After finishing their work, it was already noon.
Jiang Tao took Liu Zhiyuan and the other two to a small restaurant in the urban village.
Each of them ordered a dish—two meat and two vegetable dishes—and they also got two bottles of Bainiu Er liquor.
Jiang Tao smiled and called out to his buddies, saying, "This afternoon, everyone can take a good rest. Tomorrow, we'll continue hauling goods, and the day after, we should be able to start selling."
Little Fatty Liu Zhiyuan chuckled and said, "I hope this time we can make a small fortune following Brother Jiang. It'd be nice to have some extra cash for the New Year."
"Brother Jiang, is this deal really solid? I'm still feeling all jittery and nervous," said Shan Yifei, who had also invested 50,000 yuan. He didn't have as much confidence as Jiang Tao.
"Relax. If it wasn't reliable, would I have thrown in 250,000? Just wait to make some money and have a good New Year!" Jiang Tao said with a hearty laugh, passing out cigarettes to the group. He had a lot of confidence in the information provided by his intelligence system.
The reason Liu Zhiyuan and Shan Yifei dared to invest 50,000 each was because they saw Jiang Tao put in 250,000, which gave them the resolve to follow suit.
After a bit of banter, the restaurant owner soon brought out the food and drinks they ordered.
Since they didn't need to drive or work in the afternoon, the four of them split the two bottles of liquor evenly.
After eating and drinking their fill, Jiang Tao took the initiative to settle the bill.
By the time they left the restaurant, it was already past 3 p.m.
Whenever Jiang Tao drank, he didn't feel like doing anything except taking a nap.
Declining Liu Zhiyuan and the others' invitation to play cards, he headed home alone.
As he passed a hardware store in the urban village, Jiang Tao went in and bought a brand-new shovel and a headlamp.
He still remembered the intelligence about the Daughter Red wine that had come up at midnight.
However, it wasn't convenient to work in broad daylight, so he'd have to wait until it got dark to try digging.
After buying the shovel and headlamp, Jiang Tao first dropped the tools off at the small courtyard he had rented, then went home to sleep.
He slept until past 7 p.m., when his wife, Xu Li, woke him up with a video call.
The couple chatted for over an hour before hanging up.
"8:20 p.m. Time to eat something to regain some energy and get moving!"
Seeing that it was completely dark outside, Jiang Tao got up and went downstairs.
At a small restaurant on the street, he ate a portion of stir-fried meat with flatbread and drank a bowl of dough-drop soup.
After eating and drinking, he felt warm and full.
Jiang Tao then leisurely made his way to the standalone courtyard he had just rented today.
He pulled out the key from his pocket, opened the gate, and locked it from the inside.
Once in the courtyard, Jiang Tao's gaze turned toward the base of the western wall.
In his vision, there was a square area, about one meter by one meter, at the base of the western wall, faintly glowing.
Based on his past treasure-hunting experiences, the ten jars of 20-year-old Daughter Red wine were likely buried beneath that glowing area!
"I just don't know how deep they're buried."
"It'd be best if I could dig them up tonight. Otherwise, if Little Liu and the others see this tomorrow, it'll be hard to explain."
"Time's tight, and the task is heavy. Gotta get moving!"
After finishing a cigarette and stomping out the butt, Jiang Tao picked up the shovel and walked toward the glowing area.
Fortunately, this year was warmer than usual, and the ground wasn't frozen.
Plus, with the snow from a few days ago, the area where Jiang Tao was digging was slightly damp, making it not too difficult to dig.
Jiang Tao worked diligently for over an hour, digging a pit about one meter long, one meter wide, and 30 centimeters deep.
He dug for a while, rested for a bit, and kept going.
After more than three hours of digging, he had gone down over a meter deep.
With the nighttime temperature dropping to minus seven or eight degrees Celsius, Jiang Tao's clothes were nearly soaked through, and his forehead was covered in sweat.
It was exhausting—truly exhausting!
Digging a pit was way more tiring than driving a truck all day!
But the thought of the Daughter Red wine, worth a total of 200,000 yuan, buried below made it all worthwhile, no matter how tough or tiring it was.
How many years would it take him to earn 200,000 hauling goods?
Thud!
Suddenly, as he thrust the shovel downward, it made a different sound—a hollow thud unlike before.
"It's hollow underneath! I must've hit the spot!"
Hearing the unusual sound from below, Jiang Tao's face lit up with joy, and he dug with even more enthusiasm!
Sure enough, after another ten minutes of digging, a square cement slab, resembling a floor tile, appeared at the bottom of the pit.
Jiang Tao carefully pried open the cement slab with the shovel, revealing ten neatly arranged jars of wine!
Clearly, the tenant who hid the wine was an expert. They didn't just bury it directly in the soil.
Instead, they had built a small, miniature wine cellar beneath the soil.
The cellar was surrounded by a neatly arranged circle of stones, with a thick wooden board at the bottom and the cement slab on top.
The ten jars of Daughter Red were stored in this environment, allowing them to ferment slowly.
If they had been buried directly in the soil, the ten jars would have surely gone bad and become undrinkable!
Setting down the shovel, Jiang Tao carefully lifted one jar from the pit.
The jar weighed about 2.2 pounds (roughly one kilogram).
The label on it had rotted and was damaged, but the jar and the sealed clay around the mouth were still intact.
As the saying goes, good wine is three parts brewing and seven parts storage.
This wine, aged for 20 years, was surely of excellent quality!
The intelligence system valued it at 200,000 yuan, which worked out to 20,000 per jar!
Compared to foreign wines that cost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands per bottle, this price wasn't too outrageous.
Seeing that it was almost midnight, Jiang Tao didn't have time to inspect the jars closely. He quickly lifted the remaining nine jars from the pit.
Then he spent another ten minutes or so filling the pit back in.
Fortunately, it had snowed a few days ago, and there was still some snow piled up at the base of the western wall.
After restoring the site to its original state and covering it with a layer of snow, no one could tell anything had been disturbed.
Carrying two jars at a time, Jiang Tao made five trips, sneaking the ten jars of Daughter Red back to his rented apartment like a thief.
After finishing everything and taking off his muddy clothes, Jiang Tao collapsed on the bed, utterly exhausted.
Digging for hours tonight was, without a doubt, the dirtiest and most strenuous work he'd done all year.
But thinking about the value of those ten jars of Daughter Red, he was tired but happy!
200,000 yuan!
This was the biggest windfall he'd ever gotten in his life!
After resting on the bed for about ten minutes, Jiang Tao picked up his phone and glanced at it. It was already five minutes past midnight!
"The intelligence has refreshed. Let's see what came up today!"
With a thought, Jiang Tao opened the intelligence system to check the details.
[Today's Intelligence]: While working with Zhang Chao today, you obtained related information—
Zhang Chao is currently at a massage parlor in Xiaoshahe Urban Village, preparing to engage in a money-for-sex transaction with a woman.
Five minutes from now, the anti-vice squad will raid the place!
…
"This kid Zhang Chao's luck is just awful!"
"If it weren't for me, you'd be spending the New Year in detention."
Seeing the new intelligence, Jiang Tao felt a bit disappointed.
He still preferred intelligence about making money!
But disappointment aside, he found Zhang Chao's number on his phone and dialed it.