This is a bizarre rule, isn't it? It's supposed to grant me many children and good fortune

The piano lid had already been opened.

Vivian sat down on the piano bench, turned slightly to the side, gathered her skirt to the side, revealing her slender ankles and a pair of dark brown leather shoes.

The candlesticks were next to the piano, three white candles burning quietly, the warm light of the flames outlining the contours of her profile.

Vivian's fingers rested on the piano keys, her fingertips falling.

The first note blossomed in the silence, slow and serene, like moonlight pouring down from the clouds.

Then a series of triplets spread outwards like ripples on the surface of water.

It is the first movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata".

The sound of the piano was gentle, yet under the vast dome, it was amplified into a bottomless mystery.

The sky gradually darkened at this moment.

A dark red moon rose above the window, its outline perfectly round and its color thick and rich, like a large drop of congealed blood suspended in mid-air, faintly radiating a sense of oppressive unease.

Blood Moon!

The red light streamed in, casting a sickly blush on the faces of everyone at the long table.

Leng Meng's voice rang out at the right moment: "Everyone, please do not stare at the blood moon for more than ten seconds, otherwise your mind may become confused."

Everyone hurriedly lowered their heads, some rubbing their eyes, others shifting their chairs to face away from the high window as much as possible.

Lin Feng also lowered his gaze and looked back at the plate in front of him.

However, Luca, who was sitting opposite him, suddenly stopped chewing.

Luca is from the boot country. He has a head of dark brown curly hair that is loosely gathered behind his ears. He is wearing a beige linen shirt with the cuffs rolled up to his forearms, revealing his muscular forearms.

He stared intently at the food on the plate in front of him, his lips slightly parted, his face gradually turning pale.

Then, the silver fork slipped from his fingers and slammed heavily against the edge of the porcelain plate with a "clang".

At that moment, the hall was filled with the crisp sound of cutlery clattering against porcelain plates.

Lin Feng knew what had happened.

His vision also changed.

The beautiful steak on the plate was visibly changing color, deforming, and collapsing—

The juices turned into a viscous, dark green liquid, and the meat fibers twisted into long, thin sections with grayish-brown rings. Tiny snakes emerged from the meat chunks, intertwining densely together, their tongues hissing softly and in rapid succession.

He blinked.

The "spiritual fortress" has taken effect.

The illusion was repelled by an invisible barrier the instant it touched the edge of his consciousness, like water meeting oil.

The scene before his eyes flickered violently; the snake shadow on the steak faded, and the juices returned to their normal brown color.

The steak is still the same steak, and the asparagus is still the same few stalks of asparagus.

The whole process took less than two seconds.

He quickly turned his head, lowered his voice, and said in a volume that only the two people next to him could hear:

"Don't stop, it's an illusion!"

Evelyn's hand froze in mid-air, her pupils dilating slightly as she stared at the swirling mass of creamy white sauce pasta on her plate.

In her vision, it had turned into a clump of wriggling white maggots, stickily gathering and then dispersing, with dark red blood seeping from the sauce.

Upon hearing Lin Feng's voice, she bit her lower lip sharply.

Then she closed her eyes, opened them again, plunged the fork deep into the "pil of maggots," took a big bite, and stuffed it into her mouth.

She didn't chew.

She swallowed it whole, her throat churning, and a brief bluish tinge appeared on her face.

Wasim's reaction was more decisive than Evelyn's.

He barely hesitated; the moment Lin Feng spoke, he had already taken a large bite of the fish.

In his eyes, the fried fish had transformed into a toad that was still twitching slightly, its skin covered with dark green warts, and its two bulging eyes staring upwards at him.

He heard a faint "plop" sound as he bit down, the toad's skin cracking between his teeth.

But he didn't stop. He puffed out his cheeks, chewed twice, and swallowed it down in one gulp.

"Everyone!" Park Tae-rang's voice came from the other side of the long table, his tone rising an octave.

"Did you all see that? These...they're all rats! A whole bunch of rats!"

The plate in front of him was too bright to look at.

In his view, what had originally appeared to be a stewed beef dish had transformed into a pot of slimy, multicolored rats—

Large and small gray mice were piled together, their tails intertwined, still struggling to crawl.

Several had already climbed to the edge of the plate, and when he touched them with his fingers, he could even feel their soft fur and warmth.

He shrank back into the chair, his face deathly pale, his lips trembling.

"No, no, no, I won't eat this... I won't eat it..."

His neighbor, Kana Kazuko, was in a worse situation than him.

She was completely motionless, as if nailed to the chair.

To others, what was on her plate was a delicate teriyaki chicken rice bowl, but to her, it was a bluish-black toad covered in bumps, lying belly up on the rice, its limbs slowly and twitching.

Her lips trembled violently, and her eyes were filled with tears.

Mark Bennett sat in the middle of the long table, his arms propped on the surface, head down, staring intently at his plate.

In his view, the meal that was originally roasted pork ribs had turned into a dark reddish-brown centipede.

It curled up in the dish, its body coiled up segment by segment, its edges covered with countless pairs of tiny legs, slowly and alternately wriggling.

The centipede's head was slightly raised from the other end of the plate, its two antennae swayed gently in the air, and its pair of huge venomous jaws were opening and closing.

Mark clenched his fist on the table, the veins on the back of his hand bulging out like earthworms.

Then he raised his head, his gaze sweeping across the long table and landing on Lin Feng.

He saw Lin Feng eating—calmly, quickly, one bite after another.

Evelyn and Vassim were also eating; all three of them were swallowing those "things" whole.

Mark's Adam's apple bobbed up and down.

His mind raced: Lin Feng, that guy, cleared six S-rank levels in a row, following him is definitely the right thing to do.

Moreover, the butler had emphasized beforehand that the meal must be finished within ten minutes, and also clearly reminded us that any unpleasant visual sensations that might occur during the meal were "normal phenomena".

In other words, seeing food turn into centipedes is most likely a hallucination, and is probably related to Vivian's piano playing and the eerie blood moon outside the window.

Damn it, I'm not afraid of dying in a fire, why would I be afraid of eating this stuff?

He lowered his head again, tossed the fork aside, reached out and grabbed the tail of the "centipede" on the plate, lifting it up whole.

He opened his mouth wide, closed his eyes, and shoved it in forcefully.

As the jaw muscles bulged and the teeth ground together, juices exploded in the mouth, a strange sour and bitter taste permeating the salty and fishy flavor.

Shit.

Not only the visual senses, but the taste senses are also distorted!