The Decaying World

Chapter 197: Chapter 187: Original Blood 3

Lin Hui couldn’t resist. He reached out and touched the folded canvas of the maiden. It was soft, just like real human skin.

"Like it? A pity I can’t give it to you. This is a special item that can only be maintained by that shopkeeper’s Divine Decision," Hong Ling said with a smile. "I’ll show you some other fun things later, but for now, let’s eat."

He clapped his hands. The door to their private room soon opened, and a handsome little boy with white ram’s horns on his head pushed in a metal cart.

On the cart was a large platter of stir-fried meat with green peppers, mixed with some red peppers and garlic slices. The red and green colors and fragrant aroma were incredibly appetizing.

A home-style dish like this, logically, shouldn’t appear in such an abnormal place.

But the key was, this dish wasn’t normal either—not because of how it was cooked or its ingredients, but because of its portion size.

The thing was served in a metal silver basin the size of a washbasin.

It was a heaping basinful, more than enough to feed two pigs.

"This is stir-fried meat. Of course, it’s not pork. It’s cultured meat from the Fifth Tower," Hong Ling explained.

"Cultured meat? What animal is it from?" Lin Hui asked, curious.

"It has a bit of everything. It’s a composite meat. The Fifth Tower isolated the singular quality of ’meatiness,’ separated it, and propagated it, forming a mass of flesh that grows infinitely as long as it’s fed nutrients. This meat grows very fast. It’s not as nutritionally complete as meat from the outside, but it has a better texture, the portions are huge and filling, and it’s easy to digest because it contains no impurities," Hong Ling explained.

After the stir-fried meat was served, the three of them each scooped a large spoonful into their bowls. Lin Hui savored it carefully. The texture was very tender, slightly crisp, and very savory. It truly lacked the distinct smell of pork, beef, or mutton.

Following that, the other dishes arrived one by one: loofah and egg soup, stir-fried tomatoes with sweet potatoes, braised chicken legs, and Fog Dragon meat in red chili oil.

The last dish, according to Hong Ling, was diced and stir-fried Fog Dragon meat. It was the most expensive dish on the table. Eating it was said to be a powerful aphrodisiac and energy booster, something he had ordered specially for Lin Hui.

"Come on, come on! Don’t you like eating aphrodisiacs? This stuff is definitely potent enough! I guarantee you’ll be satisfied!" Hong Ling said with a laugh as he scooped a spoonful for Lin Hui.

Lin Hui ate a piece, feeling resigned. It tasted good, almost like beef, and the evolution timer on his Blood Seal did indeed jump forward a tiny little bit. But only a tiny bit.

’It seems that even though this is dragon meat, its medicinal properties are extremely diluted, probably because it’s been consumed too much, grown too much, and forced to grow too quickly.’

He finished off all the dragon meat in a few bites. Just then, he overheard Hong Ling and his sister discussing the recent incident where an ancestor of the Original Blood Nobility had taken action.

Hong Ling was vividly describing the grand scene he had personally witnessed to his sister.

Both brother and sister were Priests, and they yearned for such a realm. Lin Hui, however, as he listened from the side, keenly sensed a strange undercurrent.

During the meal, a colleague of Hong Ling’s suddenly knocked, came in to say hello, and her arrival only strengthened Lin Hui’s certainty about his suspicions.

"I heard you two were entertaining a guest here, so I came to say hi. Long time no see, Lingxiang." The person who entered was pitch-black from head to toe, as if they had been smeared all over with coal.

"Wang Yue? You went to Divine Shadow City again? Are you still in the fading shadow phase?" Hong Lingxiang stood up and gestured for the other person to sit.

"Yeah, just got back a few days ago. You know what it’s like over there. Nothing to be done. We can only stand guard," the person said helplessly.

"How long has the Divine Shadow City turmoil been going on? It still hasn’t stabilized. What is the Federation thinking? Why don’t they send people to suppress it?" Hong Ling asked with a frown.

"You think they don’t want to?" The person named Wang Yue shrugged. Her voice was clear and crisp, revealing she was a woman. "It’s not like you don’t know the situation with the Federation and Hong Yin. They’ve already clashed at the border several times. With such heavy casualties, who has the spare resources to manage a trivial matter like Divine Shadow City?"

"Even so, they could have sent a few Blood Ancestors over earlier... A Blood Ancestor’s Blood Heart would have been a great help, wouldn’t it? It’s so late now, it’s probably too late no matter who goes..." Hong Ling sighed.

"Tell me about it. In the end, it’s still us grunts who have to go up there and hold the line..." Wang Yue’s tone was tinged with obvious resentment.

"And this is?" she asked, turning her attention to Lin Hui.

Hong Ling introduced him, and Wang Yue immediately introduced herself to Lin Hui with great enthusiasm.

She was a fringe descendant of the Original Blood, similar in status to Hong Ling and his sister. Her bloodline hadn’t thinned out completely yet, so she could still work in the Moon Tower. But by the time her children were born, they would probably have to move out of the Moon Tower and live at its base. The hope of ever returning was slim.

"Actually, all of us face the same, similar predicament," Wang Yue sighed. "We want to struggle, but resources are locked down, we can’t get better positions, so we can only rely on aptitude. And aptitude is completely dependent on luck."

"Tell me about it. We don’t get any of the perks, but all the tiring, dirty work gets assigned to us," Hong Ling nodded in agreement, a look of deep empathy on his face.

