Chapter 187

Lin Hui couldn't resist reaching out to touch the folded maiden canvas; it was soft, feeling just like real human skin.

"Do you like it? Unfortunately, I can't give it to you. This is a special item that can only be maintained by that shopkeeper's Divine Method," Hong Ling laughed. "I'll take you to see other fun things later, but let's eat first."

He clapped his hands, and a pretty boy with white goat horns on his head pushed a metal cart inside.

On the cart sat a massive platter of stir-fried meat slices with green peppers, mixed with red chilies and garlic. The red and green colors were vibrant and aromatic, very appetizing.

Reasonably speaking, such a home-style dish shouldn't appear in such an abnormal place. But the key was that this dish wasn't actually normal—not in its cooking method, nor its ingredients, but in its portion size.

It was served in a silver metal basin the size of a washbasin. A full, heaping basin—enough to feed two pigs.

"This is Stir-Fried Meat Slices. Of course, it's not pork, but Cultured Meat from the Fifth Tower," Hong Ling introduced.

"Cultured Meat? What animal is it from?" Lin Hui asked curiously.

"It has a bit of everything; it's a composite synthetic meat. The Fifth Tower isolated the singular concept of 'meat' and proliferated it in isolation, forming biomass that grows infinitely as long as it's given nutrients. It grows fast, and while its nutrition isn't as comprehensive as natural meat, the texture is better. Plus, there's plenty of it to fill you up, and it places no burden on digestion because there are no messy impurities inside," Hong Lingxiang explained.

After the stir-fried meat was served, the three of them each scooped a large ladleful into their bowls. Lin Hui tasted it carefully; the texture was very tender, slightly crisp, and savory. Indeed, it lacked the specific gamey scent of pork, beef, or mutton.

Immediately following this, other dishes were brought up one after another: Loofah Egg Soup, Tomato Stir-Fried Sweet Potato, Braised Chicken Legs, and Red Oil Dragon Meat.

According to Hong Ling, the final dish was made from diced and stir-fried Mist Dragon meat. It was the most expensive dish on the table, capable of significantly boosting virility and energy, and he had ordered it specifically for Lin Hui.

"Come on, come on! Don't you like eating aphrodisiacs? This one definitely has a kick! I guarantee you'll be satisfied!" Hong Ling laughed as he scooped a ladleful for Lin Hui.

Lin Hui helplessly ate a piece. The taste wasn't bad, similar to beef, and the evolution time of the Blood Seal did indeed tick forward a tiny bit. But only a tiny bit.

It was evident that although this was Dragon Meat, its medicinal potency was extremely thin—likely because it was harvested too frequently, grew too much, and was forced to mature too quickly.

He finished off the Dragon Meat in a few bites. As he ate, he overheard the Hong siblings discussing the recent action taken by the Blood Ancestor of the Trueblood Nobles.

Hong Ling vividly described the grand scene he had witnessed to his sister. Both siblings were Divine Officers, and they yearned for such a realm. Lin Hui, listening from the side, keenly sensed an inexplicable undertone.

During the meal, a colleague of Hong Ling's suddenly knocked and entered to say hello, further confirming his guess about this undertone.

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

"Wang Yue? Did you guys go to Shenying City again? Are you still Shedding Shadow?" Hong Lingxiang stood up and invited the other to sit.

"Yeah, only been back a few days. You know the situation over there; nothing can be done. We just have to guard it," the person said helplessly.

"How long has the turmoil in Shenying City been going on? It still hasn't stabilized? What exactly is the Federation thinking? Why don't they send people to suppress it?" Hong Ling frowned.

"Is it that they don't want to?" The person named Wang Yue shrugged. Her voice was crisp, revealing her to be a woman. "You know the situation between the Federation and Hongyin. They've fought at the border several times already. With casualties that high, who has time to care about a minor matter like Shenying City?"

"Even so, they could have sent a few Blood Ancestors earlier. A Blood Ancestor's Blood Heart would have been a huge help, right? Now that it's this late, it's probably too late for anyone to go..." Hong Ling sighed.

"Tell me about it. In the end, they still rely on us people at the bottom to go up and hold the line..." Wang Yue's tone revealed obvious resentment.

"And this is?" She looked at Lin Hui, asking proactively.

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

She came from a background similar to the Hong siblings—marginal descendants of Trueblood. Her bloodline hadn't completely thinned out yet, so she could still work in the Moon Tower. But when it came to her next generation, they would likely be forced to move out of the Moon Tower and live their days below.

Returning after that would be a slim hope.

"Actually, the predicament we face is all the same, or similar," Wang Yue sighed. "We want to struggle, but resources are choked off, and we can't secure higher positions. We can only rely on aptitude, but aptitude depends entirely on luck."

"Exactly. We don't get any of the enjoyment, but all the tiring and dirty work is assigned to us," Hong Ling nodded in agreement, looking deeply touched.

"You know about the Chen Zhuoyan matter from a while back, right? She fell in love with a person from below the tower. Her family didn't approve, worried about the bloodline leaking out. They were in a stalemate for over a month, and then her family had that person killed. She had a mental breakdown herself and was locked up, repeatedly brainwashed using Divine Methods to modify her mind-spirit. Sigh..."

