Chapter 162: Chapter 152: The Truth, Part 2

’Thirty bars... I came all this way and spent fifteen million without even finding the truth...’

"Young man."

As Lin Hui stood at the tunnel entrance, about to leave the gourmet district, a voice as faint as a mosquito’s buzz suddenly entered his ears.

"Over here, young man." The voice seemed to come from down to his right.

Lin Hui followed the sound with his gaze.

He saw a sparrow person, only as tall as his calf, wearing a hat and looking up at him.

The sparrow person was plump and round, with grayish-brown feathers. Its two eyes were shiny black like peas, its beak and talons a dark yellow. It also carried a cloth satchel slung across its body.

"My apologies, young man. I didn’t recognize you at first. Dragon Maiden said you were coming, and I was looking everywhere, but I couldn’t find you. Turns out... you’re a whole size bigger than in your portrait..." The sparrow person wiped its greasy beak with an apologetic look.

"...I wasn’t like this half a day ago..." Lin Hui said, speechless.

"Is that so? Well, all right... Looks like you couldn’t resist and ate too much, either." The sparrow person extended a wing-like hand. "Let’s get acquainted. My name is Tian Long."

"...Lin Hui." Lin Hui reached out and lightly touched the other’s hand.

"Should we find a place to talk?" Tian Long asked in a low voice.

"Alright..." Lin Hui nodded.

The sparrow person took the lead. The two of them left the gourmet district, returned to the wine district, and found a bench on the street outside a more remote tavern to sit down.

"Sigh, this place isn’t really suitable for us of the Non-human Race. But I just can’t damn well help myself. Sigh, this stupid mouth of mine..." The sparrow person, Tian Long, sighed and slapped his own beak hard.

"You were looking for me? And what about the truth you mentioned? Where is it?" Lin Hui asked via voice transmission, sitting next to him on the bench.

"The truth? Oh, you mean that. Since you’ve wandered through the Deep Domain, you must be wondering why the Original Blood would build such a place of pleasure, right?" Tian Long said.

"Yes," Lin Hui nodded.

"That’s something you can only understand by following me. Come on." Tian Long hopped off the bench, flapped his wings, and took flight, heading out of the Deep Domain.

Lin Hui followed close behind.

The two of them followed the road that wound around the inner wall, the same way they’d first come in, and retraced their steps out of the Deep Domain and past the silvery surface of the water.

Tian Long didn’t stop. Instead, he led Lin Hui on a short loop around the Moon Tower, quickly finding an inconspicuous crack in its base and slipping inside.

Lin Hui glanced at the Undead Race guards patrolling the stone bridge in the distance and hesitated for a moment.

"Hurry up and get in. I’ve covered you with a layer of camouflaging incense. They can’t see you for now," Tian Long’s voice drifted out from the crack.

Lin Hui circulated his Inner Strength, sized up the crack, and then leaped in after him.

The crack was over two meters high and one meter wide. Just as he entered, it rapidly shrank, narrowing until it had all but disappeared.

It was pitch-black inside the crevice. The only light came from the faint white glow of Tian Long’s satchel up ahead.

"Follow me. I worked here for thirteen years, so I know this place well," Tian Long sent via voice transmission.

"What is this place?" Lin Hui asked warily.

"Don’t you want to see the truth? This is the path that leads to it," Tian Long said with a laugh.

Lin Hui fell silent and followed. He was confident that even if there was a problem, he could escape with his incredible speed.

The two walked one after another through the darkness for several minutes before a series of wet, tearing sounds gradually reached them from up ahead.

It was the sharp, slicing sound of a blade cutting through a large slab of pork.

Lin Hui’s steps faltered.

"What’s up ahead?" he asked.

"Part of the truth. You’ll know when you see it." Tian Long spread his hands. "To be honest, I don’t understand why Dragon Maiden thinks so highly of you. But since she asked me, I might as well show you around. Many of the stubborn ones become even more resolute in their opposition after they see the truth. Consider this an ideological re-education class."

Lin Hui watched him continue walking, completely unconcerned that he might run away.

After a moment’s thought, he followed.

The crack ahead slowly began to narrow, and the sound of slicing flesh grew louder.

Gradually,

a ghastly white halo of light appeared up ahead.

At first, the light was only the size of a bean, but it quickly grew to the size of a fist, and then as large as a washbasin.

Finally, it became an oval opening the size of a bathtub.

The white light was shining in from outside the opening.

"Come on, get over here next to me and take a look. See the truth of the Moon Tower, the core of everything." Tian Long stuck his fat bottom in the air, lay prone at the opening, and patted the ground beside him with a wing, gesturing for Lin Hui to lie down as he was.

Not understanding, Lin Hui bent over, got down on the ground, and shuffled over. He stuck his head through the opening and looked out.

Outside was a vast, dark cavern.

In the very center of the cavern stood a gigantic, dark-red wheel, like a monstrous Ferris wheel.

The wheel was made entirely of countless pieces of flesh and blood. Half of it was buried underground, while the other half stood askew in the open.

Its surface was covered in endless dark-red flesh, which constantly pulsed and squirmed like a heart.

Looking closer, he saw that the flesh was also covered in a dense layer of countless tiny black mouths. The sight was bizarre and grotesque.

Below the massive wheel, hordes of Undead Race guards, long blades in hand, were carving chunks of flesh from it.

These guards, each at least 1.8 meters tall, looked like tiny white ants next to an aircraft carrier, utterly minuscule and insignificant beneath the colossal wheel.

