Chapter 80 First Entry into Blackrock City Upon entering Blackrock City, one encounters the towering yet imposing...

When the tall but dilapidated gray walls of Blackrock City finally appeared on the horizon, everyone fell silent.

That once prosperous and bustling border town, as described by Aunt Leah, now resembles a withered giant confined to its sickbed. Though its skeleton remains, it has long since lost its former splendor and vitality.

The city walls were riddled with cracks from wind and rain erosion, and a few listless soldiers stood sparsely on the battlements. The bustling atmosphere of merchants and travelers that once filled the city gates was gone, replaced by a few fierce-looking city guards in tattered Red Scorpion Army uniforms, who were brutally interrogating and extorting every civilian and traveler entering the city.

"Entry tax: five copper coins per person, and 10% of the goods per cart!" A burly guard impatiently pounded the ground with a rusty halberd, roaring at the queuing crowd.

Lin Yue and his group concealed their weapons in the hidden compartments of the goods on the cart, disguising themselves as an inconspicuous small caravan. They mingled with the crowd and paid a hefty entry tax before finally being allowed into the legendary city.

The moment they stepped through the city gate, a stench mixed with sewage, rotting matter, and the smell of despair hit them, causing Mia and several young people to gag on the spot.

The scene before them was more shocking than any abandoned village they had seen on the road.

On the wide main road, the bluestone slabs that once paved the road are now broken and dilapidated, revealing the pitted and uneven mud underneath. Sewage flows freely on both sides of the street, garbage is everywhere, and swarms of flies buzz around.

On both sides of the street, most of the shops were closed, their wooden boards covered with a thick layer of dust. Only a few grain stores and grocery stores were still open, but their shelves were empty, and long queues formed outside, filled with ragged, listless commoners.

The streets were filled with homeless beggars and street children, huddled in corners, staring blankly at passersby. Meanwhile, the so-called city guards swaggered around in groups of three or five, arbitrarily beating and verbally abusing anyone they disliked, and even openly robbing civilians of their meager food.

“Oh my God…Oh my God…” Aunt Leah trembled as she looked at the hellish scene before her. The Blackrock City she remembered, though ravaged by the Red Scorpion Army when she fled, was at least…at least not like this, where not a trace of life could be felt. “Back then…back then, even though people were afraid, at least they thought of resisting, of surviving. But now…the people here…their eyes are dead…”

Old Bard gripped his wooden cane tightly, his wrinkled face filled with sorrow and anger.

Lin Yue's heart was heavy. This was the first time he had ever seen a human city in this world, only to find it a desolate wasteland. He silently thought that when he first transmigrated, he had imagined the perilous primeval jungle to be hell on earth, but compared to this lifeless city, the jungle at least possessed a wild vitality. And Hope Town, which they had built with their own hands, seemed more like a paradise resort compared to this place.

For the first time, he truly felt that sometimes, twisted humanity was more terrifying and despairing than cruel nature. The Duke of Kaslan, whom he had never met, had used this almost Spartan-like, cruel, and oppressive management style to turn what should have been a vibrant border town into a giant prison that devoured all hope.

Lin Yue pushed the wheelbarrow slowly along the uneven street, calmly surveying his surroundings, taking in every detail, and quickly analyzing and reconstructing it in his mind.

His gaze first fell on the few shops that were still open for business.

Outside a grain store, a sallow-faced, emaciated woman, her hands trembling, traded her last, patched but still relatively intact linen jacket for two fist-sized, musty-smelling loaves of black bread. The owner took the tattered jacket, weighed it in his hand, pursed his lips, but still put it away. Lin Yue noticed that the grain store clerk was struggling to carry a bag of coarse salt into the store. The bag was marked with an anchor symbol he had never seen before; it was clearly the emblem of some power that monopolized the salt industry.

"Barter...has the monetary system already begun to collapse?" Lin Yue felt a chill run down his spine.

He then looked at a dilapidated blacksmith shop. The shop was deserted, with only an elderly blacksmith listlessly hammering a dulled farm tool. The bellows were worn out, and the furnace fire burned weakly. At the door, a mercenary in leather armor pointed at his broken sword, arguing fiercely with the blacksmith, his face filled with disappointment and anger.

"There's no decent fuel, no good iron, and we can't even repair a sword..." Lin Yue thought of Uncle Stone Fist's bustling blacksmith shop. "Basic industrial production has almost come to a standstill here."

Just then, a carriage, though understated in its decoration, was crafted with exquisite materials, slowly drove past them. A corner of the curtain in the carriage window was blown open by the wind, revealing a pale-faced noble youth inside. He looked listlessly at the dirty street outside the window, and when his gaze inadvertently swept over Mia's simple and clean linen dress dyed with pale yellow plant dye, a faint glimmer of light flashed in his eyes.

Lin Yue keenly caught this fleeting glimmer of light. He glanced at Mia's dress, then at the direction the carriage had gone, lost in thought.

