Chapter 24: 23, Wine and Medicine

23、Wine and Medicine

People soon noticed the strange behavior of their loved ones and quickly surrounded the winery manager, demanding an explanation.

The manager frowned at the throng before him, growing impatient: “Their madness has just been cured; their three souls and seven spirits haven’t stabilized yet—of course they’ll seem dull and foolish—wait!”

“In a few days, a few months, they’ll be fine!”

“A few months?” someone cried out, voice trembling.

“Better than them going mad and killing their whole family.”

“We’re only asking you to wait a few months… If you cause trouble, my men can put a few holes in your bodies!”

“Get out!” The manager’s gaze suddenly turned fierce.

He raised his hand, summoning the strong, burly winery workers.

The workers, wielding knives and spears, closed in, and the crowd immediately led their relatives away in panic.

“When their family members’ madness clears and their spirits settle, they’ll come back to thank us!”

The winery manager pointed at the fleeing people, smirking again, and exchanged jests with the winery thugs.

“Chang!”

At that moment, Zhou Sanji pushed his cart, with Yang Rui following behind.

The old man saw Zhou Chang standing behind the manager and was stunned with joy: “You’re standing? You can walk?!”

“He must’ve had a hysterical delusion, thinking he was paralyzed and couldn’t move.”

“Now that the winery has mostly cured his delusion, naturally he can walk and move again.” The manager smiled warmly at Zhou Sanji, who was touching and examining Zhou Chang, and added, “But his madness isn’t fully gone—he must lie in the wine cellar again tomorrow.”

“As long as this method works, that’s all that matters!”

Zhou Sanji made Zhou Chang move his limbs himself, overcome with delight.

The winery manager turned to Yang Rui: “Your boy here has no madness or delusion—he spent a whole day in the cellar and didn’t expel a single false thought.”

“He’s probably just used to being paranoid.”

“But the winery finds him clever and sharp—we’d like to hire him as a ‘water watcher.’ What do you say?”

Yang Rui, who had been inspecting Shi Danshi from all angles, frowned at the manager’s first words, clearly displeased.

When he heard the rest, his eyes filled with suspicion: “You say Shi Danshi has no madness?”

“How could that be?!”

“I saw him with my own eyes—possessed by a yellow pelt demon! His behavior then—no one could fake that!”

“Is it because your cellar’s magic doesn’t work on the demon on him…?”

The manager’s face darkened. He sneered: “How strange—you seem disappointed your boy isn’t mad?”

“Our Yongsheng Winery has operated for over a hundred years. Locals and outsiders alike bring us endless cases of madness and delusion—never once have we failed!”

“We’re doing you a favor by curing your boy, yet you doubt our winery?”

Yang Rui said nothing, only shook his head, his suspicion deepening.

Zhou Chang glanced at Yang Rui—he sensed the old man was genuinely upset that Shi Danshi wasn’t mad, as if a hope had been dashed.

The more he watched, the stranger Yang Rui seemed compared to Shi Danshi.

“Hey—Brother?”

Seeing the tension, Zhou Sanji tugged Yang Rui’s sleeve, pulling him back from his brooding: “They’re asking if you want Shi Danshi to work as a water watcher here?”

He turned to the gloomy manager and smiled obsequiously: “Manager, if Shi Danshi works here as a water watcher, how much is his wage?”

“Wage…”

Seeing someone finally speak seriously, the manager’s expression eased slightly. He glanced at the stiff-faced Shi Danshi and mused: “He’s young—we don’t expect heavy labor.”

“Just make sure he keeps people from urinating near Jade Maiden Pond and contaminating the water source.”

“Fine—two meals a day, and twenty copper coins for wages.”

Twenty copper coins barely covered half a boy’s monthly food expenses.

But in these hard times, boys like Shi Danshi were everywhere—most couldn’t even find work to earn a single coin.

So twenty copper coins suddenly seemed like a fortune.

Yang Rui’s expression was grim. He asked Shi Danshi: “Do you want to be a water watcher?”

Shi Danshi’s eyes were vacant. He suddenly looked toward Zhou Chang across from him.

Perhaps because he and Zhou Chang had shared the ordeal in the cellar, or perhaps because Zhou Chang was the only one here who knew his secret—

Zhou Chang had become his anchor.

His gaze toward Zhou Chang was full of silent inquiry.

Zhou Chang nodded.

Zhou Chang guessed the winery intended to keep him and Shi Danshi here.

Whether it was to keep him in the cellar to “cure” his madness or to hire Shi Danshi as a water watcher—it was all just an excuse.

