A few days later, Yuanling Branch Yang Family's Seven-Courtyard Manor.
In the past few days, Yang Chunqiu had been tirelessly searching for suitable fruits and combinations to be squashed into pulp to cultivate a suitable strain of fungal mold for his winemaking.
While the attempt was far from calling it successful, it has been a fruitful week in return for all his efforts.
The weeklong preparation phase helped Yang Chunqiu prep four strains of the fungal mold with considerable alcohol tolerance. Furthermore, this was the result of twelve trials. This result can be deemed good enough, considering he only worked with them for less than a week.
With Yang Xuan as his guide, Yang Chunqiu was taken to the outermost courtyard of the manor. This place was named Auspicious Yang Courtyard, a venue accustomed to housing bigger groups of subordinates whenever honored guests visited.
The Auspicious Yang Courtyard was humble in its decoration, using only stones and wood as their main material. But this place was on par with the Grand Yang Courtyard's spaciousness. Bearing over three barrack-like buildings and several kitchens, it was the only place capable of fitting any subordinates of the honored guest.
At its maximum capacity, the Auspicious Yang Courtyard can house three hundred people with ample space to spare.
This made the Auspicious Yang Courtyard perfect for Yang Chunqiu's plan. Its location was convenient for the goods to be brought in and out unnoticed and away from the public's eyes.
"Young master, as you requested, we had completely moved everything into the courtyard's open area. If you like, I can the inventory out for you while you're doing a check." Yang Xuan said.
In his hand was a roll of bamboo scroll, with every single item etched onto each bamboo strip. From the number of stoves to firewood, waist-height tall earthenware, unrefined lumps of sugar, and Pearl Rice in their straw woven sacks.
Perhaps the few basins of fungal mold were the only items that weren't registered in them.
"That's unnecessary." Yang Chunqiu told Yang Xuan. "Since I have handed this responsibility to your hand, it is only natural for me to trust your efficiency and judgement." he added.
"With most of the necessary preparation now done, let us prepare for the next step." feeling that he was ready to move on, Yang Chunqiu gave the order to move on while rolling his sleeve up.
His words were like the mandate of the emperor. Once it was spoken, no servants in the house dared to dilly-dally. They immediately line up before Yang Chunqiu, ready for his next order.
"We had four basins of fungal mold here. So, I'll need four men, each firing a stove to sanitize a tall water jar, steamer, fine fabric, and the other tools I've told you to prepare." he started by giving several orders out to the firemaker to begin their work.
"Next, I want a few servants, preferably female, to assemble four groups. Each team will take a sack of the Pearl Rice out of the building to start the threshing process, separating the husk from grains. I want everyone on this duty to ensure no husks remain on the Pearl Rice. Do you get me?" Yang Chunqiu then continued with the next part of his orders.
"Yes, young master!" the female servants quickly responded to Yang Chunqiu. From the look of it, the nanny had assigned twelve female servants to do Yang Chunqiu's bidding.
"Guard leader," Yang Chunqiu then called out to Yang Xuan.
"Yes, young master," Yang Xuan immediately responded.
"You'll monitor the whole process. Get a servant to collect the husks separated from the Pearl Rice. I will have some use for them when we're done with the work." Yang Chunqiu ended his chain of orders here and allowed the servants to get started.
In a flash, the Auspicious Yang Courtyard got busy.
Almost all the servants had some work to do. As for those who had less in their bowl, they voluntarily helped another group to ensure that their work was completed faster.
After the husk removal process, the female servants were ordered to wash the Pearl Rice several times to ensure that most of the filth and dust were removed from the rice grains. These washed rice are evenly spread on the steamer afterward, on top of a layer of fine fabric.
Following this step was putting the steamer on top of the cooking pot before covering the lid firmly, using the excess fabric to keep away as much gap as possible.
This step was repeated three more times.
What comes next is waiting for the Pearl Rice to get cooked. As this was their first time, control over the fire was important because a flame that was too strong would ruin the rice on the bottom, and a flame that was too weak would leave some of the grain uncooked.
It took them several tries to save the Pearl Rice from meeting either end. But luckily, it went on well without a disastrous outcome.
The cooked rice was poured into a much wider wooden basin to continue cooling down. At this moment, it was time for Yang Chunqiu to run his magic.
Seeing how Yang Chunqiu comes close to the rice with a basin full of mold, none of the servants dare to make a noise. They were patiently looking at the young master without the guts to show their disgust at the content inside the basin.
To their surprise, Yang Chunqiu took a tool to scrap the top layer of the mold to be mixed with the cooling Pearl Rice. His act was akin to tossing some cow dung into the precious Tributary-Quality goods.
"Heavens... What kind of demonic entity went inside the young master's head? For him to work us day and night just to make a show of wasting these grains we just cooked?" the servants thought. But as mere subordinates to this Yang Family's third young master, they could only keep quiet.
"Don't stop. Continue to turn until the rice cooled down much further. Try to mix them evenly. We'll be putting them into the water jar later." said Yang Chunqiu.
"What? We still have to put them back into the jar?"