Wine Cellar Pavilion

The first day of the Lunar New Year marks the beginning of the Spring Festival, the most grand and distinctive traditional holiday among the people of Huaxia. It signifies the end of the old lunar year and the start of a new one.

On the morning of the Spring Festival, the doors are opened to auspicious fortune, and firecrackers are set off in what is called the “Opening Firecracker.” After the thunderous explosions, the ground is carpeted in bright red paper shreds, gorgeous as brocade—a sight known as “Full House of Red.” At this moment, the streets brim with auspicious energy and a festive atmosphere.

One of the most important customs during the Spring Festival is visiting friends, relatives, and neighbors to offer New Year greetings, a tradition known in olden times as “paying New Year’s calls.” This practice among the Han people dates back as far as the Han dynasty and flourished after the Tang and Song dynasties. In cases where one could not visit in person, it was customary to send a calling card. In the Eastern Han, these were called “thorns,” hence the alternate name for calling cards as “name thorns.” After the Ming dynasty, many households would hang a red paper pouch by their door to collect these cards, known as the “door register.”

Paying New Year’s calls is a folk tradition in China, a way for people to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new, expressing their best wishes to one another. In ancient times, the original meaning of “paying New Year’s calls” was to visit elders to offer New Year’s greetings, which included bowing, offering blessings for a favorable year, and inquiring about their well-being. One would also exchange pleasantries and congratulations with relatives and friends of the same generation.

If there were too many friends and neighbors to visit individually, servants would be dispatched with calling cards in a practice known as “flying cards.” Each household would post a red paper pouch at the door inscribed with "Receiving Fortune" specifically for collecting these cards—a custom that began among the upper classes in the Song dynasty. The Qing-era text “Yantai Monthly Calendar” described Beijing’s festival season: “At this time, cards fly and empty carriages travel.” It became a fashionable trend. Large households kept a “door register” to record guests and the cards they sent. The first page often fictitiously listed four “visiting” guests: Longevity Old Master of Centenarian Alley; Wealthy Old Master of Treasure Street; Exalted Master of Scholar’s Archway; and Fortune Old Master of Five Blessings Tower—all for the sake of good luck and auspicious wordplay. The custom of sending New Year’s cards today is a direct descendant of this ancient exchange of flying cards.

Nowadays, with technological advancements and convenient communication, ordinary families mostly extend their New Year’s greetings via mobile phones and other devices, and few make personal visits anymore.

But it is different for the great and powerful families—many people eager to court their favor still arrive in person, bearing lavish gifts.

The Luo family was an undisputed elite household in Haifeng City. On the first day of the New Year, a steady stream of visitors came to pay their respects, making the estate a hive of activity.

Both businesspeople and government officials came to call on the Luo family. The place was truly bustling, and nearly every visitor brought expensive presents—agate and jade, gold and silver, rare treasures. In Ye Feng’s words, these people were like ancient subjects offering tribute, presenting the best of what they had to the Luo family.

Compared to these extravagant gifts, what Ye Feng carried appeared pitifully humble: just a few boxes of ordinary nutritional supplements, clearly supermarket fare and not especially nourishing. To put it bluntly, even the Luo family’s servants might not accept such things, but Ye Feng knew that no matter what he brought, the Luo family would never value his offerings, so he saw no reason to waste money.

Carrying his modest gifts, Ye Feng entered the Luo family home. After all, he had lived there for many years, and the guards were already familiar with this non-Luo member of the household—especially since he was the young master’s close friend—so nobody stopped him, unlike the other guests who had to announce themselves.

Ye Feng’s entrance naturally drew the attention of others, and whispers and laughter immediately rose from all sides. Ye Feng, however, paid them no mind.

Hearing of Ye Feng’s arrival, Luo Ming quickly came to greet him. Noticing the items Ye Feng carried, he ordered a servant to take them away, then tried to drag Ye Feng off to play. But as the eldest son of the Luo family and nearly an adult, Luo Ming was expected to help receive guests on such a day—a valuable learning opportunity his father would not let pass. After only a few steps, Luo Ming was summoned back by his father’s men. Though reluctant, he could not resist and had to go.

Luo Ming’s departure suited Ye Feng perfectly; otherwise, it would be hard to explain why he was headed to the wine cellar, as he rarely drank.

The wine cellar was in the Luo family's front courtyard. Except when entertaining honored guests, no one usually came here, especially during such a busy time with a shortage of staff. Ye Feng slipped in with practiced ease. He had frequented this place when he first arrived at the Luo home, as the other Luo children looked down on him and bullied him together. Luo Ming alone could not protect him, so they would run and hide, discovering that the cellar was the quietest place. It became their usual refuge.

The wine storeroom was vast, with three-story-high racks crammed with dazzling bottles—exquisite and outrageously expensive. Any one bottle could be sold for enough to feed an ordinary family for a lifetime. Many of the wines here were extremely high-proof, volatile enough to explode if exposed to flame, so no candles were allowed. To minimize light exposure, only a single incandescent bulb illuminated the room. Ye Feng, however, didn’t bother turning it on. The darkness posed no obstacle—he was long accustomed to it—as he made his way to the spot Bad Bad had mentioned.

