"I have a use for this wine. I told you from the beginning. Don't ask about the specific purpose. I'll put your jar of wine at home anyway." Xiaoyao said with a smile, then left the brewery.

After leaving the brewery, he first returned to his residence and placed most of the wine in a large wooden box. This box was custom-made by Xiaoyao, with plenty of cushioning materials inside to ensure each jar of wine would be perfectly safe.

This setup seemed to be for shipping. How was he planning to transport it?

"Chirp..."

Xiaoyao whistled, and four messenger eagles flew down from the sky. Each of these messenger eagles had a stronger physique than ordinary messenger eagles, as if they were improved messenger eagles.

That's right—these were messenger eagles improved by Xiaoyao. These four messenger eagles belonged to himself, the Young Miss, Nangong Suxin, and Third Miss Nangong respectively.

He planned to use these four messenger eagles working together to transport this wine to the Young Miss. He had calculated these eagles' capabilities—transporting this much wine would still leave them with some energy to spare.

Soon, Xiaoyao fitted the four messenger eagles with special harnesses, connected the ropes on the box to them, then had the eagles take off together.

...

...

"Swoosh..."

The messenger eagles flew quite fast, rising into the air and departing in an instant...

"What what? What was that just now?" Lingling appeared from somewhere, looking at the messenger eagles in the sky. She was a bit confused—what were those things just now? How did they fly away?

"Nothing much, just a few messenger eagles. Why are you here?" Xiaoyao asked casually.

"I'm going into secluded cultivation! Recently, eating the pills you gave me, I feel I'm about to reach a bottleneck. I won't talk with you anymore—I'm going to cultivate!" Lingling disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared.

"Time to go do serious business—deliver wine to my never-met father!" Xiaoyao picked up a jar of wine, planning to go see Luo Yuntian. His reason was that he needed him to appraise this wine. This reason was something Luo Yuntian definitely wouldn't refuse, and at the same time, no one would suspect the reasonableness of this matter.

Having Luo Yuntian appraise wine—probably anyone could think of this, because he was a drunkard, a drunkard who had been drinking for twenty years. His wine appreciation wouldn't lose to anyone's!

It was just that not many people dared do this, fearing they'd be caught by Yun Qingyi and lectured. Yun Qingyi didn't support Luo Yuntian's drinking—she just had no way to deal with him. With other people, she would definitely investigate thoroughly.

Xiaoyao didn't care. After meeting Luo Yuntian, he also wanted to meet Yun Qingyi...

The problem was that no one knew where Luo Yuntian was. This was the most troublesome point. Fortunately, Xiaoyao knew that today Luo Yuntian would appear on Longing Cliff in the Western Mountains—someone had seen him go in that direction.

"Ten years of life and death, boundless and indistinct..."

When Xiaoyao arrived at Longing Cliff, he heard a low voice reciting poetry, with what seemed to be a trace of sorrow and strong longing within.

The owner of this voice was Luo Yuntian. He stood at the cliff's edge, reciting poetry to the sky, his face full of sorrowful longing.

The moment he saw Luo Yuntian, Xiaoyao understood that the person before him was his father. That feeling was even stronger than with Yinping—the answer he wanted to know was right in front of him.

Longing? Who are you longing for? Is it me?

If so, then why have you never looked for me? What kind of difficulties do you have?

Also, why the sorrow, why the sadness?

...

"Who are you?" Luo Yuntian didn't turn around, just voiced the question. Originally he wouldn't care who approached here—this wasn't his private place. It was just that Xiaoyao wasn't approaching this place, but him, which made him have to ask.

"Le Xiaoyao. I've come to ask you to appraise some wine I brewed." Xiaoyao smiled slightly, holding up the wine jar in his hand.

The meeting between the two seemed very calm, like strangers. Luo Yuntian would never think that the young man standing before him now would be his son—his son whom he thought he could never see again.

"Wine? You chose the right person. Everyone calls me a drunkard..." Luo Yuntian smiled with some self-mockery.

"I know, so I'm having you appraise it. This was brewed by me. I believe there are few wines in this world that can compare with it." Xiaoyao said indifferently, beginning to open the wine seal.

"You're quite confident. I'm most afraid you haven't seen enough—how many fine wines are there in the world... eh, good wine! Just this wine fragrance is something I've never smelled before. Perhaps what you said is right." Luo Yuntian had originally wanted to say Xiaoyao was too arrogant, but quickly changed his mind because after Xiaoyao opened the wine seal, that wine fragrance immediately conquered him.

"Here, please drink!" Xiaoyao poured the wine into two bowls, one for each person.

