It seemed beauty standards were all the same in both human and demon worlds. Yes, I knew I was not a pretty girl. You didn’t have to tell me straight in the face.

She smiled at me so friendly, as if those mean words were just a mistake in my ears. Strangely enough there was no sense of grief anywhere on her face, just a little confusion once a while.

“Where is your dad?” I asked with a weak voice.

She shook her head. “His holy pearl got taken, that was unfortunate.”

I felt sad, thinking about all the villagers that died.

“By the way, my name is MeiMei, let’s be friends okay! We both lost our families, there is no one to depend on, at least we can keep each other company. I have no idea where we are going, but it’s likely to be a pretty harsh place.”

She was probably the most socialized demon I had ever met. Maybe I was just too busy with my life, and didn’t know too many demons in the first place to have a wrong perception? That could be a possibility.

I didn’t know how to respond to the “friend’s request,” because I had no friends here. I used to have Grandpa Jin and Grandma Sha, and that was all. They made up my entire world, otherwise I couldn’t imagine what my world would look like. If she told me this before the tragedy, I would feel a little warm inside, but now I was too shattered to feel anything.

“Thanks,” I uttered weakly.

MeiMei smiled back in such a positive way, that there was an illusion we weren’t even in a prison carriage, and that her dad was still alive. I didn’t have the energy to be judgmental on why she acted this way.

Maybe this was the demon's way of showing grief?

Still, the other demons who were in the same carriage had the same expression as me.

“LiNa, hmm……. Can I ask you something?”

I looked slowly toward her direction, and lightly nodded, but then heard a question that almost blew me away.

“I was just wondering if you are still planning to eat that?” MeiMei pointed at the delicious steamed bun in my hands, and smiled like sunshine.

Was that what she was after all this time?

No wonder she didn’t talk to me for days while traveling except right now. Maybe I was overthinking it? With a despairing mood like this, there was no way I could think positively. My stomach was feeling so sick that I couldn’t take a single bite. Why not give the bun to her to not waste food?

Food was so precious in the Land of Ruins.

I slowly handed the steamed bun to MeiMei. She didn’t waste even one second and shove it into her mouth and gobbled it down in no time. Not even chewing, just plain swallowing it all down.

“It’s so delicious! I wish I could eat bread everyday, much better than sweet potatoes!” She yawned with satisfaction, and found a nice position and closed her eyes to take a nap.

I envied her in a way.

I wished I could be that heartless, and forget all the tragedy that had happened, that I could sleep tightly just one night, but I couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I would see the slaughtering again.

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It felt so real.

All the blood stained my vision, and the sharp screams rang and hurt my ears, then I would wake up in a cold sweat immediately. My heart would be pounding like I was going to have a heart attack.

This was not the human world, but the Aniesian Continent full of demons. Never had I had such a clear recognition of reality ever since coming here. The civilized modern world definitely did not prepare me for this, nor did Grandpa Jin and Grandma Shas’ love and protection allowed me to realize this was indeed a cruel world.

MeiMei was snoring lightly.

As I stared ahead of the road, the majestic mountains appeared out of the fog. The bordering mountains were a line separating the two worlds. The only way to get out was to gain a pair of wings.

I still remembered Grandpa Jin’s words.

Only when I came so close to these mountains did I really comprehend why wings were fundamental. There was no way of climbing over the mountains. Most of them were straight up cliffs, even the best climbers in the world wouldn’t make it out alive.

Two guards came over and communicated with the bald leader, and then opened the enormous gate. Horses walked slowly into the gate, and carriages followed one by one. It was so dark inside, as if we were going into a black hole.

Then slowly torches appeared on both sides of the walls.

I wasn’t interested in finding out where we were going, but out of the corner of my eyes, I realized how immeasurable this cave was. Even with all those torches, there was no way to see the end of where the darkness was creeping above our heads.

We traveled for some distance, until there was a halting of horses. A soldier came over to unlock the carriage door, and ordered us to come out.

“Hurry up! There is no time to waste!”

Even though we were confused, nobody dared to ask what this place was. We jumped down from the carriage and lined up as neatly as possible, and lowered our heads.

These Darkomi soldiers didn’t like it when we stared directly at their eyes. Someone just lost his tooth due to having eye contact with one of the soldiers. Now he couldn’t even talk because of all the blood and pain in his mouth.

We all lined up in rows and kept our heads down. The bald leader came over and looked down at us. His voice was coarse and full of exertion, since what he was given was not negotiations, but commands.

“This will be your place from now on! Right here, you are nothing but slaves. It is your honor to serve the Darkomi Kingdom. Keep the following rules at heart because I would only say them once. Rule number one: if you want to survive here, you will need to turn in at least a hundred pounds of coins per day. If there is not enough in quantity, no food for that day. Rule number two: Don’t expect the guards to solve your disputes. Take care of your own business. This is a place where the strongest will survive. If you are so weak, there is no reason for the kingdom to waste food on trash. The last rule: Never think about escaping this mine, only the dead can find the way out of here!”

After hearing this, there was not a single murmur in the crowd because everyone knew there was no turn around. Our lives were saved by these Darkomi soldiers, so we wouldn’t be killed by the hunters. Now we had to “pay” this back by becoming slaves, but we all knew that even if there were no hunters, these soldiers would come for us anyways.

They needed people to work for them. Other than having more advanced magic art skills, they also had armors and weapons.

We had nothing but bare hands.

Who would think that he or she can escape this place? It would be no more than a day and night talk.

After the short speech, the bald leader left with his troops of soldiers.

The guards led the villagers deeper in the cave. Everyone walked head down and expressionless, as if going to hell.

It was true that village life was barren and food shortage, but other than that, at least everyone had freedom. This was the basis of life and it was easy to take it for granted. Now we were about to lose freedom and become slaves did we realized how important it was.

“Hurry! It’s getting noontime! Walk faster!” The commands were forceful.

We sped up a little. The cave was slowly getting brighter as we were closer to another entrance with guards. There were more torches on the ground, which made the space glow in the dark. Not far away, a guard was heating up a piece of iron in the orange flame.

“Line up one by one to receive the slave mark!”

Slave mark?