The Xia family, one of the Thirteen Noble Families, had their ancestral home in Beilai City. Although the sun had been extinguished for four full years and the outside world was in utter chaos, everything in Beilai City remained orderly.
The destruction of the Upper Realm seemed not to have dealt much of a blow to this noble family. Before and after the cataclysm, the Xia family had gathered countless grain and provisions, living a life of abundance. The nearby commoners also received the Xia family's benevolence, sparing them from displacement.
Beilai City's commerce was flourishing; the vegetable market, wine houses, and inns remained bustling, and schools operated normally as usual.
Chen Shi walked barefoot past these places, thinking to himself: Major noble families must maintain some semblance of dignity in front of their own doors, and are not as utterly devoid of shame as other places.
He passed through Yang Street, seeing some cultivators leading ghosts and monsters like sheng sheng around to sell, bound by iron chains. Beside them were male and female slaves, their hands and feet tied with ox-tendon ropes, placed right next to the sheng sheng.
The sheng sheng looked around stealthily, and catching sight of no one paying attention, it stretched out its long tongue, coiled it around a neighboring female slave, and intended to pull her into its mouth to devour her in one go.
The cultivator hurriedly lunged over and slapped a Body Immobilizing Talisman onto its forehead.
Capturing ghosts and monsters was a rather decent business nowadays; the captured ghosts could be sold for a lot of money, especially sheng sheng, because their flesh and blood could nourish the soul. The flesh and blood of such monsters could also serve as a fine medicine for treating illnesses. Nowadays, many people were