Entering Dragon Gate

Luoyang, the former capital of the Zhou court and the ruins of the Han and Wei dynasties.

It lay at the center of the realm, on the northern bank of the Luo River. As early as the Western Zhou, inscriptions on bronze vessels had called the Luoyang Plain "China."

Amid a thousand years of war smoke, who knew how many emperors and ministers had been buried beneath Mang Mountain?

Yet, much like Chang'an, Luoyang had gradually declined after the turmoil at the end of the Tang dynasty. Repeated wars had stripped it of the splendor it once possessed as the Divine Capital.

Since the end of last year, the weather had changed abruptly and grown cold. Spring Equinox had already passed, yet the biting wind still howled and the last snow had not melted.

The sky darkened, and the lights of ten thousand homes in the ancient city gradually went out.

In the distance, the outline of Mang Mountain crouched like a dormant dragon.

Near the North Market, Guiyi Ward.

The bluestone-paved streets glimmered faintly, while the night mist crept along the ground.

At a street corner, an Old Woman burned paper in the shadows. Ashes from the spirit money spiraled in the wind, and faint sobs drifted through the air.

"So this is what Luoyang has become..."

The night watchman, Lao Zhao, stopped and sighed at his apprentice.

He turned his head, carrying the gong, drum, and clapper, and limped onward. He still did not forget to mutter, "Back in the day, our Luoyang could still scrape together a hot meal. But ever since the court lifted the maritime ban, just look at us. Anyone with a bit of a connection has run off to the coast to hunt for gold."

"The marketplaces in the eastern wards are like