"You know about Chen Zhuoyan, right? Not long ago? She fell for someone from below the tower. Her family disapproved, worried about the bloodline getting out. After a standoff that lasted more than a month, her family had the guy killed. She had a mental breakdown and was locked up, repeatedly brainwashed and her Heart and Spirit modified with a Divine Decision. Sigh..." When Hong Ling started gossiping, he was a real font of information.

He completely ignored his sister, who was constantly tugging at his sleeve, trying to get him to stop his reckless talk.

"Is that kind of thing rare? For us with fringe bloodlines, we can’t choose who we love, and we don’t dare to love carelessly. Otherwise, we might inadvertently bring harm to the other person. Aside from the basic benefits of the Moon Tower, we’re even worse off than the ordinary members of the Three Sects," Wang Yue sighed.

"Yeah, and we have to be on edge even when we go out. When enemies come, we’re their favorite targets because our bloodline is good for research, our strength is weak, and the nobility is quick to abandon us," Hong Ling nodded.

"A lot of people from below the tower even hate us. They lump us in with the nobles and treat us as enemies. But the problem is, we haven’t done anything! We don’t get the benefits, but we take all the blame..." Wang Yue agreed emphatically.

"Are there many people like you?" Lin Hui, who had been listening for a while, couldn’t help but ask.

"A lot. Besides the two hundred nobles, the other ninety percent are all like us. Those of us who still have some chance of passing on the inheritance have no right to choose our future partner. The same goes for having children," Hong Ling nodded.

The three of them chatted idly. When they thought about it, they all agreed that Lin Hui, with his status as a Three Sects Supreme Inheritance and his older brother’s future potential and background, had it much easier than them.

After the meal, Wang Yue proactively exchanged contact information with Lin Hui. She was so forward that anyone watching would have thought he was the one with Original Blood.

Leaving the dining floor, they continued upward in the Moth Car, soon entering a level of the Moon Tower built to resemble a cluster of black palaces.

It was empty and deserted inside, with no signs of life, except for the occasional handsome, well-built young man cleaning, bare-chested.

Compared to the dining floor, this level’s architectural style was a bit gloomy, but everything actually seemed more normal.

"This entire floor belongs to our family. Besides my mother, some of her friends live here. They hold a ’joy party’ in the central area every week. Mother brings back fellow elders from the Extreme Desire Heaven to have fun together. If someone accidentally gets pregnant with a non-hereditary bloodline, they’re thrown into the Deep Domain." Lin Hui could understand each of Hong Ling’s words individually, but strung together, they created a sense of inexplicable confusion...

"Can I experience this ’time of bliss’?" Lin Hui asked in a low voice after a moment of thought.

"Of course. That’s simple."

Hong Ling and his sister led him through the cold, empty black stone buildings, soon stopping in front of a black stone monument.

"Place your hand on it. You need to register the first time. After that, you’ll automatically be able to enter at night just by being in the tower," Hong Ling explained.

Lin Hui nodded and placed his hand on the monument.

After a few breaths, he felt nothing, but then he heard Hong Ling say it was done. He would be able to experience it that night.

Since the Hong siblings’ mother wasn’t around, the two of them had nothing to do and showed Lin Hui around the Moon Tower.

There were no elevators or lifts here. All travel was done by flying in and out on Moth Cars. Each floor was a separate, enclosed space.

A single floor was about half the size of Xinyu Town and extremely spacious. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

The Original Blood Nobility were few in number. Each occupied an entire floor, which they could build and decorate as they pleased on their own territory, with no one to oversee them.

After spending two hours on the Hong family’s floor, Lin Hui followed Hong Ling out. They were headed to the one-thousandth floor to attend an event he often participated in.

According to him, most of the participants were Original Blood of similar standing to himself, with a few high-status individuals from below the tower, like Lin Hui.

Lin Hui went along with the intention of seeing what it was all about. After all, the Hong family’s floor had nothing but handsome men and black buildings, with nothing fun to do.

But when he actually got there, he found that the one-thousandth floor was basically no different from a town on the ground, except that this place was purely a world of teahouses and taverns.

The entire floor was packed with at least a hundred different taverns and teahouses.

This so-called event was, in essence, a gripe session.

A large number of Original Blood from similar backgrounds as Hong Ling and his sister gathered to drink tea, and vent their frustrations.

At first, Lin Hui listened patiently, but he soon discovered that all the stories were similar, practically cookie-cutter.

It was either their lover being killed by their family because the bloodline couldn’t be allowed to spread, or it was about not being free to choose what they wanted to do, being confined to the Inner City District, and unable to leave without permission.

They couldn’t control their own lives. Even hard work offered no visible future or results; everything they did was under the control of the nobles. Yet in the eyes of those below the tower, they were glamorous and powerful Original Blood lords.

This contradictory disparity filled their hearts with immense bitterness.

"Without a doubt, we enjoy some of the resources, treatment, and lifestyle of the Original Blood. But compared to all that, what I want more is the freedom that people below the tower have. The freedom to choose life, to choose death, to choose love, to choose hate! But we have none of that..."

The speaker wasn’t Hong Ling, but the organizer of this gathering, a woman named Hou Xihan.

She had a noble air and a sharp gaze, and she offered spiritual encouragement to every new Original Blood who joined.

Everyone knew it was useless. If the higher-ups decided there was a problem, they would surely be taken home, dragged to the Taixu Origin Disc for brainwashing, and have their entire perception of reality reshaped.

But even this purely symbolic psychological comfort had earned her the support of nearly every Original Blood present.