"Then I'll thank you! Cheers!" Luo Yuntian was quite straightforward, directly picking up the bowl and draining it in one gulp. He didn't seem to suspect at all what would happen if Xiaoyao had poisoned it.

He didn't have that kind of feeling toward Xiaoyao—after all, not everyone could have such feelings. But he also trusted Xiaoyao because Xiaoyao was from the Luo family. He could tell this—Luo family jade tokens couldn't fool people.

Besides, he had been decadent for twenty years. Who would care about a drunkard like him? There was basically no possibility of anyone using schemes against him. If they wanted to kill him, they could just come directly—he was often alone.

"Cheers!" Xiaoyao also drained his cup, looking at Luo Yuntian as if waiting for an evaluation.

"Good wine, indeed rare fine wine in the world. Did you really brew this yourself?" Luo Yuntian looked at Xiaoyao, constantly praising the fine wine while also being very skeptical. How could a young man brew wine of this caliber?

However, if it wasn't true, what reason would the other party have to deceive him? This seemed completely unnecessary.

"Yes, this was brewed by me, from an ancient recipe plus some improvements I made. Both the taste and purity are excellent." Xiaoyao nodded.

"I wonder if you have more—I'd like to shamelessly ask for a few jars." Luo Yuntian asked.

"There isn't much left now, but this only takes a month to brew. I can continue next month. How about I bring you a few jars then?" Xiaoyao replied. Today he only planned to get acquainted with Luo Yuntian, not planning to understand too deeply yet, lest it arouse the other party's suspicion. Of course, if there was an opportunity, he wouldn't let it pass.

"That would naturally be best. It can temporarily make one forget troubles and sorrows. Tomorrow's worries come tomorrow—if there's wine today, get drunk today!" Luo Yuntian drank another bowl of wine, then said loudly, as if trying to vent the matters in his heart.

"Although that's so, problems still need to be solved. Drinking can't solve problems—it only creates more!" Xiaoyao said, his tone very calm, making it impossible to tell what he meant by this statement.

"Sigh..." Luo Yuntian sighed. "It's not that I don't know problems will only multiply, but besides choosing to drink to numb myself, I have no other choice."

"Why do you say this? Aren't you already together with your beloved, and even have children?" Xiaoyao hadn't expected Luo Yuntian to suddenly have such feelings, and naturally he couldn't let such an opportunity pass.

"Beloved... haha... Xiaoyao, let me ask you something—what is love?" Luo Yuntian suddenly laughed, then turned to ask Xiaoyao.

What is love? This question stumped Xiaoyao because there was fundamentally no answer to it, and he had never experienced love, so naturally he knew even less.

What he didn't understand was why Luo Yuntian would ask such a question—this was the strangest point.

"Are you confused? Those earth-shattering love stories people talk about are actually all illusions. Perhaps after they experience them, they fundamentally can't be together! In my opinion, two people being able to stay together is what's real—whether there's love or not doesn't matter! Don't blindly pursue love—it will hurt you badly." Luo Yuntian drank another bowl of wine, speaking with faint sorrow.

It seemed there were problems here, big problems!

"Aren't you already together with Fairy Qingyun? Why do you have such deep feelings about this?" Xiaoyao asked somewhat puzzledly.

"Fairy Qingyun... Everyone knows she and I are childhood sweethearts, senior and junior disciples. Everyone knows we eloped for love, but what they know is only the surface! Life isn't something you can sustain on feelings alone. Perhaps our feelings couldn't withstand life's trials, perhaps we thought too little..." Luo Yuntian spoke while drinking another mouthful of wine.

What did this mean? Was he saying they hadn't thought about life's hardships before, and the two had disagreements? This was understandable—most love died in real life. Some people initially felt they would marry no one but each other, initially wanting to live or die together, but after finally being together, discovered the other person wasn't as perfect as they had imagined.

Love was just initial attraction. Living together required tolerance from both people—it couldn't rely solely on love. This point was crucial.

Xiaoyao had also thought about this. From Luo Yuntian and his wife's somewhat superficial harmony, he had considered many possibilities. One was that after they got together, they began quarreling and fighting, their feelings not as good as before. But formally, they had reached that point and had to stay together, so they continued like this.

It wasn't that they had no feelings anymore—perhaps they still had feelings that others didn't have, but due to various reasons, the two weren't very harmonious.

These reasons might be one big matter, but perhaps they were just trivial small matters. Some couples sulked at each other over small things, and later the sulking was just for the sake of sulking, not because of that previous small matter anymore.

What kind of situation Luo Yuntian and his wife were currently in was still hard for Xiaoyao to say—he still needed to know more before making a judgment.

(End of Chapter)