I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords
Chapter 405 - 405 404. Prohibited Items_1

Chapter 405: 404. Prohibited Items_1 Chapter 405: 404. Prohibited Items_1 The Catania Family wielded considerable power in Black Street, encompassing numerous warehouses, restaurants, casinos, pharmacies, and more. Tryst had come to one of the restaurants.

“Are we in the right place?”

Lu Ban asked.

“Definitely, I can smell it already.”

Shia walked into the restaurant, catching a whiff of the tantalizing scent of food.

This restaurant, situated in an underprivileged area, had no customers at the moment. The employees were eating their staff meal; it was pizza topped only with minced meat and cheese. When compared to the workers who felt lucky to eat animal feed that morning, the disparity was evident.

“Can I have a slice?”

Lu Ban didn’t consider himself an outsider; he leaned forward and inquired.

The employees glanced at the gang enforcer who had brought them in and dared not speak or show their anger.

Lu Ban grabbed a slice for himself and then gave one to Shia, popping it into his mouth.

“Tastes good, it would be better if you’d add some fruits, like pineapple perhaps.”

The employees suddenly stood up upon hearing Lu Ban’s comment, as if his words had angered them.

But upon seeing the gang enforcer, the employees sat back down, swallowed their grievances, and continued eating the food on their plates.

“Delicious!”

Shia polished off a slice of pizza in no time and glanced towards the kitchen.

The gang enforcer led the trio through the kitchen and into the cold storage.

“?”

Tryst hadn’t anticipated finding a corpse actually stored in the cold room.

Thinking about it, the meat used in the pizza Lu Ban and Shia had eaten…

Upon opening the cold storage, a frosty chill swept over them, but Tryst didn’t see any corpse, only the frost-covered hanging carcasses of livestock.

Lu Ban saw the man walk to the very back of the cold storage and use a key to unlock a door.

Behind that door lay the corpses of the gang members.

These bodies displayed clear signs of struggle, unlike Doctor Howes’s peaceful prostrate form; their faces twisted in grotesque expressions as if they had encountered some extreme terror.

A Glass Flower bloomed from the abdomen of one of the men; due to the low temperature, it was also covered in frost, giving it a pristine and transparent look.

Tryst shivered; he approached the body and examined it carefully.

There were traces of paint and coating on the clothes and body of the gang member, indicating that these three cases were indeed the handiwork of the same person.

“Do you smell any perfume?”

He inquired Lu Ban.

“Yes.”

Lu Ban nodded.

“May I take this piece of clothing with me?”

Tryst asked the enforcer, who nodded in response.

He then removed the piece of fabric that was stained with paint and checked the contents of the gang member’s stomach.

“Looks like common bread, meat, and vegetables; the quality was somewhat better than that of the Call Girl.”

The body inspection concluded swiftly, and the gang enforcer then locked the door again.

“I’m a bit curious; do the staff in the restaurant know about the corpse stored here?”

Lu Ban couldn’t help but ask.

“No.”

The enforcer replied.

“Well, at least the meat on the pizza isn’t human.”

Lu Ban gave Shia a thumbs up.

After the investigation, it was already getting late.

The streets of the underprivileged area were much cleaner than Black Street and not nearly as foul-smelling, with the sound of machinery from factories in the distance. However, it was a lot quieter than where Tryst lived.

At least the people on the streets looked somewhat decent by comparison, highlighting the disparity even more.

Dinner was noodles paired with chicken legs. Cui Siter barely touched his food, only nibbling on a piece of bread, while Lu Ban had a large bowl, and Shia ate three bowls.

“Burp—”

After eating, she let out a satisfied burp, showing none of the grace expected of a lady.

“Why don’t we investigate at night?”

Lu Ban couldn’t help but ask.

“Black Street at night isn’t a safe place, and I don’t want to attract unnecessary trouble.”

Cui Siter was still studying the paint, its color a light blue that under the light scattered shades of dark green and deep red—quite special and not like any common coating.

“There must be very few factories producing this kind of paint. It should be a breakthrough. Additionally, I’ve obtained information about the Gang. He has no connections with Doctor Howes or Flora, and he didn’t visit Doctor Howes’ clinic or the Red Dance Hall the last time he collected rent on Black Street.”

“And the origin of the perfume?”

Lu Ban asked further.

“I can’t really make out the smell of the perfume, so I cannot confirm, but tomorrow I can find a perfume shop so that you can compare and sniff around.”

Cui Siter said.

After dinner, the three set off on their way back to Trieste Detective Agency.

Orange Cat was still sleeping; it probably spent eighty percent of its day in slumber.

“By the way, you two should also attend the banquet tomorrow night, as I might need your help,”

Cui Siter added.

“Oh.”

Lu Ban responded and then turned to look at Shia.

“There will be a feast.”

“Yay!”

Shia expressed her excitement.

At midnight, the sound of a bell tolled from afar, lulling Cui Siter into drowsiness. He gazed at the pendant from Flora, trying to discern the type of flower it represented.

Soon, as his consciousness blurred, he saw the flower bloom before him, much like the Glass Flowers that blossomed atop corpses. He also felt something stirring within him, ready to burst forth, and as he struggled, he suddenly felt an ice-cold gaze fixed upon him.

Then, Cui Siter felt someone shaking him.

“Wake up, quick, look at this.”

Opening his eyes, he saw the girl squatting in front of him, no longer in the fetid alley but rather in an old, neat room.

The girl seemed to have grown a bit, and more importantly, she was no longer dirty and disheveled. It appeared she had been cleaned up; her face was washed, and although her clothes were worn, at least they were clothes. Their lives had improved a lot.

The girl took out something wrapped in paper from her bosom—a sandwich with white bread, vegetables, sauce, and meat.

“I went to a client’s house today, and he gave me some leftover food to bring back. Look, this is meat! We are so lucky.”

She unfolded the food and offered it to Cui Siter.

From her words and current state, Cui Siter could already guess what she had been doing to earn money.

“Eat up, I’ve already had my share. I ate a lot at his place, there was delicious food on the table, and I could eat while working. He seemed to like it that way,”

the girl said, pushing the food towards Cui Siter.

“Oh, and I’ve also got medicine. I bought some cheap medicine that should cure your illness. As long as you get better, our lives will definitely improve,”

she said, placing a small bottle of medicine on the table.

The girl drew back the curtains; the weather outside was overcast, with no sunshine to be seen.

But her smile was brighter than the sun.

Her eyes were filled with hope, brimming with dreams for the future.

At that moment, Cui Siter suddenly noticed something around the girl’s neck, nestled between her slender collarbones—a pendant.

The pendant was a wooden carving of a small, nameless flower.

Just like the one he was holding in his hand.

*

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