Chapter 212 – Spirits Blossoming (I)

Chapter 212

Spirits Blossoming (I)

Within the blink of an eye, two people appeared and immediately pressed their knees into the man’s back.

“You dare try and scam your way back in? Hah! You get what you deserve!”

“Whoever stopped him, please come forward; we would like to reward you.”

“…”

Nobody did, however, come forward.

Light didn’t care to do it, as she probably stopped him for fun, and the only two people besides her who were aware of it were me–and I certainly wasn’t saying shit–and Long Tao. And he… well, he looked bemused, at least.

“Uhm…”

With awkwardness (and a bit of resentment, it looked like), they picked up the runner and quickly climbed back up the bridge with him in tow.

“Haah,” Cao Xun sighed. “Good thing nobody stepped forward.”

“How come?” I asked, startled.

“Ah–just… the nature of the city. My advice to you is to avoid city guards as much as you can. They’re not bad people, I wouldn’t say, but they are… greedy.”

Yeah, no, I can get used to greedy. No, I like greedy.

Because greedy means corrupt.

And corruption means I can get away with all kinds of shit so long as I pay to make it go away.

I didn’t let my rather dark thoughts out and merely smiled.

He still didn’t really answer my question as to why it would have been a bad thing for someone to come forward, though I can venture a guess or two on my own.

It was our turn soon enough, with Cao Xun and others taking to the front and introducing us as guests of their Sect. I stealthily noticed a small little satchel being passed between fingers, and, before long, we were given Guest Tokens and told to enjoy our stay (and to stay out of trouble).

Passing through the archway was a sobering experience, honestly, as the magic from the outside kind of… waned.

Despite the exterior brilliance, inside it just looked like a relatively normal town. With the exclusion of the few massive and grand buildings, most were of the same quality we saw back in Wan Lan’s hometown.

Aged and weathered stone, with boarded-up windows, and streets that honestly smelled rather bad.

The crowds were quite intense, too, as the wide bridge was suddenly sucked into a set of narrow pathways cutting through the looming buildings.

As I said, since the real estate was finite, it was everywhere. Paths cut through the buildings, each barely one person wide, as they wound around the staggeringly claustrophobic corridors. There was no sun here, with the source of light being the reflected beams cascading down.

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“This way,” our ever-faithful guides navigated us through the labyrinth of smaller streets, and I am eternally grateful.

I mean, we wouldn’t have gotten ‘lost’, per se, but it’s sort of like coming to a new city and being told to find your Airbnb on your own when it’s nestled somewhere–

—Anyway, the point is that we weren’t staggering along and begging people to tell us directions.

We were headed someplace.

That someplace being their sect.

Luckily, the narrow streets didn’t last forever, and we quickly emerged onto the central one that was far wider. It cut directly through the entirety of the city, connecting two sides of it as the city itself sprawled out on either side.

With the light beaming down and the old and cracked buildings hidden behind the new and shiny ones, the silver sight of the city returned once more. The main street was honestly quite packed, with a good thousands of people coming and going through many of the alleys and paths jutting out from it like veins.