honey, transforming them into pure, clean alcohol while binding the fruit’s volatile aromatics into complex, lingering esters.
On the fifteenth morning, Lin Xiao, Su Ling’er, and Tie Shan gathered once more in the quiet cellar.
The air in the room was electric with excitement. Tie Shan held a bronze mallet and a small wooden spigot in his hands, his breath coming in shallow huffs of excitement.
“Well, Lord Xiao?” Tie Shan asked, looking down at the blue slime resting beside the lead cask. “Shall we see if we brewed divine nectar or sour vinegar?”
“Tap the lead barrel, Uncle Tie,” Lin Xiao said with a cheerful wobble.
Tie Shan carefully lined up the spigot with the lower bung, raising his bronze mallet. With two swift, measured taps, the spigot breached the charred cedar wood.
Psssssh.
A soft hiss of carbonation escaped the seam. Then, like a sky dragon unfurling its wings, an aroma of mind-bending beauty erupted into the stone chamber.
It was unlike anything mortal nostrils had ever met. The bouquet carried the intense, crisp fragrance of high-mountain frost-peaches, interwoven with the warm, rich sweetness of wild honey, the subtle vanilla smokiness of charred mountain cedar, and the pure, refreshing chill of deep grotto spring water. The fragrance was so vibrant, so packed with pure spirit essence, that visible ribbons of pale-golden mist curled outward from the spigot, lighting up the dark cellar with a soft, ghostly light.
Tie Shan froze mid-swing, his eyes widening to the size of tea saucers as he drew in a deep breath. His iron-gray fur stood on end, and a tremor ran through his massive chest. “Heavens above... What’s this smell? My lungs feel as though they were washed in melted jade!”
Su Ling’er inhaled the sweet vapor, her three white tails unfurling and swaying in reflex ecstasy. A soft flush of crimson touched her fair cheeks as her spiritual sea swelled with sudden clarity. “The qi... The spiritual essence in this vapor alone is purer than third-grade marrow-cleansing pills!”
Lin Xiao rolled forward. He held out a delicate celadon cup carved from pale green river jade. “Let’s taste it before we get ahead of ourselves.”
Tie Shan turned the wooden tap.
A stream of pale-golden liquor flowed into the cup. It was fully clear, sparkling with tiny points of sky light like liquid diamond. When the cup was full, Lin Xiao extended a slender slime arm. He lifted the vessel and took a deep, appreciative sip.
The liquid touched his surface like cool silk. As it entered his internal matrix, the flavor unfolded in amazing layers. First, the crisp, vibrant sweetness of cold frost-peaches that made the mouth water. Second, a rich, velvety wave of honeyed floral warmth. And finally, a clean, dry, toasted-cedar finish that stayed on the palate with zero harshness, zero bitter burn, and zero fusel oil astringency.
A split second later, a wave of gentle, golden warmth bloomed from his core. It wasn’t the violent, churning spiritual fire of mortal training pills, but a smooth, harmonious river of pure life-force that dissolved every trace of fatigue from his non-Newtonian cells.
Perfection, Lin Xiao thought with deep joy. Fourteen percent alcohol, perfectly balanced acidity. An aroma that could wake an emperor from a coma. This is what wine was meant to be.
He turned to his companions. “Try some.”
Tie Shan and Su Ling’er didn’t hesitate. Tie Shan filled a wooden bowl, while Su Ling’er filled a smaller jade cup.
Tie Shan threw his head back and drained the bowl in one mighty gulp. For three heartbeats, the giant bear stood fully motionless, his jaw agape. Then, a resounding roar echoed through the stone vaults:
“ROOOAAARRR!”
Golden light erupted from Tie Shan’s chest! The thirty-six major spirit veins across his muscular torso lit up like blazing bright wires through his thick fur. The lingering stiffness and old phantom aches from where his cut arm had once been fully melted away, replaced by an oceanic surge of vital titan blood!
“My spirit veins!” Tie Shan shouted, his booming voice shaking dust from the ceiling. “The old scar tissue from twenty years ago... It dissolved! Just like that! One bowl of wine has done what fifty cooking pots of marrow-washing soup could never achieve! Lord Xiao, this isn’t wine—this is the Elixir of Immortality!”
Su Ling’er sipped her cup with delicate grace. She closed her amber eyes as tears of joy escaped her lashes. “It’s so gentle... Yet so deep. The cold peach clears the mind. Meanwhile, the honey nourishes the origin soul. Even the grand royal banquets of the capital never held a drink to rival this.”
A soft chime rang in Lin Xiao’s mind:
Lin Xiao looked at the twenty massive casks standing in solemn, fragrant rows along the stone wall.
“We keep five casks for ourselves and the upcoming festival,” Lin Xiao decided with a happy wobble. “The rest will age here in the cool cellar. Good wine only gets better with time.”
He took another sip from his jade cup. That let the golden warmth spread through his squishy sapphire body. With fields of jade rice swaying in the sun and barrels of sky peach wine aging in the earth, the foundation of the safe hall was growing sweeter by the day.