They talked as they walked, and by the time noon drew near, the group had finally climbed to the Golden Dome.
Everywhere they looked, everything seemed to be made of gold.
It was far more magnificent than anything they had seen before. Ahead and behind, left and right, there was only one pure, unchanging color: gold. The stairs were gold, the buildings were gold, and even the trees were made of gold.
At the sight, even Jing'en, who had been wearing a troubled expression all along, could not help murmuring.
"This must have taken more than a few gold mines, surely?"
The middle-aged Daoist immediately smiled.
It was a smile tinged with pride, arrogance, and a desire to show off—the sort one might give a country cousin visiting from some remote mountain village.
"Not quite. A lot of it is just covered in gold leaf, and some is mixed with other materials. Pure gold is rather soft, after all, so it wouldn't hold up well in many places..."
Zhou You suddenly cut in.
"But even so... the sheer expense is staggering."
The middle-aged Daoist smiled.
"That's part of it, but what matters most is the great array built around it..." After a moment's thought, he reached out and tapped a nearby golden building.
The golden surface flickered a few times, then displayed a clear image.
It showed an alley in Anyun City. A martial artist who had been flushed out was running for his life, but before he could reach the alley's end, soldiers lying in wait shot him full of arrows.
Then another image appeared.
In a corner by the city wall, seven or eight cultivators were trying to find a way out. But as an alarm sounded, more than a hundred constables and soldiers, led by members of