She was the only one in her household.
Her parents did not live with her. Here, once people reached adulthood, they had to become independent.
She said there was also a clan-based mindset here, but that did not mean they valued family bonds. Clans were more like interest groups—the idea was that having someone in power made things easier. But if you thought clan members had any real affection for one another, you were completely mistaken.
That included one's own parents, siblings, and even children. Other than the relationship of giving birth to and raising them, there was no emotional bond to speak of.
Parents raised their children and then claimed they had fulfilled their responsibility. When they grew old, the Shang Mo Kingdom had a unified elder-care system, so their children did not need to worry about them. More importantly, their lifespans were far too long. Over three or five hundred years, would a person really have only one partner? Or only one child?
The answer was obviously no.
When you had too many relatives, they no longer felt like family. Even if you had too many children, you would stop treating them as important.
So everyone was very self-centered.
Such complicated kinship ties could only lead to weakened family bonds, with relatives scheming against one another. If even relatives were like that, then people without kinship ties would find it even harder to get along.
Thus, only ironclad laws could hold such a world together.
And all rules and laws were ultimately made by people—by a tiny minority. They were the absolute rulers of this world.
They wanted to safeguard their authority and the interests of the groups behind them, so they would never consider everyone else.
Or the other creatures they had silenced.
Once selfish motives existed,