When it came to gossip, Hong Ling was truly a font of information. He completely ignored his sister pulling at his sleeve, telling him not to talk nonsense.

"Are cases like that rare? Marginal bloodlines like ours can't choose the people we like, nor do we dare to like anyone casually. Otherwise, one slip up, and we harm others. Aside from these basic welfare benefits of the Moon Tower, we're not even as well off as the ordinary members of the Three Sects," Wang Yue sighed.

"Yeah. We have to be on tenterhooks when we go out, too. When foreign enemies come, they love capturing us the most because we're good for researching bloodlines, our strength is weak, and the noble circles give up on us easily," Hong Ling nodded.

"Many people below the tower even hate us, lumping us in with the nobles to despise. But the problem is, we haven't done anything. We didn't get the benefits, but we shoulder all the blame..." Wang Yue repeatedly agreed.

"Are there many people like you?" Lin Hui, having listened for a while, couldn't help but ask.

"Lots. Aside from the two hundred nobles, ninety percent of the rest are like us. Those of us who still have a slight possibility of inheritance aren't qualified to choose our own future partners. The same goes for childbearing," Hong Ling nodded.

The three chatted idly. By their calculations, everyone agreed that Lin Hui—as a personal disciple of a Three Sects Grand Elder, plus his big brother's future potential and background—was much more comfortable than they were.

After the meal, Wang Yue proactively exchanged contact information with Lin Hui. Her eagerness would make anyone watching think he was the Trueblood.

Leaving the Food Layer, they took the Moth Carriage and flew upward, soon entering a separate Moon Tower layer built like a complex of black palaces.

It was empty inside, lacking human presence. Occasionally, one could see handsome, muscular young men, bare-chested, cleaning the area. Compared to the Food Layer, although the architectural style of this entire layer was somewhat gloomy, everything actually seemed normal.

"This whole layer belongs to our family. Aside from Mother, some of her friends live here. Usually, they hold a joy-gathering in the central area every week. Mother brings back fellow elders from the Extreme Desire Heaven, and everyone has fun together. If anyone accidentally gets pregnant with a non-inheritance bloodline, they just throw them into the Deep Domain." Lin Hui could understand Hong Ling's words individually, but combined, they gave him an inexplicable sense of incomprehensibility.

"Can I experience the Extreme Bliss Time here?" Lin Hui thought for a moment and asked in a low voice.

"Of course, that's simple."

The Hong siblings took him through the cold, empty black stone buildings and soon stopped in front of a black stone stele.

"Put your hand on it. You need to register for the first time. After that, you just need to enter the tower, and you'll automatically be able to enter at night," Hong Ling explained.

Lin Hui nodded and placed his hand on the stele.

After a few breaths, he felt nothing, then heard Hong Ling say it was done. He could enter to experience it at night.

Since the Hong family matriarch wasn't around, the two of them had nothing to do, so they took Lin Hui wandering around the Moon Tower.

There were no elevators or lifting devices here; travel relied entirely on Moth Carriages flying in and out. Each layer was a separate enclosed space.

The area of a single layer was equivalent to half the size of Xinyu Town—extremely spacious. There weren't many Trueblood nobles, and each occupied a layer alone. They could build and decorate their own territory however they wished, with no one to manage them.

After staying in the Hong family's layer for two hours, Lin Hui followed Hong Ling to the one-thousandth layer to participate in an activity he often attended. According to him, the participants were mostly Truebloods of a similar background to himself, with a minority being high-status people from below the tower, like Lin Hui.

Lin Hui went along with the idea of widening his horizons; after all, aside from beautiful men and black buildings, there was nothing to do in the Hong family's layer.

But once he actually arrived, he discovered that the one-thousandth layer wasn't much different from the towns on the ground, except this place was purely a domain of teahouses and restaurants. The entire layer was packed with hundreds of densely clustered taverns and tea shops.

And this so-called activity was simply a grievance meeting.

A large number of Truebloods with backgrounds like the Hong siblings gathered to drink wine and tea, venting the bitterness in their hearts.

Lin Hui listened patiently at first, but soon found the stories were all similar, repetitive, and monotonous. Either their lovers were killed by their families because the bloodline couldn't be leaked, or they couldn't freely choose what they wanted to do and were restricted to the Inner City, unable to leave without an application.

They couldn't be the masters of their own lives, nor could they see any future or results from their hard work. Everything they did was under the control of the nobles. Yet in the eyes of the people below the tower, they were the glamorous and powerful Trueblood lords.

Such a contradictory disparity filled their hearts with immense bitterness.

"Undoubtedly, we enjoy some of the resources, treatment, and lifestyle of Truebloods, but compared to these, what I want more is the freedom of those below the tower. The freedom to choose life, to choose death, to choose love, to choose hate! But we have none of these..."

The speaker wasn't Hong Ling, but the organizer of this activity, a woman named Hou Xihan. She had a noble temperament and a sharp gaze, offering spiritual encouragement to every newly joined Trueblood.

Even though everyone knew it was useless—if the higher-ups decided there was a problem, they would inevitably be dragged to the Taisu Primal Disk for brainwashing and cognitive reshaping upon returning home.

But even just this formal psychological comfort won her the support of almost all the Truebloods present.