Please don't question multi-week players

Chapter 388. Clues Revealed (Happy New Year~)
A single sentence left Jiang Jianxin speechless. Just a few days ago, she had been praised for her aristocratic demeanor after learning the language on her own. She felt a little embarrassed.

So she replied:
"You speak very politely."

Summers returned a friendly smile, and the two continued their stroll down the street.

"Hey! Young Master Summers!"

A clear, slightly coquettish voice called out from ahead.

A richly decorated carriage came speeding towards them, and a slender hand lifted the curtain of the carriage, revealing a delicate and lively face.

The young lady half-concealed her face with a silk fan, gazing at Summers with tender eyes.

Good morning, Miss Sylvia!

Summers stopped and nodded gracefully in acknowledgment.

Upon hearing this, the girl called Sylvia let out a light, gentle laugh from behind her fan.

The carriage sped past the two of them, and she raised her hand and gently tapped the carriage wall with the rib of her fan.

"call--"

In an instant, crimson flames appeared out of thin air, lifting the entire carriage steadily like flowing clouds.

The carriage seemed to lose its weight, and amidst the crisp sounds of horses' hooves and wheels, it glided lightly through the low sky, gracefully flying towards the clear horizon.

Having witnessed the entire process of the carriage flying, Jiang Jianxin was slightly surprised.

Summers explained from the side:
"There's a special kind of transportation here called a flying carriage. As long as you channel power into it, it can take off into the sky. But you usually have to glide for a while before you can fly. Sylvia was just gliding like that. She's an excellent flying carriage driver."

Jiang Jianxin never expected that the street in front of the hospital, besides being full of shops, was also a runway for flying carriages.

After Sylvia's carriage soared into the sky, several more carriages followed, arriving at the street corner and hurtling into the air at astonishing speeds.

However, their posture was clearly far less composed than the former—one of them shook violently as soon as it left the ground, one wheel wobbled several times in the air, and then the whole vehicle suddenly stopped like a bird that had lost its balance, before crashing heavily back to the ground.

The people and their belongings inside the carriage tumbled to the ground, leaving a mess.

Jiang Jianxin and Summers paused on the street for a moment until they were sure no more carriages were about to take off before returning to the street and walking slowly.

Jiang Jianxin came out for a stroll, intending only to walk a few steps in the sunlight and let some fresh air permeate the sluggish feeling in his lungs from the ward.

But after taking only a few steps down the street, that familiar sharp pain ripped up from deep within his sternum like a rusty hook.

She took a deep breath and staggered forward half a step.

Almost instinctively, she reached out and braced herself against the door of the shop next to her, her body already uncontrollably crashing inside.

The bell behind the door rang erratically as she did so. She didn't bother to see the shop clearly, and just slumped into the chair closest to the door, her back slamming against the backrest. Her fingertips gripped the edge of the table tightly, and every breath she took felt hot and painful in her throat.

Summers followed almost simultaneously.

He knew that Jiang Jianxin was having an attack of her illness, so he didn't say anything. He simply sat down on the chair opposite her, which was covered with dark linen, and placed his hands lightly on his knees. His worried gaze fell on her slightly trembling shoulders, and then quickly looked away, as if afraid that his gaze itself would increase her burden.

In the dim light inside the shop, his light gold coat almost blended into the wooden wall behind him, with only his quiet eyes reflecting the thin sliver of skylight slanting in from the crack in the door amidst the dust.

"Tack, tick, tick..."

Footsteps approached slowly on the wooden floor. A tall, thin man wearing a dark cloth apron walked to the table, pulled a thin plastic sheet from under his arm, and neatly unfolded it in front of the two men.

As he bent over, he lifted his eyelids and caught sight of Summers's impeccably tailored coat and the subtle embroidery on the cuffs. He paused for a moment, then bent over even deeper, a smile playing on his lips in an overly familiar arc.
"Please take a look at the menu, we have everything you'd like. Please sit down and rest for a while, I'll go get you some water—" Before she finished speaking, she had already taken two steps back before turning around and walking towards the counter.

Summers' gaze fell upon the open menu, and he froze at that single glance.

The paper gleamed with a sticky sheen in the dim afternoon light.

He paused for a moment, then looked up at Jiang Jianxin. He noticed that the stray hairs on her forehead were damp with a thin layer of sweat, but her breathing had gradually become steady. He then lowered his voice and spoke, each word seeming to have been carefully chosen:

“If you can get up… we’d better leave first. This place…”

He paused, his gaze sweeping once more over the blood-red paper:
"The food here... isn't very good. For our health, let's go back to the hospital cafeteria."

Jiang Jianxin coughed a few more times, and the tearing pain deep in her lungs finally subsided. Only then did she focus her attention on the piece of cardboard in front of her—

The entire menu looked as if it were soaked in congealed blood, a glaring scarlet.

The very first line of the menu reads:

Fresh meat buns

Jiang Jianxin's gaze lingered on the dish names, and a chill suddenly ran down his spine, reaching his heart.

Almost instinctively, she scanned downwards—but all she saw were even stranger names, densely packed onto the page:

[Braised Ribs], [Grilled Leg Meat], [Heart-shaped Sashimi]... Each name is marked with a small number, like an index corresponding to the area divided on the top image.

Heavy, rhythmic thuds came from the kitchen, like a blunt object repeatedly striking some kind of ingredient.

The diners around were used to the sound and were focused on sipping the dark red, thick soup in their bowls.

An overly rich, almost cloying fragrance floated in the air, pressing heavily on one's throat.

Jiang Jianxin's stomach suddenly spasmed.

She abruptly turned to look at Summers, her throat tightening, her voice low, hoarse, and rapid:

"Where exactly is this place? They...the people here, are they...?"

Summers sighed deeply and whispered:

"As I explained to you before, this land is completely covered by faith, and faith... has a great influence on human cognition."

He paused for a moment, then continued in a calm but heavy tone:
“For example, here, people only recognize the God they believe in as the only orthodox one. Believers in other faiths are all called ‘cultists’.”

"Cultists are not considered human beings in this land."

Jiang Jianxin felt a sour taste rise in his throat and his stomach contract violently.

She braced herself against the greasy table with both hands, her fingertips turning white from the effort, just enough to keep her upright.

She turned towards the doorway, her gaze passing over the swaying curtains and landing on the street—

The black and red flag hanging at the entrance of the shop was slowly fluttering in the wind.

Looking down the street, one side, two sides, three sides... the same black and red colors hang heavily at the entrance of every shop in sight, like a continuous, still-drying scab, silently swaying in the sunlight, turning the whole street into a silent, flowing river of blood.

I'm releasing a massive 10,000-word update today (that's today) to make up for the missed updates from the past few days. Also, Happy New Year, my darlings!