Monkey Wine, not yielding the opportunity of the Liquor worm
On the second day, in the afternoon during the lunch break, Fang Yuan returns to the shopping district hoping to buy Intimate Grass, but finds only an empty cart, the vendor having already sold out. He wanders into a wine shop advertising more than a hundred kinds of liquor, among them Lantern Grass Wine, Nine Tune Wine, Ancient Dragon Well, Flower Rock Tune, Hundred Spring Old Cellar and Intoxication of Three Autumns, and takes a seat on one of the shop’s living Innocent Mushrooms. He orders a cup of monkey wine, finds the fruit liquor sweet and refreshing after a tiny sip, then stops drinking and summons the Liquor worm, which dives into the cup and drains it dry within a few breaths in front of the whole shop. ch. 44
The shopkeeper, a rank one Gu Master of Grade D talent riding along with the merchant caravan, recognizes the Liquor worm at once and begs to buy it, but Fang Yuan shakes his head and walks out without answering him, since his goal is to be seen carrying the Liquor worm rather than to sell it. ch. 44
That night, on the second of the three nights the merchant stalls stay open, Fang Yuan moves through the crowd and catches gossip about a young man who won five hundred primeval stones opening a Mudskin Toad the night before, but hears nothing said about his own Liquor worm, and reasons that a rank one Gu worth nothing to a rank two or rank three Gu Master naturally draws little notice, so exposing it further will have to wait. A commotion draws him toward a red tent, where a young rank two Gu Master of the Gu Yue clan holds up a black worm and accuses Jia Jin Sheng of selling it to him for two hundred and fifty primeval stones as a Black Boar Gu, when it proves to be only an ordinary stinky fat worm. Jia Jin Sheng denies ever calling it a Black Boar Gu and snaps that a genuine one sells for six hundred primeval stones, so the young Gu Master should have known better than to expect one so cheap. ch. 44
When the young Gu Master seizes his wrist, Jia Jin Sheng shakes free and invokes his half-brother Jia Fu, a rank four Gu Master, and the crowd’s anger stalls into silence at the name. Jia Fu himself then arrives to settle the dispute, and the sight of him drains the color from Jia Jin Sheng’s face in evident surprise and anger. Fang Yuan, watching from a distance, notes the reaction and turns it over in his mind. ch. 44
