Now that Xiao Yun had a clear aim, his first step was simple. Seize, or rather acquire the means of production. To that end he left the estate to find suitable tools. This time he put on simple robes and wore his defensive belt artifact under it, just in case he encountered another ‘scripted event’ situation.

  Fallen Star City was as busy as ever. Xiao Yun dressed in modest silks that didn't scream 'degenerate young master,' navigated the crowded streets, bypassing the grand spiritual weapon forges and shops selling all manner of pills and artefacts, and heading straight for the grimy, soot-stained western district. He sought not a master craftsman who imbued his work with Qi, but an ordinary blacksmith, a man who hammered mundane metal for mundane purposes.

  He found one in a cramped alley, a bear of a man with arms like knotted oak, who was introduced by one of his neighbors as old man Wu. The air in his shop was a percussive symphony of hammer on anvil and the hiss of hot metal quenching in water.

  “Master Wu.” Xiao Yun called out.

  The blacksmith grunted, not even turning around. “If you’re looking for a sword, go to the Shimmering Blade Pavilion. I make ploughshares and cook pots.”

  “It is indeed a cook pot I’m interested in, though a rather unusual one.”

  This got old man Wu’s attention. He turned, wiping a sweaty brow with the back of a calloused hand. He eyed Xiao Yun’s fine, albeit simple clothes with suspicion. “Peculiar how?”

  Xiao Yun took a deep breath. Explaining a still to someone who had never conceived of fractional distillation was going to be tricky. He couldn't use words like ‘condenser’ or ‘vapor point’. He had to paint a picture.

  He took a charcoal stick from a nearby bucket and began sketching on a dusty flagstone. “I need a large sealed copper pot. Completely airtight.”

  “Easy enough.” The blacksmith grunted.

  “On top of this pot I need a lid shaped like a hat. And from the peak of this hat, a tube must emerge, curving downwards like a goose’s neck.”

  Master Wei’s bushy eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “A goose-pot?”

  “Yes. This goose-neck tube must then connect to another, much longer tube. This second tube must be coiled, like a snake sleeping in a circle.”

  The blacksmith stared at the crude drawing, his expression was a mixture of confusion and professional curiosity. “A coiled snake-pipe. What’s that for?”

  “Patience, Master Wu. Now, this coiled snake-pipe must be housed inside a larger wooden cask or metal drum. The drum will have an inlet pipe at the bottom and an outlet at the top, so I can run cold water through it. The snake-pipe’s end will then poke out of the bottom of this drum.”

  He finished the sketch. It looked like a drunken fever dream of a plumbing diagram. A pot with a goose head, spitting into a coiled snake that was taking a bath.

  Master Wu stared at the drawing for a long, silent minute. He scratched his beard. He looked at Xiao Yun, then back at the drawing. “Young Master… are you trying to brew an elixir of immortality or poison your enemies?”

  “Neither.” Xiao Yun said with a grin, pulling out a small, heavy pouch. He untied it and the gleam of silver taels caught the firelight of the forge. “I’m trying to make a fortune. I’ll pay you fifteen silver taels for your materials and labor. And for your silence. Eight taels now and the rest on completion.”

  Fifteen silver was more than old man Wu made in three months of hammering ploughshares. His skepticism vanished like steam from a quenching bucket. Greed, as Xiao Yun knew from his corporate past was a universal language.

  “You’ll have your goose-pot with its bathing snake in three days, Young Master.” the blacksmith declared, his voice suddenly full of respect. The old man didn’t know Xiao Yun’s identity, but from small clues like how clean his robes were, the quality of the material itself, the clean hands and clear skin made it obvious to him that this young brat was not an ordinary peasant. He must have been from an influential family. The amount of silver taels he was willing to pay just confirmed his suspicion. He was an ordinary person; a mortal and he had no dealings with cultivators and rich young masters.

  Master Wu would much rather stay out of their way, as their attention could easily spell disaster for someone like him under the wrong circumstances. The old blacksmith, however, wasn’t stupid enough to turn away a generous client, no matter the background.

