Found You

This time, Lu Qi took Zheng Zetian all the way to Changsi City, the capital of Li Country.

Changsi City was still Changsi City: palace after palace, all steeped in a stagnant air. Millions had moved away, but a capital never lacked people hoping to get ahead, willing to throw themselves into the furnace. As war in the north drove more and more people from the Central Plains, aristocratic families fleeing south arrived in Li Country too.

Not everyone in the world was willing to embrace change or progress.

A few enlightened people from the great clans were willing to venture south, see Lou Guan City, and learn the ways of Ink Bamboo Mountain. But most scions of old noble houses reached Changsi City, saw something that reminded them of the old imperial heartland, and stopped there. They mourned the Three Enclosures and could not bring themselves to go a step farther from home.

The Mystic Sect had sent only a few people to study abroad. The Immortal Palace's former retainers, on the other hand, migrated by the family. A single flying island could bring down a thousand people, with countless carts, boats, oxen, and horses trailing behind. Much of their property remained stuck at the northern border, barred from leaving.

The Immortal Palace had fallen, but its system, entrenched over millions of years, still lived in people's minds. Every newcomer claimed to be a high official, every family claimed ties to the Imperial Guards, and if anyone traced the family trees far enough, one house was bound to turn out to be another's ancestor. The local officials and gentry of Li Country were left looking shabby by comparison. They dared bully commoners, but who would dare offend these armed clans from the Central Plains?

Fortunately, the master of Lou