When the seventh attempt to refine the "Marrow in Stone" failed, Xigu Village had been completely out of grain for three days.
The stove was ice-cold, and the cracked, broken bowls were completely empty. Atu, his nominally younger brother, curled up on the pile of damp, moldy wheat straw in the corner of the room. His frail, small chest heaved violently beneath his tattered rags, and his turbid eyes stared fixedly at the gray sky beyond the broken wooden door, as if two clusters of toxic fire mixed with sand were burning within them—a most direct and primitive resentment toward all living things, especially this "second brother" of his.
Lin Moyu sat cross-legged on the cold mud floor, his spine pressed against the equally cold and cracked adobe wall. He slowly opened his hands. The joints still retained their slender outlines, but they were covered in a thick layer of dark brown patina formed by the repeated soaking and drying of oily sweat, resembling a thick, cheap layer of amber. The spaces between his fingernails were pitch-black, the deeply embedded grime and flesh seeming to have long since grown together, transforming into an alternative layer of skin that could neither be peeled off nor cleansed. With every breath, he inhaled the heavy stench of firewood ash, moldy grass, body odor, and the sour rot rising from Atu's empty stomach. Deep within his chest, a single cold glimmer transformed from the World-Burning Black Flame was being desperately suppressed by heavy tu…
Chapter 207