Chapter 252 - 175: Yujing City
Fang Yue muttered a few quiet words, then left the teahouse with his family.
~~~~~~~
Time flew, and in the blink of an eye, three months had passed.
By this time, Fang Yue and his party had finally reached the domain of Yujing City.
The Great Wei Dynasty had its Two Capitals and Thirteen Prefectures, and Yujing City was one of them. A line from the memories of his past life came to mind: "In the heavens, the White Jade Capital; twelve towers and five cities."
Having just entered the domain of Yujing City, Fang Yue gazed into the distance.
In the distance, an ancient, weathered city stood between heaven and earth.
Its towering walls and heavy stone gates were an awe-inspiring sight.
The city walls were hundreds of feet high, carved with a variety of intricate, lifelike patterns.
Above the city gate were two majestic lion-and-tiger totems. At the entrance, two rows of guards stood watch.
As far as the eye could see, the entire city was a vision of magnificent, breathtaking splendor!
And so, a magnificent city lay before them.
This was Yujing City, the most prosperous and affluent place in the Great Wei Kingdom!
"Heh heh, young man, this must be your first time in Yujing City, right? I’ll tell you what, this massive city isn’t the true Yujing City. This is just one of the Five Cities of Yujing, the Western Earth City," an old man beside Fang Yue said.
This was the man whom an old man surnamed Chen, back in Denglai City, had asked Fang Yue to deliver a letter to.
The old man’s surname was He. After receiving the letter, Fang Yue had assumed the delivery was complete, but to his surprise, the man insisted on traveling with them to Yujing City.
And so, they had been traveling together ever since.
"Oh? So Yujing City isn’t just one city, but five?" Fang Yue was surprised. He’d never imagined Yujing City was so immense—not just one city, but five.
This one massive city alone was larger than all the Prefecture Cities he had seen on his journey combined.
And now, he was being told there were five such giants, not just one.
How could Fang Yue not be stunned?
"Alright, let’s hurry into the city, or the gates will close soon. If they close the gates on us, we’ll have to spend the night out here," Old Man He urged.
"Right," Fang Yue acknowledged.
The group pressed on, and an hour later, they finally entered Yujing City.
Yujing City was every bit as grand as he’d imagined!
The streets teemed with an endless stream of pedestrians and a long procession of carriages. It was a picture of bustling prosperity.
Worthy of its reputation as the greatest city in the Great Wei Dynasty after the Divine Capital, even the shops lining the streets were grand and incredibly luxurious.
Moreover, among the pedestrians were a surprising number of Whole Force Martial Artists. There were even some at the Bone Forging level, and occasionally, one could even spot a Marrow Transformer Martial Artist!
This left Fang Yue speechless. It seemed the concentration of Martial Artists in this massive city far surpassed any other place in the Great Wei Dynasty.
Although most were only Whole Force Martial Artists, who had just passed the first gate of the Martial Dao, their sheer numbers were astonishing.
"Ouch, my leg!" Just then, a young man came running from a distance. As he reached Fang Yue’s carriage, he staggered and threw himself to the ground.
The man wore a gray robe. His face was pale, his forehead beaded with sweat. With one leg pinned under the carriage wheel, he looked for all the world like he was injured.
"Ouch! You hit me! You ran me over! My leg is broken, it’s killing me!" the young man howled from the ground.
Fang Yue frowned.
He couldn’t believe it. He’d just arrived in the great city, still awestruck by its grandeur, and he’d already run into something like this.
He’d run into a scammer.
The young man feigned his injury, wailing dramatically while secretly observing Fang Yue and his companions. He was clearly an old pro at this.
"Chen San, what do you think you’re doing? Running this scam again? Didn’t you learn your lesson last time the city patrol guards dragged you away?" a middle-aged bystander called out, unable to watch any longer.
Obviously, this wasn’t the first time the young man, Chen San, had done this.
That was why a bystander had so easily called him out.
"Bah! You’re the scammer! My leg is broken, are you blind?" Chen San said, his face a mask of fury.
