Great Eagle Federation, an eastern industrial city.
Around nine that night, 101 Bening Street lay deep within the dilapidated district like a festering scar.
Fresh rainwater mingled with unknown filthy liquids, pooling into patches of dark brown water across the uneven concrete road.
The air was thick with a pungent stench—a mixture of rotting garbage, cheap alcohol, the reek of urine, and dead rats.
Along both sides of the street, abandoned storefront windows had been nailed shut with boards. In those relatively "sheltered" corners beneath the eaves, the forgotten husks of this city huddled together.
Wrapped in quilts or cardboard that had long lost their original colors and reeked of body odor and mildew were all manner of figures.
Addicts with vacant eyes, hugging their knees as they shivered.
Homeless men who piled all their possessions beside shopping carts, their hair disheveled and faces grimy, along with some idle Black men whose gazes prowled the street corners.
These homeless people were like worn-out parcels carelessly discarded across the cold streets, sharing this corner abandoned by the prosperous world with the occasional rat that darted past.
Thud... thud... thud...
The sound of a cane tapping against the ground rang out at an unhurried pace through the foul air of Bening Street. It carried a peculiar rhythm, piercing the addicts' slurred mutterings at the street corner and the homeless men's heavy snores.
A figure slowly approached along the boundary between the streetlights and the darkness.
The old man wore a crisp dark Zhongshan Suit, his frame straight as a pine, utterly out of place amid the surrounding decay and desolation.
The dim, swaying streetlight spilled over him, outlining a hazy, almost mystical halo.
Lu Xuan stopped and raised his eyes slightly.
On the severely rusted street sign to his left, the words