Chris's brewed Yuhu Spring, though low in alcohol content, is still hard to handle if you drink too much. After sitting and drinking heartily with Chris, Ryan Carter had already consumed quite a bit and was about seventy percent drunk. Riding the wave of intoxication, he let out a long boozy burp, his wild side on full display: "Ugh, Old Ethan, though I am not particularly talented, I can just barely manage to identify wine by its aroma!"

Chris shook his head, clearly unconvinced. "Brother Charles, you must be joking. Tasting wine is like diagnosing an illness—observation, smelling, and tasting are all indispensable. It's absolutely impossible to identify wine by aroma alone. No, impossible."

Seeing Ryan Carter's face brimming with confidence, he simply laughed as well. "Alright then, I’ll put Brother Charles's skill of identifying wine by aroma to the test. Boss Harris, please go buy some wine from elsewhere, one jar of each kind, and put it all on my tab."

……

……

All the patrons abandoned their own tables and gathered around the table where Chris and Ryan Carter sat facing each other. William Harris personally handled the wine, while Ryan Carter's eyes were covered with a strip of black silk.

The crowd whispered among themselves. Chris smiled as William Harris poured a cup of wine from one of the jars, his expression complicated, unable to describe his feelings. Today, the famously useless playboy Ryan Carter of Luoyang had already surprised him too many times—who knew if he would create yet another miracle.

Thinking of this, William Harris glanced at Ryan Carter. Seeing his face, covered by the black silk, looking calm and with a hint of a wild smile at the corner of his mouth, William Harris felt a sudden, inexplicable sense of unfamiliarity.

William Harris picked up a cup of wine and held it, suspended, a palm’s distance from Ryan Carter's nostrils. The hall instantly fell silent. Blindfolded, Ryan Carter seemed to hear the excited and nervous heartbeats of the crowd in the otherwise silent tavern.

He took a deep breath. In fact, identifying wine by aroma was not new to him. Back in his previous life, he had performed this very skill live on a provincial TV entertainment show, relying not only on his remarkable nose but also on his familiarity with all kinds of wines. In his view, ancient wines were much easier to "smell" than modern baijiu. The reason was simple: ancient wines had lower alcohol content but much stronger aromas, making it easier to analyze by scent and, with his encyclopedic knowledge of Tang dynasty wines, it shouldn’t be hard to identify them.

Such boldness, performing wine identification by aroma in public, was not just the result of drunkenness, but also a subtle attempt to clear a bit of the "disrepute" attached to Brother Carter. After all, he was now the owner of this body, not that playboy, and he still had to live on in this glorious Tang dynasty. Not caring about reputation was simply unrealistic.

"Closer," Ryan Carter frowned, his nostrils twitching slightly as a rich, fresh fragrance wafted in, as if pear blossoms were bursting into bloom in the lively spring. The smile on his lips deepened. "Jiangnan Pear Blossom Spring."

William Harris was stunned, and the crowd couldn't help but exclaim, "That's right!"

Chris's expression changed. He hurriedly got up, snatched the wine cup from William Harris's hand, opened another jar, poured a cup, and brought it close to Ryan Carter's nose, his voice trembling, "Brother Charles, what wine is this?"

Ryan Carter's nostrils twitched twice, and a strong, pungent aroma rushed in, so intense that he couldn't help but sneeze, spraying Chris, who was holding the cup and waiting for an answer.

"Sorry, this wine is just too strong. The wine is dry and cold in nature, brewed from oats, with a strong alcoholic smell but no fragrance. The alcohol is fierce but not rich, dissipates instantly, comes and goes quickly. I assert, this must be the Sanlejiang brewed by Hu people from the western regions." Ryan Carter covered his nose.

……

……

Amid the crowd’s constant exclamations, Ryan Carter finished his performance of identifying wine by aroma. After exchanging a few more words with Chris, the two agreed to part ways. Under the incredulous "gaze" of the patrons and tavern staff, he parted the crowd and strode away.

After just a few steps, he saw a young girl in green standing at the tavern door, smiling sweetly. She wore a short jacket and long skirt, her skin fairer than snow, her eyes like clear pools of water, glancing over Ryan Carter's face several times. The girl's beauty was extraordinary; Ryan Carter's gaze froze for several seconds, and then four words immediately surfaced in his mind: breathtakingly beautiful.

That's right, this girl was breathtakingly beautiful.

Ryan Carter could swear that in both his previous and current lives, he had never seen such a perfectly stunning face. The shape of her face, her eyes, nose, lips, ears, complexion, figure, hands and feet—every feature was utterly enchanting, as if a fairy from the heavens had descended to earth...

Though she was only fourteen or fifteen, there was already a hint of mature woman's charm in her brows and eyes, her delicate figure just beginning to show graceful curves. Gorgeous but not gaudy, gentle yet alluring—a true peerless beauty who could topple a kingdom!

The girl's appearance immediately drew the attention of all the patrons in the tavern. Though it wasn't the first time they'd seen her, they still held their breath, and from time to time someone would utter a gasp of amazement.

The patrons' greedy, unrestrained, even blatantly lustful stares did not make the girl shy; it seemed she was already used to such attention. It was Ryan Carter who felt a bit uncomfortable.

The girl lightly rolled up her sleeves, revealing snow-white, rosy wrists, a faint blush showing through, and cast her limpid, autumn-water gaze behind Ryan Carter, her voice as clear as a yellow oriole emerging from the valley: "Brother Matthew, Aunt sent me to fetch a jar of wine for the guests."