Gold, the symbol of wealth—and for many people, even the symbol of life's meaning—was a rare treasure on most planets in the universe. This glittering precious metal could make ordinary people scramble after it, even drive them mad. But to the Tanan people of old, it was merely a common material used to build houses and decorate objects, not even considered a high-grade material.
If a world was covered in gold, would gold still have any value?
If a person had already faced an entirely new realm beyond worldly material things, would he still need gold?
At first, Hao Ren was indeed shaken by the truth behind this golden city, Alamanda. A world covered in gold even reminded him of the heavenly paradises in certain myths on Earth—the simple-minded creators of those myths always portrayed their ideal worlds in such a straightforward way. But Hao Ren soon realized that this gold was merely heavy and cheap building material to the world of Tanagrus. It was heavy, coarse, and difficult to react with other substances. Apart from being stable, it had no advantages whatsoever. It could only be mixed into cement and other metal building materials as an additive, used to construct the cheapest parts of the city: roads and walls, for example, as well as decorative sculptures that could be seen everywhere along the streets.
Even Hao Ren himself had no use for it. Many of the fields he dealt with had already gone beyond these worldly materials. Thinking about it carefully, he seemed not to need this wealth at all. The trouble it could bring far outweighed its usefulness.
"Gold! This is gold!" Becky hopped around excitedly. "Shouldn't we get a few excavators and mine this place for half a year? Aren't you interested?"
"You can take some back.