"Hmph. If your leg is broken, it’s broken. Don’t go blaming outsiders for it. To run a scam in broad daylight, you’re truly shameless."
The words came from a stunningly beautiful girl dressed in red.
She looked to be about seventeen or eighteen, with skin as fair as snow, long, jet-black hair, and a pair of incredibly vibrant eyes.
"You... you..." Chen San pointed at the girl in red, speechless.
"What’s the matter, cat got your tongue? Or maybe you’d like to spend a couple of days in the city patrol guard’s jail cells," the red-clad girl said with a beaming smile, looking incredibly playful and cute.
Chen San opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Though he enjoyed running scams, he didn’t want to tangle with the city patrol guards in his own territory. That would be a disaster for him.
So, at the red-clad girl’s threat, Chen San obediently shut his mouth, not daring to speak again.
He hastily pulled his leg out from under the carriage and fled into the crowd in disgrace, vanishing from sight.
"Young lady, that man was trying to extort us. Why did you let him go instead of having him captured?" At that moment, Fang Yue’s voice rang out.
The girl in red glanced at Fang Yue and frowned. "What’s wrong with you? I helped you, and instead of a thank you, you complain!"
The red-clad girl looked utterly indignant.
Seeing her expression, Fang Yue remained unmoved.
If not for the girl’s intervention, he had been prepared to teach that man a lesson. Since he claimed his leg was broken, Fang Yue would have simply made it so.
"Hmph, I won’t stoop to your level," the red-clad girl muttered, then spurred her horse and rode away.
"My, oh my. You really don’t know how to appreciate a beautiful woman, do you, kid? How could you bring yourself to question such a pretty young lady? A bit too harsh, don’t you think?" Old Man He said.
"I find it hard to believe you couldn’t tell those two were working together," Fang Yue said. Unwilling to explain further, he simply urged the carriage forward.
Their ultimate destination was the central city, Yujing itself, so after spending one night here in the Earth City, they would have to continue their journey in the morning.
As one of Yujing’s satellite cities, the prices in the Earth City were astonishingly high. Fang Yue inquired at several inns; a regular room cost twenty taels a night, while a private courtyard went for one thousand taels a month and wasn’t available for daily rental.
Even Fang Yue found such prices steep.
’Yujing City may be vast, but it’s not easy to live here,’ Fang Yue lamented inwardly.
In the end, he had no choice but to let them fleece him, spending one hundred taels of silver to book five rooms at an inn.
Meanwhile, Chen San walked into a dilapidated temple.
"Boss, why’d you tell me to leave just now? Those people were obviously country bumpkins from some backwater place, they don’t know anything. Wouldn’t it have been a perfect chance to squeeze some money out of them?" Chen San plopped down on a chair as soon as he entered the room and began to complain.
Before him, clad in red, was the very same girl who had stopped him.
After listening to him, the girl let out a cold snort.
"That guy is not someone to be trifled with. If I hadn’t gotten there in time, you would have actually lost a leg today."
"No way," Chen San said, stunned. "They’re just some outsiders. Even if they have a Martial Artist with them, the city patrol guards wouldn’t let them off easy if they dared to make a move in the city, right?"
"I’m telling you, he’s no ordinary man. He’s at least a Qi Sensing Martial Master. If you’re not afraid, by all means, go and test him," the red-clad girl said indifferently.
Chen San jumped. Seeing the girl’s solemn expression, he was horrified.
That young man, who looked even younger than him, was actually a Qi Sensing Martial Master?
A Qi Sensing Martial Master that young? ’How is that possible?’ Wutu City, as one of the Five Cities of Yujing, was a major city in the Great Wei Dynasty.
Most people who could establish a foothold here were extraordinary in some way.
The city was full of Martial Artists, and its martial culture far surpassed that of other prefectures.
Even an ordinary man here knew a few basic fighting moves.
But even so, a Qi Sensing Martial Master was still a dividing line.
On one side were the elites, and on the other, ordinary mortals. There was simply no comparison between the two.