  Step two was securing the raw materials. Xiao Yun spent the rest of the day on a whirlwind tour of every low-end tavern and bulk wine merchant in the city. He didn’t care for quality, his plan only required quantity. He sought out the sourest, cloudiest, cheapest rice wine and sorghum liquor available, the kind of stuff that sold for coppers a jug and was usually reserved for the lowest ranks of society.

  At each establishment, his arrival was met with sneers and whispers.

  “Look, it’s the Xiao Clan’s useless young master.” “Heard he was trying to be a proper cultivator for a few months. Guess that didn’t last.” “Buying this much swill? He must be planning to fill a bathtub and drown his sorrows.” “I heard rumors that even his fiancé finally left him, unable to endure his antics any longer.” “Serves him right.” “Shh be quiet, he might hear you!” “Let him, what’s he going to do?”

  Xiao Yun ignored them all, a serene smile on his face. Let them think he was a fool. In fact, it was better this way. They sold him their worst inventory at rock-bottom prices, eager to clear out stock they could barely give away. He placed enormous orders, instructing them to deliver everything to the Xiao Clan estate in three days. He paid in silver taels, leaving a trail of baffled merchants and reinforced rumors debauchery in his wake.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  By the time he returned to the estate, twilight was painting the sky in hues of orange and purple. He felt a deep satisfaction he hadn't experienced since closing a major deal back on Earth. The pieces were in motion. Soon the firewater would flow and so would the gold taels and even spirit stones if he was lucky.

  …Two days later the rumbling began.

  It started as a distant tremor, growing into steady thunder that shook the very flagstones of Xiao Clan’s main courtyard. The guards at the gate who were usually half-asleep in the mid-morning sun snapped to attention.

  Over the rise came the first cart, then a second and then a third. A long groaning caravan of them, each laden with cheap earthenware jugs and wooden barrels, all reeking of low-grade sour alcohol. The procession crawled its way towards the side gate as instructed. It was a veritable river of cheap booze.

  Servants stopped sweeping. Gardeners paused their pruning. Guards on patrol froze mid-stride. Jaws hung slack. Eyes bulged.

  “By the heavens… is all of that… wine?” a young guard whispered in disbelief.

  “Wine? That’s an ocean of rot!” another choked out, pinching his nose against the vinegary stench.

  The caravan master, a burly man with a list in his hand, shouted at the stunned gatekeepers. “Delivery for Young Master Xiao Yun! Where do you want it?”

  The news spread through the estate quickly.

  The head of the family guards Xu Ming was sparring in the training grounds when a panicked subordinate rushed over.

  “Captain Xu! You must see this!” the guard panted.

  Xu Ming grunted, effortlessly disarming his sparring partner. “What is it? Have the Hu family finally decided to attack us in broad daylight?!”

  “Worse Head Guard! It’s the Young Master!”

  Xu Ming’s heart sank. He had held a sliver of hope for Xiao Yun. The boy had been different lately. Quieter and more focused, less prone to causing trouble. He’d even been seen reading scrolls in the library for heaven’s sake. Xu Ming had dared to entertain a small hope the wastrel had finally grown up.

  He followed the guard, his brow furrowed. What he saw made his grizzled, battle-hardened face pale. The side courtyard was an ocean of earthenware and cheap wood. The sheer volume was staggering. There was enough alcohol here to get the entire city drunk for a week. And it was all the lowest quality imaginable. Xu Ming, who was a true connoisseur of wine felt personally offended by the smell alone.

  “All of this… for the Young Master?” he asked, his voice a low growl.

  “Yes Captain! The delivery men said he bought out nearly every drop of cheap swill in the city.”

  The servants and guards were gathered in stunned, whispering clusters. “He’s truly fallen back into depravity. It’s even worse.” “To think, we thought he had changed.” “The poor Elders… what will they do?”

  Xu Ming’s sliver of hope for Xiao Yun shattered. This wasn't a simple relapse. This was a grand, theatrical swan dive back into worthlessness. Wasting this much money on such foul garbage? It was an insult to the ancestors. With a face like thunder, he turned on his heel.

  “The Elders must be informed immediately.”

  The Xiao Clan’s Elders convened in the Grand Hall within the hour. The First Elder Xiao Chong sat at the head of the table. His long white beard trembled with suppressed rage.

