The Wine God

Li Jiedong, a world-class master bartender and taster known as "the Wine God," drinks himself to death at the age of thirty while trying to taste an unearthed Han-dynasty wine, and never wakes again. When he opens his eyes, he finds himself in a world called the Five Elements Continent, transformed into a beggar boy named Ji Dong. Here exists a highly unusual profession—the Yin-Yang Mage: practitioners study ten schools of magic technique, and above each mage's head condenses a Yin-Yang Crown representing their attribute. By chance he meets Lie Yan, the Flame Queen of the underground world, and because of his yin-yang-balanced constitution receives the inheritance of the Yin-Yang Ultimate Flame, the fused power of Bing Fire and Ding Fire, setting him on the path of the strong. The work builds its cultivation system on the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches and the yin-yang five elements, and weaves real-world wine culture—bartending, tasting, famous wines—into its fantasy setting, creating a unique set of "Wine God techniques" and magic-technique wines. The book runs to about 2.8 million characters, serialized on Qidian from December 2009 to November 2010 under the original title The Yin-Yang Crown, later renamed The Wine God for marketing.