CH 17

Time Moon Hotel’s Bloodline branch is under strict lockdown today, refusing to receive any guests. As noon approaches, the entire hotel stands solemnly, awaiting. At exactly noon, a person with blood-red hair strolls in, and the waitstaff standing on both sides of the hotel entrance simultaneously shout, “Welcome, Lord Lance!”

The hotel manager quickly approaches and respectfully says, “Upon learning that you were coming, we immediately cleared the hotel and hope that you will have a pleasant dining experience at the Time Moon Hotel.”

Lance remains silent and gracefully walks to the restaurant, sitting down at an extremely long table. The manager timely hands him the menu, introducing, “Lord Lance, this is a new dish introduced by our hotel. It uses an unprecedented cooking method and has received strong acclaim in various circles—”

“No need,” Lance casually closes the menu. “Vampires don’t like these peculiar things. Just bring me a glass of blood frost.”

“Yes,” the manager responds.

At one o’clock in the afternoon, the Time Moon Hotel’s Bloodline branch respectfully sees off the Vampire Prince Lance. The entire hotel breathes a sigh of relief. The manager takes out a communication device and reports to the boss, “…Yes, everything went as usual. Prince Lance ordered the blood frost… The new dish is not well-received among the vampires, and they still prefer the blood frost… Yes, I will increase the production of blood frost…”

After leaving the Time Moon Hotel, Lance boards a flying ship to the space rift. Although he is the Vampire Prince and holds a supreme position among the vampires, the world today is not only inhabited by vampires. Particularly, there are stronger races such as Dragonkin and the Divine race.

Vampires are at best a moderately strong race among the three thousand worlds. In this situation, even as the Vampire Prince, he must go to other worlds to fight for the interests of the vampires.

This time, he is going to the Orc World. The blood supply contract signed between the vampires and the Orc World is about to expire, and he is going there to renew it.

After the contract negotiation is concluded, it is already dark in the Orc World. Lance’s assistant asks, “My lord, would you like to have a glass of blood frost at the Time Moon Hotel?”

Lance waves his hand and says, “Let’s go back first.”

The assistant acknowledges, and the prepared flying ship has been waiting nearby.

The small ship travels through the pitch-black space rift while Lance supports his forehead with his right hand, lost in thought. After discussing matters for the whole afternoon, he naturally feels hungry. However, in this three thousand worlds, vampires can only consume blood. Before the Time Moon Hotel appeared, vampires had always directly consumed blood.

Later, the Time Moon Hotel introduced blood frost, a coagulated form of blood that instantly became popular among the vampires. The reason was simple: vampires had been limited to a very monotonous diet, and suddenly this novel food appeared, which was not unpleasant to taste. It was expected that it would become popular, even the prince himself had consumed it many times.

But now, with the passage of time, the novelty of blood frost has worn off. Lance feels tired of it. After all, blood frost is just solidified blood, slightly inferior in taste compared to liquid blood. He no longer has the enthusiasm to consume it.

Lance sighed. The vampire’s diet was indeed too monotonous. He had seen numerous times on the Tontong Network the envy displayed by vampire citizens towards various steamed and cooked foods from other worlds. It was quite a headache. As a prince, he couldn’t ignore the needs of his people, but he was truly powerless in this regard.

A glimmer of light suddenly appeared in the pitch-black space rift. Lance asked, “Where is that?”

The assistant respectfully replied, “My lord, that is the Three Thousand Food House. It is a place in the space rift that provides temporal and spatial power for the poor.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “Oh, providing temporal and spatial power for the poor. So, does the owner there also provide services for vampires?”

The assistant explained in detail, “Yes, the Three Thousand Food House provides tomato juice for vampires.”

“Tomato juice?” Lance furrowed his brow. “Vampires only consume blood. How can tomato juice satisfy vampires?”

“Well,” the assistant hesitated for a moment, tactfully saying, “The Three Thousand Food House is primarily focused on providing temporal and spatial power.”

Implicitly, the purpose of the Three Thousand Food House was never to satisfy anyone.

Lance naturally understood. His expression remained unchanged as he calmly said, “In that case, let’s go and experience the tomato juice at the Three Thousand Food House.”

Bai Xianzhi had no knowledge of what was happening in the space rift. It was around 8 o’clock in the evening, and the Three Thousand Food Shelter had a moderate number of customers, neither too many nor too few. They were still busy.

“Ding-a-ling-a-ling—”

“Welcome, please come in~”

The beckoning cat at the entrance waved its paw mechanically.

Lance furrowed his brow as he looked at the poorly made fake cat. The narrow and crowded environment inside the restaurant made him want to turn around and leave. At this moment, Bai Xianzhi finished preparing the final dish and noticed the new customer. He approached and asked, “What would you like to eat, sir? We have available seating. Please have a seat.”

The assistant took out disinfectant and a handkerchief, wiping the chair and table three times. Only then did Lance reluctantly sit down, his brow still furrowed. Bai Xianzhi had a professional smile on his face as he said, “Here is our menu. What would you like, sir?”

Lance quickly scanned the menu but didn’t find tomato juice. He asked, “Do you have tomato juice?”

Bai Xianzhi hesitated for a moment and said, “I apologize, sir, but we don’t have tomato juice available today. You can take a look at the other dishes.”

Lance frowned, “If there’s no tomato juice, what do you offer for vampires?”

Vampires? Bloodsuckers?

Bai Xianzhi’s expression remained unchanged as he quickly thought of a suggestion, “Actually, we are planning to introduce a new dish tomorrow that is made primarily with pig’s blood. Would you be interested, sir?”

