Her Cultivation Diary

Chapter 79: 79. The Face and Money of Big Brother One_Two

“What a guy!”

A group of middle-aged men grumbled and complained, “I asked you to play cards, and you wouldn’t come! Old Wu suggested going fishing, and you still wouldn’t go… When asked what you wanted to do, you said you wanted to stay home and taste tea!”

Retired middle-aged men either strut around scenic spots wearing jackets with equally retired old ladies or squat by the water, dedicated solely to fishing.

If not that, they’re gambling on the card tables, playing for stakes of a mere one or five yuan.

Their plans had been disrupted, and Old Sun had spoken so mysteriously, as if he had acquired some extraordinary, top-notch Da Hong Pao!

Everyone wavered, and within a few words, they were egging him on to come back and share this exceptional tea with the group.

Old Sun, putting on airs, initially pretended to be reluctant. How much could each of them drink anyway? At most a liang?

Yet, he still hemmed and hawed.

Were it not for their many years of friendship and the conversation reaching this point, they wouldn’t even have had the chance to step through his door this time.

Who would have thought, after so much buildup and anticipation, this old coot dug around in the fridge for ages, only to produce such a small packet of tea leaves!

That packet—so familiar; isn’t it the one Old Sun always uses to carry his tea when he goes out?

Tui!

The group showed utter contempt.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated on Ɲονǥᴑ.сο

Old Sun’s character was insulted, and he declared loudly, “What do you know? Don’t look down on these tea leaves just because they weigh only a liang…”

Alright, there wasn’t a liang now; he had secretly made himself a cup of hot water that morning. The moment he poured it in, the fragrance filled the room. Even his wife, who never drank tea, asked subconsciously, “What kind of tea is this? It smells really good.”

What a close call, what excitement! Old Sun managed to fend off any further inquiry.

With just that one cup of Mao Jian, Old Sun brewed it over and over, seven or eight times, chewing the leaves until they were pulverized and swallowing them before finally setting aside his cup with lingering satisfaction.

He hadn’t expected that showing off would bring the whole gang over.

It didn’t matter that they had come; he was prepared to make a grand sacrifice and then await their admiring looks.

But the group was still skeptical!

Heh! Old Sun lost his temper, vowing that this afternoon he would show them what good tea really was!

Old Sun huffed, “Do you know how much this small packet cost? A thousand yuan! Five hundred from my card gambling funds, plus five hundred from my private savings over the years, just to get it first!”

That’s why he dared not let his family find out.

A thousand yuan for a liang?

Despite each of the burly men feeling rather comfortable with their two to three thousand yuan retirement pensions each month, what could you do with so little money in today’s world?

The grandchildren would occasionally need financial help.

Even the pickiest tea drinker among them would only spend a thousand yuan once a year to buy a few jin of Yuqian Tea for the pleasure of it.

Their local tea wasn’t famous, and anything priced at five hundred yuan was already considered very good.

Learning that Old Sun had spent a thousand yuan on tea leaves in silence, and had only bought a liang, immediately stirred everyone up.

They found spots to sit down in the old unit’s house and then automatically began to pull out some glass cups from under the tea table.

“Come on, come on! Hurry up and show us what this thousand-yuan-a-liang tea looks like!”

The group exchanged glances, their looks conveying both anticipation for the tea and suspicion that Old Sun might have been duped – all without a word spoken aloud.

Old Sun had been around them too long not to recognize their lack of taste; he snorted coldly at that moment:

“Wait, let me boil some water first.”

The water boiled, and Lao Sun, dissatisfied that the cups at home were not transparent enough for entertaining guests, decided to repeatedly scrub them clean by the sink using toothpaste.

By the time everything was ready, the only thing left was to check the water temperature with a thermometer. However, everyone had already grown impatient when Lao Sun finally opened the sealed bag.

As he pinched the tea leaves, his hands trembled with distress. The tug-of-war between pride and money gave him a sudden urge to regret.

To avoid losing face in front of his brothers, he could only change the subject, “Smell this, it’s freshly roasted dry tea. Doesn’t it smell good?”

The tea hadn’t been brewed yet, and the dry leaves had just been placed at the bottom of the cups. Everyone sniffed, and indeed, a faint tea fragrance wafted through the air.

It wasn’t pronounced.

But for dry tea to have this aroma was already quite exceptional.

The connoisseurs were already swirling the transparent glass cups, examining the shape and color of the dry leaves while continuously sniffing, finally concluding:

“Lao Sun, you might not have wasted that thousand yuan.”

Local tea drinkers have a custom of washing the tea: dry leaves are put into the cup, then one-third of the cup is filled with water, swirled a bit, and the water is poured out.

Next comes the actual brewing.

Normally, this initial wash water is simply discarded, but today, as everyone smelled the refreshing aroma and watched Lao Sun pour out the first infusion from each cup and then neatly collect it in another glass cup, no one said anything.

When it came time to properly brew the tea, the leaves tumbled and unfurled in the flowing water, the buds standing straight, and the lush, dewy green color reflecting a spring-like shade within the cup. The fragrance of fresh tea rolled throughout the room…

Everyone took a long deep breath.

“It smells wonderful!”

No sooner had the words been spoken than they heard the “click” of the door being turned open.

A shiver went through everyone’s heart.

Lao Sun’s wife entered carrying a basket of groceries and flinched at the sight of several burly men seated in a row in the cramped living room.

“Oh my.”

She exclaimed.

Lao Sun also mentally exclaimed “oh my,” and subconsciously shifted his teacup as if to lower its presence.

Lao Sun’s wife laughed, “What brings you all here? You should have given us a heads up… Well, it’s perfect timing, I bought an extra two bunches of Milk Vetch this morning. Stay for dinner!”

They were all retired middle-aged people, who didn’t know the kind of splash a thousand yuan per tael of tea could cause at home?

Everyone grew concerned, not interested in the Milk Vetch, and awkwardly shifted their tea cups a bit closer to themselves.

This movement made them feel even more embarrassed.

After all, it was a thousand yuan for just a tael. Now that they were splitting it, even though Lao Sun had been frugal with just a swipe at the bottom of the cup, there was only a pitiable handful left.

Barely thirty grams, perhaps?

By this calculation, a single sip was worth dozens of yuan.

With many mouths to feed at home, Lao Sun’s wife didn’t buy enough vegetables. She put down the grocery basket and quickly turned the doorknob to head out:

“Keep chatting, I’ll go buy some side dishes. Let’s just eat something casual tonight.”

Seeing her turn and the doorknob rotate, everyone let out a collective sigh of relief.

But the sounds of relief seemed too evident in the room, as Lao Sun’s wife turned back and sniffed:

“I’ve been wanting to ask all morning, Lao Sun, where did you get such fragrant tea leaves? How much did you spend?”