  Xu Ming stood before them. His report delivered in a clipped military tone that did nothing to hide the absurdity of the situation.

  “…and the final count as best as we can estimate is over five hundred barrels and a thousand smaller jugs, First Elder.”

  A heavy silence descended upon the room. Portly frame of the Fourth Elder, who managed the clan’s dwindling finances, looked as if he was about to have an aneurysm. “Five hundred barrels? Does he think he’s a dragon in need of a liquor bath? How much silver did he squander on this… this filth?!”

  “The merchants were paid upfront, Second Elder. The cost is estimated to be over two hundred silver taels.” Xu Ming reported, his voice grim. Two hundred silver taels could have paid the guards’ wages for a couple months.

  “Unacceptable!” the stern faced Second Elder slammed her hand on the table. “We were all so hopeful. He was reading all the scrolls in the library! He stopped visiting brothels! I thought the boy had finally turned a new leaf after the ancestor’s guidance. And now this! He makes a mockery of us! A mockery of the Xiao name!”

  First Elder closed his eyes. A deep weary sigh escaping his lips. He had genuinely believed their young master was changing. He had seen a new light in the boy’s eyes, a sharpness and intelligence that hadn’t been there before. He had allowed him a larger allowance after his success with the Mystic Cleansing Jade, hoping to encourage his newfound maturity. And this was how the boy repaid his trust. By purchasing a literal lake of garbage wine.

  “Is he trying to go back to his old shameful self?” Xiao Chong said, his voice was low and cold. His Golden Core stage cultivation unintentionally activating, causing everyone in the room to feel pressured. The rest of the Elders being in the Foundation Building Realm felt mild discomfort. If someone on the lower end of the Qi condensation stage was in the room they would have already collapsed. Xu ming himself being at the peak of Qi Condensation realm and the weakest person in the hall, was feeling the most pressure, causing him to sweat.

  First elder opened his eyes and they glinted with hard resolve.

  “Head Guard.”

  “First Elder.” Answered Xu Ming with barely hardened will.

  “Go to Xiao Yun’s courtyard and bring him here. He will account for every single tael he has wasted.”

  “Yes First Elder!” Xu Ming bowed and strode from the hall, his heart like a heavy stone in his chest. He felt a profound sense of disappointment, not just for the clan, but for the boy he had hoped was finally becoming a man.

  Meanwhile in his own courtyard, blissfully unaware of the storm brewing, Xiao Yun was admiring his new contraption. The blacksmith had delivered on his promise. The copper ‘goose-pot’ gleamed in the sunlight, connected to the cask containing its ‘bathing snake-pipe’. It might have been crude and ugly, but it was functional.

  He patted the large belly of the pot with a wide excited grin on his face. “Alright, you beautiful contraption,” he murmured, his mind already calculating potential profit. “Let’s make some high-octane magic.”

  He was just about to have a servant help him fill the pot with the first batch of sour wine when the courtyard gate was pushed open with more force than necessary. In walked Captain Xu Ming, his face was a mask of cold fury, his hand resting on the hilt of his blade.

  “Young Master.” Xu Ming’s voice was devoid of all warmth. “The Elders have summoned you to the Grand Hall.”

  Xiao Yun looked up from his prize, his cheerful mood deflating slightly at the captain’s tone. He saw the anger in the old warrior’s eyes, the profound disappointment. He glanced from Xu Ming’s face to the newly arrived mountain of cheap alcohol, then back to his beautiful, bizarre-looking copper still.

  A slow smile spread across his face. Oh. They thought he had fallen off the wagon hard.

  Such was his wastrel reputation. Any unusual action taken by him was perceived as something degenerate. If a respected young master of a cultivation clan had done what he did, the clan members would assume he was trying to do something worthwhile. In Xiao Yun’s case, his past reputation was so bad that even with the soap workshop and its income, even with his ‘ancestor guided me using this special pendant’ excuse wasn’t enough to fully tilt their opinion of him towards to positive. Hopefully after this scheme came to fruition, that would change.

  But for now, Xiao Yun calmly left what he was doing and let himself be escorted by Xu Ming to the Grand Hall.