I Am Your Natural Enemy

”Is the person okay?” Wen Yan quickly asked.

”They’re fine, just a minor issue. It’s my day off today, a rare chance to have a drink, so I might have... gotten a little too happy.

I just wanted to give you a heads up, so you know about this—don’t let anyone mess with you, and don’t drink it yourself either.”

”Alright, thanks a lot.”

After hanging up, Wen Yan felt like his brain was overheating.

Something didn’t feel right.

Honestly, he thought, even if that old guy ever slipped up, it could only happen with just-distilled batches.

But for stuff that’s actually sold, that absolutely shouldn’t happen.

He’d read up on it; that distillery had been around for decades, stopping and starting, business never really growing, but there had never actually been any poisoning incidents.

With that honest, quiet boss, and the fact that the distillery had gone under multiple times because of bad management and never really took off—he could pretty much imagine what kind of man the young boss’s father had been.

Wen Yan didn’t believe anyone really got poisoned; if there had been a case, even the Scorching Sun Department wouldn’t have covered it up, and they had no records of such a thing.

According to the records and traces, the distillery was small, but every single batch—each pot—had to be tested.

They removed methanol and fusel oils with really thorough procedures and methods, especially with distilled liquors. As long as you weren’t cutting corners, sure, completely eliminating them is tough, but reducing the content to far below safe limits isn’t much of a challenge.

If the bottled liquor they sell had issues, the chances were honestly pretty low.

Wen Yan thought it over for a bit and sent a message to the boss, telling him not to sell any more liquor for now.

The boss replied that he actually wanted to clear out his stock.

But the stuff he’d sold before wasn’t easy to move anyway; now, people were taking the opportunity to return bottles to him.

Wen Yan said, ”Someone who bought liquor today got poisoned. Don’t touch any of the remaining stock for now, and don’t mess with anything there.”

The boss was so scared, he called Wen Yan immediately.

Wen Yan soothed him a bit, asking if the security cameras and everything else were in order.

The boss said the footage had been taken away before for evidence collection, and all the protocols had been followed. He’d always done things by the book.

Upon hearing this, Wen Yan didn’t say much else, just told him to leave the liquor alone for now.

At this point, he knew there was definitely more to the story here.

And that old man probably knew as well, just didn’t want to talk about it.

Wen Yan had planned to look into it now, but then remembered what the prompt had said—ah, forget it, better go check on the Water Monarch first.

The liquor he sent to the Water Monarch was contaminated—this was kind of a headache.

Even though he figured that if it was just mild poisoning for humans, for the Water Monarch it would probably be nothing at all.

Still—poisoning or not—it depends on quantity.

Those people drinking, at most, had maybe a half-jin or a full jin, but according to what Wen Yan had seen, the Water Monarch drank by the vat.

Even with that body size, one vat probably wouldn’t have any effect. But if he drank ten vats, that’d maybe be the same as a person drinking a couple of liang.

Whether it’s poisoning or not is another story, but what if the Water Monarch thought Wen Yan was trying to poison him?

If the Water Monarch got pissed and raised some hell, that wouldn’t be a small matter.

Wen Yan put down his phone and drifted off to sleep.

Using the dream-entering technique, he waded through clouds and mist for a while before finally entering that water-filled dreamscape.

The Water Monarch grabbed a wine vat, casually stuffed it into his mouth, and started chewing—even the vat itself.

Then he frowned and spat out some shards with a ”puh puh,” smacking his lips as if savoring the taste.

Wen Yan tensed, floated over, and just as he was about to say something, the Water Monarch smacked his lips and let out a long sigh.

”Sure enough, times are different. Something this clear as water is actually a distilled liquor.”

Saying that, the Water Monarch chewed through another vat.

”The wine you brought is pretty good—strong enough. If only it could be even fiercer.”

Seeing the Water Monarch’s reaction, Wen Yan secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Looks like he was overthinking it.

The Water Monarch probably had never tasted anything really good, never experienced the punch of modern industry.

This wine might be labeled ’traditional brewing,’ but plenty of steps are modern, industrialized, way more controlled.

As long as the Water Monarch didn’t taste any toxins in the wine, it was fine.

”It wasn’t easy for me to track down a professional brewer.

So far, I’ve only managed to find this one guy.

He even died, turned into a ghost, but still insists on brewing.

I really had to talk my head off to keep him around.”

Wen Yan hadn’t even finished bragging when the Water Monarch said—

”There’s just too little of it. I just started to get the taste, give me some more.”

”Good stuff isn’t that easy to make, is it? A year of brewing, three years of cellaring—all of this, I scraped together just enough to buy these batches.

Everything costs money. I can’t just rob some old guy of the wine he sweated to make, can I?

A normal person’s monthly income isn’t enough to buy even a few jin of fine liquor.

You do the math—just these few vats, how much do you think they cost?

I have to work my ass off just to make enough money for this.”

The Water Monarch was stunned by this, looking at Wen Yan in disbelief.

”People from Fuyu Mountain—you really have to go out and make your own money?”

”Otherwise what? What am I supposed to eat, drink, wear, where am I going to live?

All of it costs money! If I don’t make money, what am I going to do, steal it?

I’d die of shame before that.”

”You don’t have land? Nobody farms for you?”

”No land.” Wen Yan shook his head decisively. He didn’t have any farmland. As for land you could build a house on, buying a plot of that in Nanwu County—that was even pricier than buying a house.