Of course, prices across the Sun Moon Continent were generally higher than those on the Douluo Continent.
For example, a jin of rice sold for thirty-five Copper Soul Coins in Spirit City, but in Ming Capital it cost 2 Ming Yuan and 50 Ming Fen per jin.
That was equivalent to one Silver Soul Coin and twenty-five Copper Soul Coins per jin, nearly three times the price of rice in Spirit City.
However, this didn't include the insurance subsidies, relief funds, housing funds, and other benefits that the Sun Moon Empire's people received from the state and corporate groups. Otherwise, the gap between the living standards of the two populations would probably have been even greater.
According to what Xu Mochen knew, Soul Masters on the Douluo Continent did receive subsidies, funded jointly by the Nine Douluo Nations and Spirit Hall, then distributed by Spirit Hall.
Of course, the Nine Douluo Nations weren't suckers who would simply pay for subsidies and let Spirit Hall take all the credit.
In reality, they had little choice. Only Spirit Hall had enough businesses to spread throughout almost every large, medium, and small town on the Douluo Continent!
Even the two great empires had hardly any businesses in small towns. If they set up subsidy programs at every City Lord's Mansion, it would interfere with the mansions' normal operations. Setting up a bunch of separate subsidy stations would waste a great deal of manpower and money.
However, that didn't mean the two great empires had given up the right to oversee and inspect the distribution of subsidy funds.
In fact, both the two great empires and the Four Kings and Three Dukes stationed several relevant officials at Spirit Hall branches within their territories to monitor the distribution of Spirit Hall's subsidies.
When the subsidies