“Pig’s blood?” Lance furrowed his brow. Blood from such low-level creatures never made it onto his menu. Just the thought of it made him feel physically uncomfortable. However, he didn’t come here to satisfy his hunger but to experience the life of lower-class vampires. So, despite his distaste, he nodded.

Bai Xianzhi poured a glass of water for Lance and then went to the kitchen. From a small room, he took out the pig’s blood he had bought the previous day. At the same time, he used the communication device to search for information. After entering the term “vampires,” he indeed discovered that these so-called vampires were similar to the vampires of Country A’s legends, only consuming blood.

After making the decision to introduce a new dish yesterday, he went to the Wutong Vegetable Market, where he saw that Uncle Wang from the pork stall had just slaughtered a pig that morning. There was a large basin of pig’s blood sitting there, untouched. So, he bought the pig’s blood and also bought some bean sprouts, planning to make a spicy hot pot.

The spicy hot pot had been sitting in the small room for almost a day, and now was the perfect time. The customer in the dining area was a blood-consuming vampire, making the spicy hot pot the most suitable dish for him in the Three Thousand Food House.

The spicy hot pot was a famous traditional dish with a rich and spicy flavor. It was extremely popular in the southwestern region of Hua Country. It primarily used duck blood as the main ingredient, but pig’s blood could often be substituted. It also included ingredients such as tripe, gizzards, and eel, providing a delicious and spicy taste that was incredibly appetizing.

However, they were not in the southwestern region of Hua Country, and Bai Xianzhi guessed that the customer in the dining area had likely never tried chili peppers. Therefore, this spicy hot pot couldn’t be too spicy. Moreover, the customer in the dining area was a vampire, and online sources mentioned that vampires never tried anything other than blood. So, in this spicy hot pot, pig’s blood was the absolute main ingredient.

The pig’s blood was cut into pieces, garlic and ginger were minced, small chili peppers, pickled peppers, and dried chili peppers were cut into segments, and Bai Xianzhi took out his homemade spicy hot pot base and chopped it into a bowl.

He turned up the heat, heating the pot, and poured in water, adding a little salt. After blanching the pig’s blood in boiling water for thirty seconds, he took it out. He added oil to the pot and heated it again, then added Sichuan peppercorns and other ingredients, stir-frying them. In the middle of the process, he added the fermented bean paste and continued stir-frying until fragrant. Finally, he added water and brought it to a boil… The choking spiciness filled the Three Thousand Food House. Most of the customers in the dining area were regulars who were accustomed to the spiciness, especially since today was the day when they could order spicy chicken with chili peppers. So, everyone remained calm. One or two people who hadn’t developed a tolerance yet put on air filters and continued to eat the spicy chicken with calm expressions.

Therefore, the entire Three Thousand Food House, except for Lance and his assistant, didn’t smell the spiciness.

The overpowering spiciness instantly caused Lance to create a barrier of aura around himself, isolating the choking smell within a 20-centimeter radius. Despite this, he still sneezed.

His assistant, on the other hand, couldn’t stop sneezing one after another. After all, the Prince had the ability to create an aura barrier, but he didn’t! In the end, Lance couldn’t bear it and waved his hand, creating an aura barrier for his assistant as well. Only then did the sneezing stop, and his assistant recovered.

After this episode, Lance had an even worse impression of the so-called spicy hot pot. Blood-consuming vampires paid attention to both appearance and taste. The blood had to be fresh, without any hint of a fishy smell, and it had to be sweet. The blood most loved by vampires was the blood of the Dragonkin—full of power, vibrant in color, and delicious in taste. However, the Dragonkin didn’t sell their blood. Apart from the lucky blood members who found a partner from the Dragonkin, few vampires had the chance to taste the blood of the Dragonkin.

As a prince, Lance had the privilege of tasting it. Therefore, his standards for the blood he consumed were extremely high. In his eyes, this spicy hot pot made with pig’s blood was a complete insult to blood.

What spicy hot pot? He definitely wouldn’t eat it later!

The bright red spicy hot pot was poured into a large bowl, and garlic paste and a little chili powder were sprinkled on the surface. When the oil was heated to 70% and splashed onto the surface of the spicy hot pot, a strong aroma instantly filled the air.

“Your spicy hot pot is ready. Please enjoy.”

In front of them was a large bowl of bright red substance, with chunks of deep red inside. Was that pig’s blood?

Lance felt a bit nauseous. The ugly color, inferior ingredients, and the choking smell, how could he put it in his mouth?

“Sir?”

Lance closed his eyes. “You go ahead and eat. Let me know your thoughts after eating.”

Assistant: QAQ

He should eat it? But he didn’t want to! This thing just looked unappetizing!

However, it was the prince’s command, and the assistant had no choice but to follow the people around him and pick up the chopsticks. He picked up a piece of pig’s blood and put it in the bowl. The dark pig’s blood emitted a faint heat, and a stimulating yet inexplicably attractive fragrance rushed into his nose. He took a small bite of the pig’s blood, and it instantly melted in his mouth.

It was a completely unfamiliar texture, not tender like blood pudding, but rather with a slight softness. It was clearly the lowest-grade pig’s blood, but upon biting into it, he could hardly sense the usual fishy smell of blood. Instead, an unprecedented fragrance filled his mouth, accompanied by an inexplicable stimulation.

The stimulation caused a slight tingling sensation on his taste buds, not unpleasant but rather strangely alluring, making it impossible to resist taking another piece.

So, the assistant picked up another piece of pig’s blood and put it in his mouth…

1TL: YSIAD “You can support me if you like my translations by leaving a comment below, or by sending me a Ko-fi. Thank you ”