Tonight, the moonlight in Luoyang is beautiful. Truly beautiful.

Ryan Carter stood silently in the courtyard, gazing at the bright moon and starry sky, breathing in the air tinged with the fragrance of wine. A genuine warmth welled up from the bottom of his heart. All the bedding and quilts in the house had been replaced with brand new ones by Grace Carter; every utensil was spotless. This attentive elder sister had even brought him brush, ink, paper, inkstone, and some books—clearly all prepared for him in advance, despite the late hour.

For a moment, tender emotions filled his whole being. He glanced at the bedroom of Grace Carter and her husband, where the lights had long since gone out, and felt his eyes grow slightly moist.

In his previous life, his father died young, and he was raised by his grandparents. As for his mother, after remarrying and giving birth to another daughter, her maternal affection shifted almost entirely to the new child. For him, she merely paid his living and tuition expenses on time. Precisely because he had never experienced the warmth and affection of family in his previous life, now, after traveling back to the Tang dynasty and gaining such a gentle and caring elder sister, this concern shook him to his core.

He sighed, walked softly into the house, and at the moment he closed the door, he had completely accepted Grace Carter as his sister. Yes, from today onward, she would be the dearest family he could never part with in this life.

Although Luoyang was already shrouded in darkness, it was actually still early. According to Ryan Carter's estimation, it was only about 9 p.m.

He wasn't used to going to bed so early, so he lit a lamp, sat down at the desk, spread out paper and brush, and casually wrote a few characters. Looking left and right, he felt they looked pretty good. In his previous life, he had dabbled in the arts of calligraphy and painting in traditional culture, so his brushwork was passable. However, he knew very well that while his skills might fool people for a while in modern society, in this ancient world where brush calligraphy was the main form of writing, it was best not to show off everywhere.

He did have that bit of self-awareness.

After thinking for a while, he shifted his focus to brewing. In the Tang dynasty, he needed to survive, and since he had a "talent" for brewing and wine culture, it was only natural to make use of it. As for the imperial examination success and officialdom that Grace Carter hoped for, he wasn't very interested—at least, not for now.

Perhaps because of the time travel, the "memories" stored in his mind were extraordinarily clear. Ryan Carter was amazed to find that anything he had read or studied before could be recalled as clearly as if it were flashing on a computer screen.

He bent over the desk, writing quickly, trying to recall and write down several ancient brewing recipes from "Qimin Yaoshu" and "Beishan Wine Classic," pondering how to improve them so that the wine he brewed would be "crystal clear with a rosy hue, and truly unique."

The reason the alcohol content of wine in this era was low was because distillation technology had not yet been invented. Brewing could only produce wine with an alcohol content of 10% to 18%. Ryan Carter remembered reading in an ancient book that during the Sui dynasty, some people had tried to use wine instead of water to brew again in hopes of achieving a higher concentration, but it didn't work. This was because alcohol is a byproduct of yeast (qu) metabolizing sugar, and it inhibits yeast fermentation. When the alcohol content reaches about 10%, the yeast stops reproducing and the fermentation process slows down. Even the most alcohol-tolerant yeast cannot withstand more than 18% alcohol, so even with secondary fermentation using wine instead of water, higher alcohol content could not be achieved.

But just because Tang people couldn't do it didn't mean Ryan Carter couldn't. He was absolutely confident that he could use distillation techniques to produce spirits with a much higher alcohol content.

However, high alcohol content alone wasn't enough. He also needed to improve the taste, aroma, and concentration of the wine in order to make a splash in this era and gain the wealth and happiness he desired.

He thought of beer from his previous life. Brewing beer with the complex techniques of the Tang dynasty was unrealistic for now, but could he borrow some methods from beer brewing? For example, using barley instead of the traditional grains like wheat and sorghum for making baijiu, and adding some hops and goji berries...

Barley had been cultivated in China for over 5,000 years, so this ingredient shouldn't be hard to find. As for hops, known in the "Compendium of Materia Medica" as shema flower, it was a perennial herbaceous vine used as a medicinal herb by the ancients, so there should be no problem obtaining it.

...

After improving a recipe, Ryan Carter looked at it with a smile, full of confidence for the future.

Casually flipping through a few woodblock-printed thread-bound books on the desk, Ryan Carter found a copy of "Biography of the Tripitaka Master of the Great Ci'en Monastery of the Great Tang." Looking at the authorship, it was written by Master Xuanzang's disciples Huizhi and Yanzong, completed at the end of the Zhenguan era. This book was far more "magical" than Xuanzang's own "Great Tang Records on the Western Regions," even containing some "fantastical" elements, exaggerating and fabricating some "legendary stories" from Xuanzang's journey to fetch the scriptures.

However, this kind of early "mythological novel" seemed far too childish to Ryan Carter, a time traveler. Compared to "Journey to the West" written by Wu Cheng'en of the Ming dynasty, it fell far short. He couldn't even muster the interest to use it for entertainment.

On a whim, Ryan Carter picked up his brush and began to transcribe "Journey to the West" from memory, both to practice his calligraphy and to pass the time.