Translator – Synthsoon

On an uneventful evening, a line of burning clouds swept over the mountain range, and the golden-red setting sun gilded the entire mountain with a dim glow.

Having completed their training ahead of schedule, An Jing’s group was gathering to play marbles.

An Jing, Gu YeQi, Zhang Ying, Cang LingZu, Ye XiuYuan and Zhan Feng were the core group that gathered around An Jing. They were all his junior brothers and sisters or his admirers, so they were very close with each other. Since they all have a good relationship with each other, they would also play together in their spare time.

The marbles came from the rewards An Jing got from his instructors for his daily performance, but he didn’t play with them himself. Instead, he used the marbles to teach his friends how to release force from the palm accurately and dexterously.

After drawing a line on the ground, each player would hold a short stick to aim and hit other players’ marbles using their own.

Hitting one of the marbles scored one point, hitting two scored three points, three consecutive hits scored six points, four counted as a grand slam so it scored twelve points, but if the marble went outside the boundary two points were deducted.

This game looked easy, but in fact, only by hitting two marbles consistently can a player earn enough points to win. They needed to consider the force exerted on the marbles and aim for a chain collision, not to mention that the players were using a stick to release their force, which was more difficult than using their bare hands, this was a test of their stability and path calculations.

Each player could only go once each turn, and the game would end in five turns. The player with the highest points would receive An Jing’s guidance on their techniques, while the player with the lowest points would receive extra training from him.

So far, Gu YeQi had won the most points – she was quite flexible with her control, as she was hitting two marbles at the same time consistently, with occasional bursts where she could even hit three.

Cang LingZu and Ye XiuYuan were close behind. Their skills weren’t bad and weren’t inferior to Gu Yeqi’s, but they could get too greedy, always pushing too hard and hitting the marbles out of bounds.

As for Zhang Ying and Zhan Feng, they were both candidates for frequent extra practice – Zhang Ying was unable to grasp the angle of releasing force, while Zhan Feng was too powerful to control his strength precisely.

“Good!”

This time, Zhang Ying was the one who hit the ball, and this time, he grasped the angle and strength accurately, hitting three balls with one strike and breaking his negative score in one go, and he cheered excitedly.

After that, he turned his head and sniffed around, “Eh, wait, Brother An.”

“Can you guys smell it?”

“A little.” An Jing was currently playing marbles with his thumb, the marbles went straight up and down, perfectly stable. This was his way of practicing flexibility and control of his fingers.

He lifted his head and replied thoughtfully, “But I don’t know what this smell belongs to.”

“Huh?” Gu Ye Qi came first again this time and was receiving An Jing’s instructions, as she was serving a bottle of water and handing it to An Jing, she turned back and said, “It’s coming from a herb, isn’t it?”

“It’s a South Metal Core …… Wait, there’s more!”

Since childhood, Gu YeQi had lived in a manor filled with countless herbs, so he could distinguish the type of herb purely by smell. Closing his eyes, he sniffed around and confidently announced: “There’re also Ice Mango Flower Seeds too, it can condense and calm your spirit!”

“Wrong!”

Zhang Ying said with the same confidence, “It’s meat. And a lot of it!”

“And ……” After a serious sniff, the teenager said with conviction, “More than one kind of animal meat!”

Zhang Ying’s family had been hunters for generations. Before the Frost Scourge,, the hunters of the Northern Territories were synonymous with danger and wealth, and if a hunting party made it out alive after entering the deep mountains, it would definitely return loaded with riches. Not only were they able to harvest the furs and flesh of the beasts, they were also able to pick enough rare plants and precious medicines from the mountains.

Zhang Ying was very familiar with this smell, it was the smell of flowing blood and flesh. After slaughtering so many wild beasts, he would always recognize it.

“It’s meat!” “It’s herbs!”

As they talked, the two started to argue, and on the sidelines, Cang LingZu and Zhan Feng shouted, “Fight, fight!”

