As the sun slanted westward, a luxurious carriage entered Profound Candle Prefecture through Summer Snow Gate. The city guard checking entry permits glanced at the thorn-flower banner with its silver trim and red background, then immediately shouted for the commoners to make way. The people waiting in line hurriedly pressed to either side, allowing the four-horse carriage to enter the Inner City at its leisure.
Coats of arms were common status symbols in East Sun District. Profound Candle Prefecture had several hundred merchant guilds of all sizes, and they naturally needed some conspicuous emblem to display their identities. The simplest used their surnames, while those trying to appear cultured used paintings by famous artists. Animal and plant designs were also extremely popular choices.
But only members of one of the Eighty-Eight Merchant Guilds of the Silver Blood Society could use silver trim on their banners and coats of arms. If the background was red as well, that was even more extraordinary—it represented a member of the "Standing Council" formed by the Silver Blood Society's ten highest-ranking merchant guilds.
To ordinary people, however, they were all the same: existences they could not afford to provoke. That was precisely the purpose of a coat of arms. Shouting, "Do you know who I am?" before beating someone senseless was too low-class, too nouveau riche. A true aristocratic family should only need its coat of arms to make the other party realize that they were someone he could not afford to offend. Then the other party would obediently lower his voice and submit, completing a world where no one got hurt.
After all, nobody liked getting angry.
Le Yu lifted the curtain and glanced at the wide moat, thinking that Profound Candle Prefecture really was wealthy. The prefecture was divided into three parts: the