Chapter 28: Ten Jars of Daughter’s Wine Secured!
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By the time they finished their work, it was already noon.
Jiang Tao took Liu Zhiyuan and the other two men to a small restaurant in the urban village.
They ordered one dish each—two meat dishes and two vegetable dishes—along with two bottles of Erguotou liquor.
With a smile, Jiang Tao said to the younger men:
“Everyone, take the afternoon off and get some proper rest. We’ll keep hauling goods tomorrow, and we should be able to start shipping them the day after.”
The chubby Liu Zhiyuan gave a foolish grin.
“I hope I can make a little money following Brother Jiang this time. Then I’ll have a bit more spending money for the New Year.”
“Brother Jiang, this really is a sure thing, right? I’m still feeling pretty uneasy. I’m so nervous.”
Single Yu Fei had also invested fifty thousand yuan, but he was nowhere near as confident as Jiang Tao.
“Relax. Would I have invested two hundred and fifty thousand if it weren’t reliable? Just wait and make enough money to celebrate the New Year properly!”
Laughing cheerfully, Jiang Tao handed out cigarettes. He had complete confidence in the information provided by the intelligence system.
Liu Zhiyuan and Single Yu Fei had only dared to invest fifty thousand each after seeing Jiang Tao put in two hundred and fifty thousand. That was what finally made up their minds.
After chatting and joking for a while, the owner quickly brought their food and drinks to the table.
Since none of them needed to drive out and work that afternoon, the four men polished off the two bottles of liquor between them.
Once they had eaten and drunk their fill, Jiang Tao took the initiative to pay the bill.
By the time they walked out of the restaurant, it was already a little after three in the afternoon.
Whenever Jiang Tao drank, he lost all desire to do anything except sleep.
He turned down Liu Zhiyuan and the others’ suggestion that they play a round of Three-Card Poker and headed home alone.
Passing a hardware store in the urban village, Jiang Tao went in and bought a brand-new shovel and a headlamp.
He still remembered the information about the Daughter Red wine that had appeared in the early hours of the morning.
Unfortunately, it was inconvenient to work in broad daylight, so he would have to wait until nightfall before trying to dig it up.
After buying the shovel and headlamp, Jiang Tao first left the tools at the small courtyard house, then went straight home to sleep.
He slept until a little after seven in the evening, when his wife, Xu Li, woke him with a video call.
The couple stayed on the video call for more than an hour before finally hanging up.
“It’s eight twenty. I’ll eat something to replenish my strength, then I can get moving!”
Seeing that it was completely dark outside, Jiang Tao got up and went downstairs.
At a small restaurant on the street, he ate a serving of flatbread stir-fried with meat and drank a bowl of dough-drop soup.
Once his stomach was full and his body had warmed up, Jiang Tao made his way unsteadily to the detached courtyard he had rented that day.
He took the key from his pocket and opened the gate. After entering, he bolted it from the inside.
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Once inside the courtyard, Jiang Tao turned his gaze toward the base of the western wall.
In his field of vision, a square area measuring one meter by one meter was giving off a faint glow.
Based on his previous treasure-hunting experiences, the ten jars of twenty-year-old Daughter Red wine should be buried beneath that glowing area.
“I just don’t know how deep they buried it.”
“Hopefully I can dig everything out tonight. Otherwise, it’ll be hard to explain if Little Liu and the others see it tomorrow.”
“Time is tight and there’s a lot to do. I’d better get started!”
After finishing a cigarette, Jiang Tao tossed the butt aside and crushed it under his shoe. Then he carried the shovel toward the glowing area.
Fortunately, this year was much warmer than usual, and the ground had barely frozen.
Besides, there had been snow a few days earlier, leaving the area he needed to dig somewhat damp. It was not particularly difficult to break through the soil.
Grunting and straining, Jiang Tao dug for more than an hour. He had already made a pit one meter long, one meter wide, and thirty centimeters deep.
He dug for a while, then rested for a while.
After working for more than three hours in total, he had reached a depth of slightly over one meter.
In the evening temperature of seven or eight degrees below zero, Jiang Tao’s clothes were nearly soaked through, and sweat covered his forehead.
He was truly exhausted.
Digging a pit was far more tiring than spending an entire day driving around hauling goods.
But whenever he thought of the Daughter Red wine buried below, worth two hundred thousand yuan in total, he felt that no amount of hardship was too much.
How many years would he have to haul goods to earn two hundred thousand yuan?
Bang!
All of a sudden, the shovel struck downward and produced a bang that sounded distinctly different from before.
“There’s a hollow space underneath! I must be close!”
Hearing the strange sound from below, Jiang Tao’s face lit up, and he began digging with even greater enthusiasm.
Sure enough, after another dozen minutes, a square concrete slab resembling a paving stone appeared at the bottom of the pit.
Jiang Tao cautiously used the tip of the shovel to pry it open. Beneath it lay ten neatly arranged jars of wine.
Clearly, the tenant who had hidden the wine knew what he was doing. He had not simply buried the jars directly in the soil.
Instead, he had built a miniature wine cellar beneath the earth.
A neat ring of stones had been laid around the cellar, with a thick layer of wooden planks on the bottom and a concrete slab covering the top.
Only in such an environment could the ten jars of Daughter Red wine ferment slowly.
If they had been buried directly in the soil, all ten jars would have spoiled and become undrinkable.
Setting down the shovel, Jiang Tao carefully lifted one jar out of the pit.
The jar held approximately two pounds of wine.
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The label attached to the jar had rotted away, but the vessel itself and the sealing mud around its mouth remained intact.
As the saying went, good wine was thirty percent brewing and seventy percent storage.
Wine that had been kept for twenty years was bound to be of excellent quality.
The intelligence system had valued the entire batch at two hundred thousand yuan, which meant each jar was worth twenty thousand.
Compared with foreign wines that routinely sold for tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, per bottle, that price was actually not outrageous.
It was nearly midnight, and Jiang Tao had no time to examine the jar carefully. He first lifted the remaining nine jars out of the pit.
Then he spent another dozen minutes filling the pit back in.
Fortunately, it had snowed only a few days earlier, and there was still plenty of snow beneath the western wall.
After restoring the area to its original appearance, Jiang Tao covered it with another layer of snow. Nothing looked suspicious.
Carrying two jars at a time, Jiang Tao made five trips back and forth, sneaking all ten jars of Daughter Red wine into the rental house where he lived.
Once everything was done, he stripped off his mud-stained clothes and collapsed onto the bed.
Digging that pit for several hours was unquestionably the dirtiest and most physically demanding work he had done all year.
But when he thought of the value of those ten jars of Daughter Red wine, Jiang Tao felt exhausted yet delighted.
Two hundred thousand yuan!
It was the largest windfall he had ever received in his entire life.
After lying on the bed and resting for about ten minutes, Jiang Tao picked up his phone and glanced at it.
It was already five minutes past midnight.
“The intelligence has refreshed. Let’s see what appeared today!”
With a thought, Jiang Tao opened the intelligence system and checked the details.
[Today’s Intelligence]: You worked with Zhang Chao today and obtained the following related information—
Zhang Chao is currently inside a massage parlor in a certain urban village of Little Sand River, preparing to engage in a paid sexual transaction with a woman.
In five minutes, the vice squad will raid the premises.
…
“Why is Zhang Chao having such terrible luck?”
“If it weren’t for me, you’d be spending the New Year in a detention center.”
Jiang Tao was somewhat disappointed when he saw the intelligence that had refreshed that day.
He still preferred intelligence that could help him make money.
But disappointed or not, Jiang Tao nevertheless found Zhang Chao’s number on his phone and dialed it.
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