30 Smelling the wine

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.

Xue'er, on the other hand, had sensed the power within the ripple effect and was woken up from her dream. She lightly touched her forehead and immediately went outside to find Gan Tian Chi, to see what he was up to.

She found him at the back of the cottage, hammering at a piece of metal over an extremely intense flame.

She never knew the place existed and decided that she should explore the surrounding area to prevent her from getting more surprises.

"I never knew you were a blacksmith." A voice came out of nowhere.

Gan Tian Chi was extremely focused, yet he was not at all startled when he heard the voice coming from behind him. After all, how many people were in the woods at this time of day.

"There is a lot you don't know about my dear." He said as he continued hammering away at the piece of metal.

Beneath the moonlight, it was still, there were no winds and in the midst of the silence, there were sounds of hammering at a steady rhythm. The hammering was smooth and calming, no one would think this was the process of making a weapon would be used to kill.

Xue'er was silent. She knew this was the truth, but it still didn't sound good being said out loud. The sad truth would always be better than a thousand happy lies.

There was a strange smell in the air, as Xue'er had very acute senses, it was naturally unable to escape her nose. Her eyes drifted down to the earthen jar by Gan Tian Chi.

As the hammering echoed into the night, Gan Tian Chi was solely focused on the making of his weapon, that he did not notice Xue'er grabbing the jar that was just at the foot of the smelting oven.

Upon inspection, the jar was half empty, but its alluring fragrance of sweet mellowness was as strong as ever.

Xue'er took a sip of it. The taste was undesirable, part of her wanted to spit it out, but the other part wanted her to take another sip.

So, she decided to take small sips, while she watched Gan Tian Chi continue his efforts in making the sword.

Xue'er watched the flames dance beneath the sword as the metal was struck continuously. It was beginning to take shape. Now that she had seen the process of making the weapon, she felt it was very well possible for her to make the sword if asked to do it.