Introduction to the novel:
In the near-future "Neo-Victorian" city-state, emotions have become the ultimate luxury. Dane is a top "emotional taster" who works for the oligarch "Prism Group" and is responsible for identifying the purity and value of emotions extracted from the brains of specific people by "reapers". He is indifferent and precise, and his taste buds are his only belief, until he tastes a sample numbered "X-7" - a "hope" from Eli, a young programmer who will die within 48 hours. This emotion was pure, surging, and full of unwillingness for life, and its ultimate deliciousness shook Dane's frozen heart. He violated professional standards and traced the source, discovering that Eli's death was not an accident, but a murder planned by the Prism Group to cover up a system loophole that could subvert its rule. This "hope" is exactly the bait that the group's senior management carefully "brewed" by taking advantage of Eli's near-death state to specifically target Dane's taste weakness. To save Eli, Dane is forced to betray an entire industry that treats emotions as commodities and human lives as trivial. He has been reduced from a taster to a prey, and his only weapon is his extraordinary taste that can taste lies, conspiracies and true emotions. Under the siege of power and capital, Dane must race against time to uncover the conspiracy, confront the entire system, and redefine the value of emotion before Eli's life countdown reaches zero.