The real reason was likely that among all those sent into the cellar, only he and Shi Danshi remained lively and unharmed after a day’s exposure to the wine’s influence, unlike the others who became hollow shells.

If they refused the manager now, the winery would find another way to keep them both.

—Just like those two men with ruined faces.

“I want to go,” Shi Danshi whispered after seeing Zhou Chang’s nod.

“Good.” Yang Rui raised three fingers. “Thirty copper coins.”

“Agreed.”

…

“We’re late picking you up today because Yang DaYe insisted I go with him to the Iron Threshold Funeral Home.”

“The end of the month is near—the Iron Threshold Assembly is about to begin. We’ll see if we have enough to pay your ‘threshold fee’ so you can enter the funeral home and meet the caravan masters and corpse drivers.”

“Maybe you’ll learn how to raise corpses?”

On the way, Zhou Chang took the cart’s handle from Zhou Sanji and pushed it as the old man chattered happily beside him.

Yang Rui walked ahead, frowning and silent; behind him trailed Shi Danshi, equally quiet.

Yang Rui heard Zhou Sanji’s words and turned to him: “Raising corpses isn’t that easy to learn.”

“Maybe they’ll take a liking to Chang?”

“You’re imagining too much…”

The two old men bickered half-heartedly, gradually falling ahead of Zhou Chang and Shi Danshi.

Shi Danshi stepped closer to Zhou Chang and muttered: “Brother Zhou… thank you today.”

“It’s nothing.”

Zhou Chang shook his head, glanced at the gloomy Shi Danshi beside him, and asked: “If you weren’t possessed by the yellow pelt demon, why pretend you were?”

Shi Danshi hesitated before answering: “To eat.”

“Hm?”

“My master believed I was possessed—only then did he take me in and accept me as his disciple.”

“If I hadn’t been possessed, he wouldn’t have cared about me…”

“So because you seemed possessed, Yang DaYe took you in as a disciple?”

“Why…?” Zhou Chang frowned, watching Yang Rui ahead.

“Gui” could refer to all malevolent spirits, yet also meant their embryonic forms—naturally threatening to living beings.

Normal people wouldn’t raise gui as a threat.

If Shi Danshi’s words were true, what did Yang Rui truly intend?

Instead of avoiding gui, he sought them out?

At that moment, Yang Rui ahead pulled a gourd from his satchel, shook it vigorously, uncorked it, and took a deep swig.

The rich, fragrant aroma of wine—deep and earthy, carrying the scent of the cellar—drifted into Zhou Chang’s nostrils.

He heard Zhou Sanji and Yang Rui’s exchange: “Drink less wine—don’t you see all those people outside the winery, drunk and mad?”

“Hah—wine is medicine. It cures the heart’s sickness.”

“Ah…”

The elegant, mellow scent of the cellar-aged wine still lingered in Zhou Chang’s nose.

He recognized it—Yongsheng Winery’s brew.

For some reason, his heart sank. He turned back—

Sparse, dilapidated houses clustered around the stone-paved path, bathed in the setting sun, casting thick, unyielding shadows.

Few living things stirred in that deathly stillness.

Only near the winery, one house had its front gate open—a fat woman in blue coarse cloth and a leather apron, with her two daughters, hung a triangular banner outside.

The banner bore three characters: “Li Braised Meat.”

Such a cooked-food stall could only survive near Yongsheng Winery—perhaps.

Zhou Chang watched the banner fluttering in the wind, the character “ Lu ” wrinkled by the breeze.

In a sudden, dizzying flash, it looked like “Li Human Flesh.”

Zhou Chang’s heart jolted. He looked ahead.

The towering, grand entrance of Yongsheng Winery loomed like a mountain, crushing the broken houses along the street, making them sway as if about to collapse.

The noise from beneath its gate—laughter, song, chatter—had not ceased even as dusk fell.

There, people laughed daily, seemingly untouched by any inner torment.

Yet Zhou Chang knew clearly: within that winery lurked a monstrous, deadly spirit.

How many people drink the nectar from Yongsheng Distillery?

Judging by the crowds gathered before the distillery’s gate, even the entire town of Qingyi is far from enough.

And how many people send those afflicted with madness or delusions to Yongsheng Distillery, hoping for a cure?

Zhou Chang raised his gaze—

He saw that behind the distillery’s gate tower, vast clouds of distilled alcohol vapor boiled upward, piling into massive white clouds that spread across more than half the sky of Qingyi Town.

Beneath the alcohol clouds, how many people strained their necks, trying to inhale even a breath of that rich, fragrant vapor?