Dong Qiangqiang's Story of Leaving Germany

Chapter 1132. Not a drop of wine left
Dong Qiangqiang also turned along the stairs. The light around him dimmed, so he followed Peter's example and turned on the handheld lamp. Peter, who was walking in front, stopped, turned around with the lamp held high, and stood in a dark and windy doorway, quietly watching Dong Qiangqiang who was walking behind him.

That should be the entrance to the underground floor of the wine cellar, Dong Qiangqiang thought to himself, but his eyes slid from the door to the downward stairs next to it.

A cool breeze blew against my face, not strong but lasting, and I could faintly hear the faint sound of rippling water.

Seeing Dong Qiangqiang still looking down when he came to him, Peter guessed his confusion and explained while looking down: "The water pump is broken, and the accumulated water on the two lower floors has not been pumped out yet. We will continue to do it in the evening."

"Then the wine below... is still soaked in water?"

Peter nodded.

"After being soaked in water for a long time, the temperature of the wine's external environment may change. Isn't that dangerous for the wine?" Dong Qiangqiang questioned humbly in a gentle and tentative tone, not daring to ask directly whether the wine would deteriorate.

"We asked the research institute about your question, and their reply was: Flood water is cold to begin with, and it will become even colder when it enters the underground. If the water can maintain the current low temperature, and the wine bottles and barrels are all well sealed and do not hit the wall and break, then they should be safe within a week, but the risk (of spoilage) will increase after a week. Fortunately, the new pump will arrive tonight. We will drain all the accumulated water as soon as possible, restore electricity, and restore the wine cellar to its previous constant temperature state." Peter stretched his arm toward the entrance to signal Dong Qiangqiang that he could go in, and after saying a few words, he was the first to raise his hand and hide in the darkness at the entrance, "The emergency light is not on, watch your step."

It only takes a flood for the environment to go from pleasant to harsh. Dong Qiangqiang sighed. It seemed that he would have to call Zheng Chunhua later to ask her if she had used up the water pump. He could lend the water pump to Peter, which would be a piece of cake.

As soon as he entered the first floor of the wine cellar, the pale blue light of Dong Qiangqiang's hand lamp seemed to be swallowed up by the surrounding darkness in the blink of an eye. The surroundings were dim and it took Dong Qiangqiang's eyes a while to adapt before he could gradually see things two or three meters in front of him. He guessed that even if the emergency light was working properly, the light would not be bright enough to meet the requirements of storing wine.

The floor of the long and narrow wine cellar was covered with mud of unknown thickness, mixed with a large amount of sand. The experience of taking one deep step and one shallow step was very similar to the feeling of walking on the beach in Port William that summer.

What surprised him even more was that he originally thought that the area of ​​this floor was almost the same as the building on the ground. After his eyes adjusted, he found that he still could not see the other end of the wine cellar clearly. Judging from the distance from his position to the walls on both sides, this floor should be much wider than the hexagon on the ground.

"Be careful of the trash can." Peter's voice came back from the front with an echo. How big is this floor? Dong Qiangqiang stopped when he heard the voice, took the hand lamp in front of him and shook it horizontally from side to side a few times, and sure enough, he saw an iron bucket with a locked lid.

"What's in here?" He didn't dare to reach out and open it.

"It's all broken glass. If there is another flood, the broken glass could easily hurt people."

It had been almost a minute since he came in when Dong Qiangqiang suddenly realized that the hot and humid smell in the wine cellar was not as strong as the one from the steps just now. Instead, it was a lot fresher. This was somewhat beyond his expectations, and he sniffed twice unconsciously.

Peter seemed to have seen his movements, or guessed his doubts, and shone the light on the ceiling. "The constant temperature system is still on strike due to the power outage. The electric ventilation cannot be turned on. We can only restore the most primitive natural ventilation system for the time being. So far, the effect is not bad."

With the weak light of the hand lamp, Dong Qiangqiang noticed that the semi-arched ceiling, ceiling lights, surrounding walls and several supporting pillars in the middle of the wine cellar were all covered with traces of mud splashing. There was also a circular honeycomb structure between the ceiling lights, which was probably the natural ventilation system mentioned by Peter.

"This wine cellar was hundreds of years old when it was passed to my father. The entire building is made of the most famous local slate, and it stores more than 130 different vintages and varieties of wine. In addition to bottled wine, there are more than 30 single oak barrels of more than 100 liters, which is almost the entire inventory of the family." Peter's voice came from far away, and the light in his hand became brighter and brighter. "When I was Josephine's age, I loved playing here. Watching the adults busying around always made me feel good. Now this is also Josephine's favorite place. When the water on this layer is pumped out, when I stand here and see what it looks like, my heart feels like it's bleeding. It feels like I'm mourning my own death."

As Peter was narrating, Dong Qiangqiang's eyes fell on the wooden racks that stood close to the wall, which were filled with wine bottles that had been "washed" in mud of varying depths, either neatly or messily stacked on top of them.

He approached the wooden rack and wanted to pick up a bottle from the rack to take a closer look. He was tripped by something and almost hit the wooden rack. He looked down and found a bottle with the same color as the mud next to it stuck in the mud. He squatted down and placed the hand lamp on the wooden rack. He quickly dug out a bottle of muddy wine from the mud with his hands alternately. The bottle was wrapped in mud and exuded an earthy smell. The label was covered with mud. Bubbles could be seen swimming up and down in the dark liquid. It felt heavy in his hand. Looking at the golden label that was faintly visible in the dim light, the image of the flood pushing the wine into the mud emerged in his mind.

"Is this the flood wine?" Dong Qiangqiang looked up and asked Peter in the dark.

"In just one night, about 40,000 bottles of wine on the upper and lower floors were all flooded. However, this floor was high and the top was not flooded, so the (wine) placed on the highest part of the wooden rack was basically not affected much. At most, it was just splashed with (mud). The ones placed on the lower floors were not so lucky. When the water was pumped out, (the wine bottles) were all stuck in the mud. The part you see now was put up by us later, and another part floated up from the two lower floors and was put here by us." Peter stretched out his five fingers to touch the space between himself and Dong Qiangqiang He drew a circle and said, "This floor is mainly bottled wine, and the two floors below have dozens of wine barrels in addition to bottled wine. I am actually still lucky. All the safety doors of my friend's (wine cellar) were lowered, but the flood easily broke open the rocks. His wine cellar was large but only had two shallow floors. Dozens of barrels of wine were easily washed out of the cellar. Some barrels were found several kilometers away from the wine cellar, and more were missing. Many colleagues lost everything overnight, and in the end there was not even a drop of wine left." Peter sighed as he got closer.

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