The "dragon meat" in question, of course, didn't come from those dragon species that the Starrealm Knights could raise and ride through the stars, such as titanium dragons, rainbow dragons, and red-armored dragons. And it certainly wasn't aether dragons or void dragons, which appeared only in legends and might not even exist.
Put simply, they were ordinary animals that looked a little like dragons. But their appearance carried a certain sacred majesty, so if you ignored their fighting prowess and dropped one in front of people from a primitive society, it might well have earned the title of divine beast.
Of course, thanks to the Empire's advanced livestock industry and generations of careful breeding, these "dragons" had tender, succulent meat. They contained at least six times as much protein as beef, and more than ninety percent of known carbon-based intelligent species could digest them. Naturally, that made them the ultimate dream ingredient.
As top-tier ingredients, they required painstaking care in storage and transport, too. In theory, even the wealthy and powerful could only occasionally enjoy dragon meat dishes in prosperous Imperial star systems with "vegetable dragon" ranches.
But when an entire, highly efficient department revolved around one individual's daily needs, no difficulty was insurmountable. Perhaps that was one reason humanity had always felt the urge to oppress its own kind.
Gazing at the pan-fried meat wings on his plate, their tempting aroma wafting up, Yu Lian couldn't help thinking that.
"So you've got dragon meat even on the front lines, while I'm stuck eating boxed lunches on set?" On the other end of the call, Feifei's expression had shifted in just a few seconds from astonishment to frustration, then to anguish, before finally settling into an indescribable sorrow. She looked as though she were mourning someone's betrayal of the working