One detail after another gathered, collided, and fermented in his mind.

Poverty and wealth, despair and longing, coexist here in a distorted yet intense way.

The reconnaissance team found a cheap inn in a secluded alley that seemed barely adequate to stay in and settled down. Then, Lin Yue took Gray, Amu, and Mia to the only tavern in town that was still open, which was also said to be the most upscale, to have lunch there and gather some information.

The tavern was dimly lit, filled with the sour smell of cheap ale and a lingering greasy odor. The floor was sticky, and the tables and chairs were covered in scratches and stains. Several mercenaries who looked menacing sat together, loudly cursing something.

Lin Yue and his group found an inconspicuous corner to sit down. A listless-looking waiter slowly strolled over and slammed several hard, dark objects, as hard as stones, onto the table.

"One serving per person, five copper coins," the waiter said listlessly.

This was their so-called lunch: a piece of black bread baked with a mixture of inferior wheat bran and unknown grains, emitting a faint musty smell, and a bowl of murky, watery so-called wild vegetable soup with hardly any oil, only a few mushy, overcooked wild vegetable leaves floating on top.

Amu picked up the piece of black bread and tried to break it open, but he couldn't break it and almost cut his finger. Looking at this lunch, which resembled pig swill, he couldn't help but mutter to Mia beside him, "My God, can this stuff even be eaten? It's not even as good as the potato peels we feed the pigs in the cellar. I've only been away from home for a few days, and I'm already craving Aunt Lian's pickled cabbage and glass noodles..."

Mia frowned, stirring the bland vegetable soup with a wooden spoon. Looking at the few suspiciously colored leaves, she felt a wave of nausea. She whispered, "You're right… We've only been in Hope Town for less than a year, how can we already be so tired of this? Before… before, in the village, we were lucky to even have this to eat…"

The two exchanged a glance, both seeing a hint of wry smiles and a profound sense of gratitude for their current lives in each other's eyes.

Lin Yue didn't speak. He simply picked up the piece of black bread and chewed it slowly. Then, when no one was looking, he took out a specially made spice packet from his pocket. Inside the packet were two small bottles. Without making a sound, Lin Yue pinched out a small pinch of snow salt and a little bit of crushed, fragrant pine needle powder from the bottles and quietly sprinkled them into his and his companions' soup bowls.

The small amount of powder dissolved into the soup, and Lin Yue took a sip without changing his expression. Although it was still not delicious, at least it was edible.

His subtle action was clearly seen by a down-on-his-luck old businessman at the next table, who was silently drinking in silence. Although his clothes were worn, one could still vaguely tell that he had once been respectable.

The old merchant's gaze was first drawn to the small bottles. They were two small, translucent white ceramic bottles, a stark contrast to the rough, chipped earthenware bowls around them. Then he saw the powder Lin Yue was pinching out of the bottles, pure white like snowflakes. As Lin Yue's fingers brushed across the rim of the bowls, a faint, exotic fragrance wafted out, stirring up distant memories of the southern spice islands deep within his mind.

The old merchant's eyes lit up instantly. He knew better than anyone that in a place like Blackrock City, even the bottle containing the spices was a treasure, not to mention the incredibly high-quality spices inside.

Who exactly is this unassuming young man?

Lin Yue felt his gaze but ignored it, calmly putting the spice bag back into her bosom.

After finishing the barely edible lunch, Lin Yue began his next plan. He instructed Amu and Mia to stay at the inn with the others, organize supplies, and avoid venturing out. He himself, along with Gray, the strongest fighter, Aunt Lydia (who had also changed into inconspicuous clothing), and Old Bard, under the pretext of searching for lost relatives, began a thorough search of the most chaotic and impoverished areas of Blackrock City.

They witnessed heartbreaking scenes.

An old man was driven from his home because he couldn't pay taxes and froze to death on the street; a child was beaten to death by the city guards for half a loaf of black bread; and... the real slave market set up in the west square of the city, which made them all shudder.

In each of those wooden cages lay lives that were once as vibrant as theirs. Like livestock, they were priced and waited to be chosen by those apathetic nobles and merchants.

Aunt Leah and Old Bud spotted several familiar faces in the crowd. They were their former neighbors, friends, and even distant relatives. They wanted to go forward and acknowledge them, but Lin Yue held them back firmly.

"Now is not the time. We can save one, but not all of them. We must find a way to wipe them all out... no, to rescue them all at once."

When they returned to the hotel with heavy hearts, an unexpected visitor was already waiting at the door.

It was that down-on-his-luck old merchant who had developed a strong interest in Lin Yue's mysterious seasoning in the tavern.

“Young sir,” the old merchant greeted Lin Yue with a standard but slightly humble merchant’s bow, “please forgive my intrusion. I am Carwin, and I was once… a salt merchant traveling between the north and south. Just now at the tavern, I saw the seasoning you were using… its quality was truly astonishing. I wonder… if I might have the honor of discussing a small business deal with you?”