But they moved quickly, leaping high into the air with all sorts of blades. Soon, they had carved off huge, hill-sized chunks of flesh and placed them onto large, waiting carts.

"This is... Wanfu Meat!?" Lin Hui was suddenly reminded of the scene he had witnessed outside the South Nine Gates.

"That’s right. This is where Wanfu Meat is produced. Now look up," Tian Long prompted.

Lin Hui quickly raised his head and looked above the giant wheel.

Above was the cavern’s circular ceiling.

Countless gossamer threads of eerie blue light were currently descending from the ceiling, as if transmitting something to the giant wheel below.

These filaments were like the countless aerial roots of a banyan tree, or like innumerable strands of glowing hair. They didn’t connect directly to the wheel of flesh; instead, they faded and disappeared some distance away from it, seemingly merging into the space itself.

"What is that?" Lin Hui asked softly, his voice unconsciously hushed for fear of disturbing the Undead Race and the great wheel.

"That’s the recycled Spirit of Life," Tian Long explained with a yawn. "Did you think Wanfu Meat was just given away for free for people to eat? Dream on. This meat can cure all sorts of illnesses and fill your stomach. It has so many benefits, so why would the Inner City go to all the trouble of transporting it so far to feed people everywhere? Why wouldn’t they keep such a good thing for themselves instead of actively giving it away? Naturally, there’s a reason they have to."

"What reason?" Lin Hui already had a few ideas and suspicions.

"Wanfu Meat is actually a part of the Wheel of Longevity. Or, to be more precise, a part of Tuyue, the master of the Wheel of Longevity," Tian Long said in a low voice.

"What do you mean? This giant wheel is the Evil Soldier, the Wheel of Longevity?!" Lin Hui was stunned, pointing at the wheel of flesh that was at least a hundred meters tall.

"That’s right. This is the Wheel of Longevity," Tian Long nodded.

"But... shouldn’t the Wheel of Longevity be a weapon? Shouldn’t it be made of metal or some other hard..." Lin Hui trailed off, stopping mid-sentence.

"Looks like you’ve figured it out. Who ever said the Evil Soldier, the Wheel of Longevity, had to be a weapon you could hold in your hands, right?" Tian Long chuckled. "The master of the Wheel of Longevity, Tuyue, after many years of research, created a certain Dharma Gate to resist the corruption of the fog. It involves separating his own flesh and blood, letting it merge into the bodies of countless living beings, and then using special means to disperse the immense corruption among all who have eaten the Wanfu Meat, thereby maintaining his own state."

"Tuyue... the master of Tuyue City?" Lin Hui asked.

"Correct. After creating this Dharma Gate, Tuyue quickly established Tuyue City. As it continued to develop and grow, it eventually became one of the many cities in the Taixu Federation. That is the true origin of Tuyue City," Tian Long nodded.

"The corruption of the fog... what is that?" Lin Hui asked again, his gaze fixed on the enormous wheel of flesh.

"All things must eventually decay. But for the Fog People, the intensity of that decay is far, far greater than for ordinary people. That is the nature of this world. No matter who you are, you will eventually be corrupted and transform into something like those fog monsters. It’s just that the Fog People were unwilling to accept this fate, so they transferred their burden to everyone else through the Wanfu Meat," Tian Long explained.

"If you eat Wanfu Meat, you automatically become one of those who help shoulder the burden of corruption. If you don’t eat it, you’ll face all sorts of pressure, danger, and turmoil. You might mysteriously disappear, become an experiment for some great clan, or be captured by the Original Blood, brought back to the Moon Tower, and used as food to have your lifespan drained until you waste away and die. Even if you avoid all that, plenty of psychos and madmen in the Inner City look to people like you as their primary targets when they need to blow off steam. It’s only a matter of time before something happens to you." Tian Long sighed. "In fact, you’re already being watched. We’ve noticed you, and someone else has, too..."

"Who?" Lin Hui’s heart went cold as he asked quickly.

"We don’t know. But on the many occasions we’ve observed you, we always found another pair of eyes watching you as well," Tian Long said in a low voice. "But don’t worry. As long as you join us, we have plenty of experience dealing with this sort of thing."

Gazing at the massive wheel of flesh in the cavern, Lin Hui’s mind was in turmoil.

He wasn’t sure if everything the Good Heart Sect said was true, but what he was seeing with his own eyes didn’t look fake.

’And they’re definitely cherry-picking their words to tell me only what benefits them.’

Seeing his hesitation, Tian Long spoke again. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Let’s go. We should move. My ability won’t last much longer, and it’ll be trouble if we’re discovered."

"Alright."

The two followed their original path and soon returned to the entrance of the crack.

Sitting at the mouth of the crack, Tian Long looked at Lin Hui’s solemn expression.

"Think about it carefully. Our Good Heart Sect was originally founded by people just like you, people who had their eyes opened. There are no mandatory rules; we’ve only grown and developed because we share a common goal and a common ambition."

"What if I join one of The Three Greats? Become a part of the Inner City?" Lin Hui suddenly asked. "Then I wouldn’t be in danger anymore, right?"

"You think The Three Greats are completely safe? Have you ever seen an Original Blood?" Tian Long let out a laugh.

"I’ve seen one."

"Then that means you haven’t seen nearly enough." Tian Long stood up, dusted off his bottom, and ruffled his feathers. "Come with me. I’ll show you what a real Original Blood looks like."

He stepped forward and flew out of the crack.