Immortality Begins with Winter Brew

Title: Longevity Begins with Winter Brewing One-line pitch: Everyone in the cultivation world speculates on wine futures and chases fiery liquor. Only the protagonist keeps to the old ways of brewing with winter water in winter. For three thousand years, the world has treated yellow wine as cooking wine, and for three thousand years, someone has been burning history into cooking wine. Synopsis: In the cultivation world, the Way of Wine reigns supreme. Everyone chases fiery liquor, the fuel of immortal-sect wars and a speculative asset for investors to exploit. Chen Mo, an unremarkable apprentice who dilutes wine at Qingping Winery, scrapes by in obscurity. Then, on the night his master is murdered, he is left a tattered brewing ledger and half of a bronze jue vessel patterned with ice cracks. The spirit within the vessel can only awaken in yellow wine brewed according to the true old methods: soak the rice, steam it, put it in the vat, stir the mash, heat the wine, and seal it in jars. Brew with winter water in winter, and skip not a single step. So while others speculate on wine futures, he buries jars of wine. While others risk everything for the illusory realm, he tends his wine cellar. For thirty years, he brews through winter, burying jar after jar of aged wine underground, along with the remnants of three thousand years of civilization that have been burned away. When the spirit-wine bubble bursts and a bronze war cauldron from the upper realm bears down on the world, everyone finally realizes that Chen Mo hasn't been brewing wine. He's been preserving the history that was stolen. Wine isn't for drinking, but for speculation? Then I'll open a jar and invite the whole world to drink. Intangible cultural heritage is more than a craft. It is a way to preserve civilization.