(Automatic update error, sorry...)
After Gan Ning sat down, he unceremoniously picked up a bunch of grapes, opened his huge mouth, and swallowed half the bunch in one bite. Then he casually stripped the grapes from the stem and began chewing them with relish. As he chewed, he mumbled, "This is the second young master of the Yu family. Yu Fan is his elder brother."
Back at the mouth of the Yangtze River, Gan Ning and Yu Fan had addressed each other as brothers, but their statuses were now worlds apart. The fact that he had personally brought people from the sea to meet Wang Xuan already showed that he still valued their old friendship, so there was nothing particularly inappropriate about his behavior.
"Look at you. You've completely thrown all decorum out the window!" Wang Xuan snatched the plate of grapes away, then glanced at Gan Ning with disdain.
Thrown all decorum out the window? Gan Ning rolled his eyes extravagantly. If anyone else had said that, he could have let it go, but you...
The fruit had indeed originated in the Western Regions, but fossils of it had already been found in strata from the Tertiary Period. Those were wild grapes, though. Ordinary grapes cultivated as fruit were still relatively rare in this era, but the upper nobility could still eat them.
Cao Pi had once written a poem praising them: "The Central Plains possess many precious fruits, and grapes deserve special mention. When summer turns to autumn and the lingering heat remains, one may eat them after drunken sleep, with the dew still clinging to them. They are sweet but not cloying, crisp but not sour, cool but not cold. Their flavor is rich and their juice abundant; they dispel vexation and quench thirst. They may also