"Strange, why are all the wine jars gone from here?" Ye Feng mused, staring at the empty shelf.

"Maybe you’re looking in the wrong place, or someone changed the layout," Bad Bad’s voice sounded in his mind.

"If you’re right, then I can’t be mistaken. When I left last year, nothing had changed. Something must have happened."

"Go check for yourself. See if this is still the shelf with the secret compartment."

Five minutes later, Ye Feng sighed. He had meticulously searched the empty rack and found no hidden compartment—in fact, nothing at all.

"There’s nothing here. Looks like the White Tiger Claw is impossible to find—Luo Ming’s father has probably drunk it all by now," Ye Feng said, disappointed.

"That may be. Still, try searching elsewhere. Maybe it was moved," Bad Bad suggested, equally let down.

"How am I supposed to search such a huge place! Aren’t you supposed to be artificial intelligence? Think of something!" Ye Feng was getting exasperated; searching the whole cellar could take days, and he had no such time.

"Now that you mention it, I do have a scanning function. Wait a moment," Bad Bad replied, growing more humanlike by the day, his words tinged with sudden realization.

Ye Feng had no choice but to sit on the floor, leaning against a rack to wait for this piece of high technology—manual searching was impossible in such a vast cellar.

As he sat, Ye Feng pondered what to do about Wang Siyuan—a smooth and clever man who, if handled properly, could one day become a valuable ally. But how best to deal with him? As Ye Feng turned this over in his mind, a fleeting inspiration sparked, as if he were on the verge of grasping a crucial point—only to be interrupted by Bad Bad’s voice.

"I’ve made a big discovery—do you want to know what it is?" Bad Bad sounded smug, more human than ever.

"Suit yourself. If you don’t tell me, I’ll leave," Ye Feng threatened, pretending to rise.

"Don’t go, don’t go! I’ve found that there are no more secret compartments in this room," Bad Bad hurriedly replied.

"And?"

"How did you know there was more?"

"Come on, you’ve gone in such circles just to show off your abilities. Spit it out—time is short. The Luo family always hosts a banquet on the second day of the New Year, and in a few hours someone will come for wine."

"Alright, alright. I’ve found there’s a hidden room—right at the central wine rack."

Following Bad Bad’s directions, Ye Feng arrived before the massive wine rack at the heart of the cellar. "Here? It doesn’t look special. How do I get in?" He tried pushing the rack, but it wouldn’t budge, loaded as it was with good wine—well over a thousand pounds, easily beyond his strength.

"Wait, I’ll scan again," Bad Bad said, then fell silent.

Leaning against the rack, Ye Feng counted the bottles—at least five hundred, most worth a fortune. Even the cheapest would fetch a million. The wines on this rack alone were worth over a hundred million. The wealth made Ye Feng think of his own family’s cellar in childhood, also filled with fine wines. Lost in thought, he drifted away.

"Hey… hey… wake up."

Ye Feng didn’t know how much time had passed when Bad Bad’s voice snapped him back. "Huh? What is it?"

"I found the key. Try taking the sixth bottle from the left on the third row."

Ye Feng looked at the third row, counted to the sixth bottle—a plain red wine, the cheapest on this rack—and removed it. "And then?"

"Now pull out the second bottle from the right on the ninth row, and put the third-row bottle in its place."

Ye Feng tried, but couldn’t reach—it was a tall rack. Looking around, he found a rolling ladder and dragged it over.

Climbing up, he pulled out the ninth-row bottle and slotted the third-row wine into its place. "Next?"

"Put the bottle in your hand into the seventeenth slot from the left on the first row," Bad Bad instructed.

"Could you give all the steps at once?" Ye Feng complained, having to climb up and down repeatedly.

"I’d love to, but can you remember them?" Bad Bad retorted.

Ye Feng kept silent, following the instructions: taking out the first-row bottle and inserting the ninth-row one instead. "Then?"

"And then…"

Five minutes later, after shifting bottles for the tenth time, Ye Feng groaned, "Is this ever going to end? Do you want to kill me?"

"Now put this bottle back into the sixth slot on the third row," Bad Bad replied.

Ye Feng jumped down from the ladder and slotted the wine into the third row’s sixth position, then waited. After thirty seconds with no result, he grew anxious. "What’s going on? Don’t tell me all that work was for nothing."

"That shouldn’t be. This ‘Ten Locks in One’ mechanism should open this way. Let me check again," Bad Bad muttered.

Ye Feng waited impatiently for a minute before Bad Bad spoke again, "Try pushing the seventeenth bottle on the first row further in—you didn’t push it all the way and missed the trigger."

Ye Feng walked to the bottle’s spot and nudged it in with his foot. With a ‘click,’ the rack split open down the middle, slowly sliding aside to reveal a dark staircase descending into the depths.

Staring at the pitch-black stairs, Ye Feng felt a tremor of fear, but trusting Bad Bad’s guidance, he steeled himself and began to descend.