The luxurious and exaggerated taste made Ji Hao click his tongue, making him speechless.
Walking into Moon Lake Town, Ji Hao saw a fifteen-meter wide street, paved smoothly with white sand and inlaid with faint-blue cobblestones. What made Ji Hao even more speechless was that these cobblestones were of the exact same shape and size, and were embossed with complicated patterns.
On both sides of the street were small buildings with pointed roofs, designed in the typical style of the non-humankind. Courtyard walls of these buildings were orderly built with cyan stone blocks, coiled by thriving flowers and vines. Roses, morning glories, daisies, and other kinds of flowers bloomed stunningly.
The entire Moon Lake town was surrounded by an ocean of flowers. At first sight, one could see faint-blue courtyard walls, cyan roofs and different colored, vivid flowers, that made the town as beautiful as a dream. On the clean street, a few Yu Clan people with especially luxurious outfits and surrounded by their guards and servants, could occasionally be seen strolling. Wherever these Yu Clan people walked past, all human slaves on the street would hurriedly kneel down, put their heads on the ground and dare not to look directly at them.
Ji Hao tightened his straw rain coat, unhurriedly walking across the street. Seeing these extremely deferential, frightened human slaves, Ji Hao had a mixed feeling. ‘If Emperor Shun and the other ministers see these people in here, what would they think? Look at them, they have been seeing all this as…normal and reasonable.’ thought Ji Hao.
The mysterious man remained silent all this while.
Ji Hao sighed slightly, then according to the direction given by the Xiu Clan young man, he walked towards the dock area of Moon Lake Town through this street. After walking for around a quarter of an hour, Ji Hao left the Main Street of the town and moved forward along a crossway for a mile. After that, he saw the Green Swordfish Bar near the dock area, right by the lake.
The bar was built from round and smooth cobblestones, facing the lake, with a lawn on the lakeside. A line of wooden tables and chairs were placed on the lawn. Legs of those tables and chairs were embossed with simple, ancient styled patterns. Tens of beautiful dark-kind girls with long dresses had been walking around between these tables and chairs, serving all kinds of delicate drinks and food to the guests.
Ji Hao chose a seat to sit down, but before he could say anything to those waitresses, a tall and st.u.r.dy Jia Clan man with a single arm had already shambled to beside Ji Hao, leaned his body and sat down heavily. This Jia Clan man had a square face, and judging by his light silver skin, if he was a warrior, he should at least be a general, equal to a human Magus King. However, an eye of his was hollowed, dark and empty, without an eyeball. He also had a large and deep scar on his face, based on the current look of which, his head was nearly chopped into two back then. The left arm of this Jia Clan man was cut off entirely, and his elbow sleeve had been swaying along with his moves.
As a Magus-King-level powerful being, any physical injuries could be healed by consuming spirit blood. However, this st.u.r.dy Jia Clan man had his body covered in scars, and even lost an arm. Clearly, the injuries he suffered had directly harmed the origin of his power.
"A new face, first time here in Moon Lake Town?" The Jia Clan man put his right hand on the table and said while staring at Ji Hao with the three eyes he had left, "This place belongs to Lord Polo. He is a high-ranked senior minister of Flow Moon[1]. He doesn’t want any strange person to mess around in his territory."
Ji Hao took off his straw hat and slightly opened his erect eye, then said in that hoa.r.s.e, cold and completely emotionless voice, "I am a Full Moon cultivator and have come to take rest. I have no evil intent."
The Jia Clan man instantly had his face twisted. In any place and to any non-humankind being, a Full Moon cultivator could be highly frightening. Especially to those who were wealthy and had an advanced development of their territories, Full Moon cultivators were just like bearers of bad luck.
The Jia Clan man immediately lowered his voice and softened his tone, then said politely with a flattering smile, "So you’re a lord from Jialou Family, please forgive me for offending you. I am Kuchi, the owner of Green Swordfish Bar. You can order whatever you want in our Green Swordfish, all would be on the house… Think of it as a small gift from me."
"Kuchi?" Ji Hao looked at the Jia Clan man coldly, "Your scars, interesting."
Kuchi’s face turned even more bitter. He lowered his eyelids, sighed heavily and said, "Chi Ban Mountain war, the time before the last time, I was seriously injured, then cursed by those b.l.o.o.d.y evil barbarians. My body was damaged, and although I survived, I’ve lost my qualification for going back to battlefields."
Grinning bitterly, Kuchi continued, "Lord Polo is right. As Flow Moon people, we are collectors of knowledge and spreaders of wisdom. We can create fighting skills, but we shouldn’t go to battlefields ourselves."
Ji Hao snorted, knocked his finger loudly on the table and said, "I’m not here to hear you complain. Bring me the best wine… And by the way, I want to ask you something."
Kuchi made a hand gesture, but none of those dark-kind waitresses dared to walk over. Instead, two strong and powerful Jia Clan young girls, who were as nimble and muscular as cheetahs, trotted over. One of these two girls had a large metal barrel carried in her hand, with her other hand holding a crystal gla.s.s.
"No useless words… Don’t tell me the name and fame of this wine." said Ji Hao while grabbing the barrel over as he poured a gla.s.s of wine for himself. He raised the human-head-sized gla.s.s high, then poured the whole gla.s.s of wine into his mouth and gulped.
Satisfyingly burping, Ji Hao looked at Kuchi sideways and asked coldly, "What happened to Liang Zhu City? What’s the current situation? How’s the Jialou Family doing? How many casualties?"
Kuchi dared not to sit together with Ji Hao anymore. Instead, he stood beside Ji Hao and answered hurriedly, "Liang Zhu City is destroyed, the Di Family from Blood Moon did this. Of course, this is not as simple as we know. But, our dear Lord Polo forbade us from mentioning a word about the inside story to anyone."
"By now, the twelve great Emperors in power have been collecting materials to rebuild Liang Zhu City."
"But the reconstruction of Liang Zhu City is not so urgent. Instead, before everything, we have to rebuild the portal leading to our hometown. However, things haven’t been going well at all. They’ve tried many times but all failed."
"Dear lord, as for your families…We’re sorry for your loss. According to the public report given by the government, because of the disaster that happened in the city, all three suns and nine moons had suffered a great loss. Among all residents of Liang Zhu City, except for those who were powerful enough to escape, all the others had fallen. Almost no wounded residents were found.
"Almost all the three-million, two-hundred and seventy-five thousand members of Jialou Family who lived in Liang Zhu City…were unfortunately killed."
Ji Hao suddenly opened his erect eyes. A fierce intent of killing quickly spread out on the cold and bland face of his.
"Di Family? Tell me more about them. Even if that has nothing to do with the ‘inside story’, I want to know exactly what they have done!"
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[1] Flow Moon, a branch of Yu Clan, appeared once in Chapter 298, as ‘Yan Moon’, now has been changed to Flow Moon.