And both Ye XiuYuan and An Jing were shaking their heads helplessly.

“Alright.”

Finally, An Jing raised his hand, stopping the two from arguing, “There’s more than just these smells.”

He turned his head sideways and looked towards the pavilion on one side of the Martial Arts Arena.

That was the Medicine Pavilion, where the Vice-Envoy Yao and the others lived and worked.

The Life Suspending Manor was like a boarding school that spanned large swathes of land, it could easily accommodate a thousand people. Although the number of displaced children gathered here was quite large, the area they could move in was limited, such as the Medicine Pavilion, the back hall, the back mountain, the middle courtyard, the Secret Pool and other places which didn’t permit entry.

There were too many secrets in the Manor, but the children just didn’t care about them.

Except for the Medicine Pavilion

Every five days, Vice-Envoy Yao would call the children to go to the Medicine Pavilion to check on their bodies and deliver medicines, so all of them were quite familiar with the Medicine Pavilion.

But today, An Jing also smelled something different from the Medicine Pavilionl …… there was some extremely sweet and greasy, mixed with some strange fishy flavor. It smelled like mustard, brown sugar and strawberry beer was used to cook barbecued pork, with just one smell, it could make anyone’s heart and soul yearn for more of it.

“It’s almost time to eat.”

Hearing the bell and shaking his head slightly, Anjing shook off the marvelous analogy that popped into his head.

He called everyone to gather around and led the way to the cafeteria.

And today was very different indeed.

To the astonishment of all the children, and with the unmistakable meaty aroma, everyone received a large portion of meat.

Two or three pounds? Or was it four or five pounds? There was so much meat, some ribs, some leg bones, and they were all roasted with a rich aroma.

It trembled so much that it felt like it would overflow from the plate.

An Jing frowned slightly, not knowing whether he was surprised or delighted, and stared closely at the meat in front of him.

This was probably some kind of beast meat, because the shape of the bones were very strange, unlike any creature he knew. The rich smell of grease mixed with the flavor of spices and sauces wriggled his stomach violently, all of his flesh and blood were trembling, longing, urging him to eat what was in front of him.

But perhaps it was because An Jing had eaten a lot of meat recently, he was able to suppress the instincts of the flesh.

He swallowed back the saliva secreted by his body and looked around the entire cafeteria.

Not everyone ate the same meat.

Some, like Anjing, ate the meat of certain beasts, while others ate the wings or limbs of birds of prey, while others ate offal, and some others even ate strange insects? Even seafood like fish and crabs were there, to name but a few.

But there was no doubt that everyone loved the food in front of them, no one had the slightest desire to talk, everyone was focused on feasting on the meat in front of them.

Eating meat.

There was nothing else in the children’s eyes but pure hunger and greed, a burgeoning desire that sent shivers down An Jing’s spine and an inexplicable terror within him.

“An Jing.”

At this moment, a pale voice came, An Jing quickly turned his head around, and found that Manor Lord Yao had quietly approached him: “Is it not to your liking?”

The old man, who was as thin and bony as a ghost, leaned down and locked eyes with An Jing, and gently asked, “Why aren’t you eating it?”

As the young man gazed into the deep, dark eyes in front of him, he grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth and laughed, “Manor Lord Yao, I’m afraid I won’t have enough to eat.”

In reality, the meat in front of An Jing’s eyes was far more than what the other teenagers had on their plates, and even of a higher quality.

This might also be the favorable treatment for the “Senior Brother”, as the strongest among all of them at the moment, his treatment wasn’t at all on the same level as the average teenager.

So instead, it made him feel uncomfortable.

“Hoho ……”

Hearing this answer, Manor Lord Yao lifted up his body and laughed meaningfully, “Because you were scared of not eating enough, you looked at other people’s portions before eating?”

“You really are a greedy boy…… but don’t worry.”

The Manor Lord said faintly: “One day, you will truly eat enough.”

“Now eat.”