Growing Meat
Three days later.
Tang Hulu and Xiao Ji met at the agreed location.
"I told a friend that you are a newly acquainted chivalrous woman from the martial arts world. I've never seen Flesh Field before and I'd like to see it. He said he'd take you to see his family's Flesh Field if you paid him three thousand taels of silver."
"No problem!"
Fang Yu nodded and took out a three-thousand-tael silver note, handing it to Xiao Ji.
The other party put it away and led the way, passing through streets and alleys, until they arrived at a grain area not far from the West Gate.
Fang Yu had a memory of this place. He had been here before when he was strolling around the city. Because there was a river nearby, which facilitated the entry of large quantities of grain, the government built a large number of granaries on both sides of the river, as well as many private granaries.
Soon, Xiao Ji led him to a small gate in the courtyard wall. As he knocked, he reminded Fang Yu, "Don't speak or wander around inside. The experts here are all armored. Even if you are comparable to Master, you can't act recklessly!"
Fang Yu nodded. "Don't worry, I'll just take a look, I won't do anything reckless."
The door opened quickly, and a furtive young man poked his head out, looked around, and then focused his gaze on Fang Yu, his gaze lingering on Fang Yu's unremarkable face.
"This is the Heroine Tang?" His tone was clearly tinged with disappointment.
Fang Yu cupped his hands and smiled, but didn't speak. Xiao Ji, standing beside him, urged, "Hurry up and lead the way!"
The young man opened the door, let the two in, and then closed it before walking alongside Xiao Ji. Fang Yu followed behind, hearing whispers in his ears.
"I'm telling you, isn't your Heroine Tang a bit too ordinary? Your face isn't good, your figure isn't good either. Have you changed your taste?"
Thud! A thick wad of silver notes was slapped onto the young man's chest. "Shut your stinking mouth!"
"I... fine, fine, I'll shut up then!" The young man's voice, which was about to shout curses, immediately stopped when he saw the thick wad of silver notes. He picked up the notes and counted them one by one.
After they finished counting, the three of them arrived at a storeroom. The young man took out a few banknotes from his collection, put away the rest, and then knocked on the small door on the side of the storeroom.
Soon, the door opened, but the person inside didn't come out. They were just talking quietly with the young man. After a while, the young man waved to the two of them.
"You can go in now!"
Xiao Ji said something and walked towards the small door, it seemed this wasn't the first time.
Fang Yu followed and entered through the small door. Standing at the door was an old man, about fifty years old, with most of his hair white, but the Qi and Blood of Sixth-Rank Strongman were extremely surging, clearly driven by his own efforts.
The old man's gaze towards Fang Yu was clearly warning. After closing the door, he led the way and walked forward.
The warehouse in front of me was filled with bags of grain, as well as small piles of grain. The grain was mainly rice, mixed with some sorghum and other grains, but there didn't seem to be much wheat.
Fang Yu took a few steps, and his Divine Thought stirred slightly. His pupils dilated slightly as he sensed something in the room ahead that was truly mind-blowing.
After passing through the grain storage area, the old man pushed open a door, stepped aside, and gestured for the group to go inside.
"Alright, you two can go in now!"
The young man didn't go in; he just said something and moved closer to the old man.
Fang Yu and Xiao Ji crossed the threshold and entered the room.
A stench wafted over, causing Fang Yu to instinctively hold his breath and look at the mountain of flesh in the middle.
That's right, it was a mountain of flesh, or more accurately, a mountain of flesh buried in the grain corps. The entire mountain of flesh was white and shiny, like countless skinned pieces of pork belly piled together.
It had no head, no limbs, and none of the internal organs or other characteristics of life; it was just a pile of flesh.
Moreover, the meat was still alive; the white flesh would twitch occasionally.
"This is the Flesh Field?"
Fang Yu licked his lips, feeling a bit dry. Even though he had cultivated immortality and witnessed many Demon Beast, as well as bizarre and bloody things like using humans to refine pills and weapons, he still felt a bit uneasy.
"That's right, this is Flesh Field. As long as you keep feeding it food, it will continuously grow meat!"
As Xiao Ji spoke, he reached out and picked up a long bamboo knife from the wall, chopped off a piece of meat from the mountain of flesh, and placed it in front of Fang Yu.
Fang Yu subconsciously took two steps back, his gaze falling on the wound. He saw that where flesh had been cut off, it was still flesh, and there was no bleeding; it seemed to be simply...
Just then, the flesh mountain cricket throbbed a few times, and tiny fleshy buds emerged from the wound, growing at a visible speed, intertwining with each other, and then growing together, quickly filling in the piece of flesh that had just been cut off.
At the same time, a section of the grain around the mountain of flesh collapsed, and white tentacles wriggled in the grain pile, their surfaces constantly cracking open to wrap up grains of grain, wriggling and rolling around. In just a short while, a large part of the grain pile was gone, and the piece of flesh that had just been cut off grew back.
"Is this how the Demon Beast meat we eat is 'grown'?"
Fang Yu's voice involuntarily became louder when he said "seed," and at the same time, his stomach began to churn, and he felt an urge to vomit.
"That's right!"
Xiao Ji nodded and said, "This is similar to Flesh Field, except that farming requires fertile soil, while this Flesh Field needs a lot of grain. This fresh black pork is quite good; its Qi and Blood are even richer than when it's made into jerky."
Fang Yu looked at the piece of pork belly in his hand, then at the mountain of meat beside him, and could no longer hold back his retching.
"Huff! Huff! Huff!"
Seeing this, Xiao Ji's face showed a gloating expression. "What's the big deal? It's no different from meat cut off from behind the black boar Demon Beast."
Fang Yu was very glad that he had digested everything in his stomach before coming, otherwise he would have vomited all over the place.
However, thinking about the five pounds of deer meat he had just eaten that morning, he began to gag violently again, as if he were about to vomit up his heart, liver, spleen, stomach, and Fang Yu.
*****
After leaving the Flesh Field, Fang Yu drank half a pot of tea at a roadside tea stall, and only then did he feel a little better.
"Is this how dragon meat is grown?"
Xiao Ji nodded and said, "Yes, but the amount of grain required for dragon meat is several times that of ordinary black pig or Demon Beast meat. Moreover, it must be fine grain and top-grade soybeans. It takes thousands of catties of grain to grow just one catty of dragon meat."
"Is that dragon also a mountain of flesh?" Fang Yu continued to ask.
Xiao Ji thought for a moment and said, "Probably. I've never been to the Jiaolong Meat Field either."
Fang Yu picked up his teacup, took a few sips, and continued, "How were these Flesh Field formed?"
Xiao Ji said, "It's very simple. Just kill a Demon Beast, take out its Demon Core, and then throw it into the grain pile."
"That simple?" Fang Yu asked doubtfully.
Xiao Ji said, "Yes, it's that simple. Hmm, only Master- level Demon Beast have Demon Core; ordinary lesser demons won't do."
"Master- level Demon Beast!"
Fang Yu now roughly understood why the heads of those top Aristocratic Clan were all in the Border Wilderness. The kind of Demon Beast that could give birth to Flesh Field at the Master level probably only existed in the Savage Wilderness.