Boiling Beast Bloodline
Chapter 1036 - 263: Take a step back, the sea is wide and the sky is high

Chapter 1036: Chapter 263: Take a step back, the sea is wide and the sky is high

The waning moon hung slanted over the tips of the parasol trees, and a touch of dawn’s light began to show in the east.

On the spacious stone-paved boulevard, faint figures of early-rising small traders could be seen peddling their goods.

A new day had again begun.

Liu Shock turned his back to the wind and lit a cigar, swinging his empty sleeve as he took big strides toward a simple stall, where he greeted the owner and received a mule meat sandwich and a bunch of big-grapes.

Mule meat could also be considered a specialty snack of Sabak City. After the great war at Heigar, the Bimon Kingdom’s Elder Council, in an attempt to rapidly increase the population, had planned to lift the ancient policy prohibiting inter-species marriage. However, for the sake of conservatism and caution, the Council selected the Centaurs of the House Clan and the donkey-headed people of the Naidi Tribe, two closely related races, to pilot inter-species marriage within the Royal City. The trial’s outcome was bitter, as the Bimon Kingdom thenceforth had a new ethnic group, the barren Mule Tribe, unable to bear children.

Aside from demonstrating the dire consequences of inter-species marriage, this mishap also provided Sabak with a new source of meat—the offspring of horses and donkeys, mules, not only had a short growth cycle and gained weight quickly, but they also had much lower requirements for feed and environment than horses and donkeys, making them an excellent choice for livestock.

Big-grapes were another specialty of Sabak City. The heavily sandified natural environment of the Imperial City made it more than suitable for grape cultivation. Among all grape varieties, the big grape was the easiest to cultivate, growing wildly with little care and producing shuttle-shaped grapes the size of walnuts. The juice of this type of grape was a rare milky white, reminiscent of cow’s milk, hence its crude name. Although the big grape was juicy, its taste was not very sweet.

Sabak City had very peculiar geology; there was no shortage of water sources, yet most of them were bitter, said to be because Sabak City was built over a subterranean sea of bitterness. The sweet water used in the Bimon Royal Palace was drawn from Autumn Knife Lake in the Imperial Garden. Most of the city’s sweet water wells were occupied by the nobility, so the big grape, with its abundant juice, became the best choice for quenching Bimon commoners’ thirst. That’s why in Sabak City, grapevines over five hundred years old could be seen everywhere.

Crouching on the curb, Liu Shock devoured this commonplace breakfast, the big grape bursting with a mildly sweet juice in his mouth, a taste that suited him. The mule meat, soaked in broth, was rich in taste, and eating it with the stalks of celery mixed into the cornmeal sandwich made it increasingly appetizing. Liu Shock ate with gusto.

He hadn’t paid yet, and the Garfield Clan snack vendor couple occasionally glanced at this fellow clad in a gold ceremonial robe, deliberately chopping with their greasy cleaver, creating a loud "bang, bang" sound.

The vendors kept their vigilance despite Liu Shock’s attire, having never seen the Olympic Festival at the arena, they didn’t recognize the true identity of the Beamon before them. In fact, most commoners in Sabak spent their entire lives without ever setting foot in the arena, their leisure time consumed by the pressures of life.

The esteemed priestly lords would never deign to eat such a plebeian breakfast or squat by the roadside to consume food; such crude behavior was better suited to lowlifes and not priests. More importantly, this was an enfeeblement in Beamon society—a Beamon missing an arm. In the Bimon Kingdom, the most direct punishment for a thief was to sever the arm used to steal. Thus, the vendors were convinced that this disabled Beamon before them was a seasoned scoundrel, clad in a priest’s robe to swindle and deceive.

However, the vendors thought the trickster’s equipment was quite decent as he even wore a Medusa Badge on his chest; they had no idea where he could have bought such a convincing counterfeit...

Liu Shock, feeling the odd glances from the Cat-people couple time and again, turned his head to stare at them, which immediately caused the vendors to bury themselves in their work.

Liu Shock smiled and continued wrestling with his food, while concurrently crafting excuses in his mind. There were just two more streets to his inn, and it wasn’t hard to come up with an excuse for not returning all night. Ning Yu and the others would surely understand, and yet Liu Shock couldn’t help but feel a little guilty.

Now, as Liu Shock tried to recall, he couldn’t even remember when he had left Cui Beixi’s house the previous night. It all seemed like a fleeting dream, with only the damp pillowcase and tightly closed tearful eyes lingering in his memory.

After leaving Cui Beixi’s residence, he had gone to Gomes’s room, behaving as a true father would, sleeping beside his precious son. He remembered being half-sitting against the bed frame, his mind in disarray, not sure when he had dozed off into a deep slumber.

In the early hours of the morning, Liu Shock suddenly awoke with a start.

Liu Shock took a deep breath, slowly straightened up from the leaning bed frame, carefully picked up Golinny, then slowly turned over and placed the sleeping Swan beauty onto the bed.

Leaping gently onto the carpet, he looked at the two sleeping Western children on the bed, and Liu Shock suddenly realized something—the Swan Tribe, in order to protect their feathers, always slept facedown.