Encountering an Old Acquaintance

"It really is—lively."

Xu Yuan murmured under his breath, no emotion discernible in his voice.

He lifted his foot, stepping through mud and broken stones as he merged into the winding stream of people.

There were no special formation inspections at the city gate, only several guards in the middle to late stages of Qi Refining.

When it was Xu Yuan's turn, he handed over a low-grade spirit stone. The guard glanced at him, saw that he was plainly dressed, and did not ask any questions. With a wave of his hand, he let him pass.

The moment he crossed beneath the towering city gate, several zhang high and covered in scratches and grime, the clamor and smells surged several orders of magnitude, crashing over him with almost tangible force.

Before him lay an exceptionally broad street, yet one just as unbearably crowded. Its bluestone paving had been stained dark brown by the filth of countless years, while black water pooled in its potholes.

Buildings stood packed tightly along both sides, rising and falling unevenly. Most had been built from gray bricks, wood, and some sort of gray mortar, leaning and pressing against one another. Signboards crowded overhead, their lettering weathered and mottled.

Food vendors, sellers of shoddy talismans and pills, purveyors of old clothes and miscellaneous goods, fortune-tellers and physiognomists, labor recruiters—every kind of stall had squeezed into every available crack. Hawking cries, shouts, haggling, the calls of livestock, and the distant clang of hammer on iron all blended into a deafening tide of sound that battered the senses.

Pedestrians rubbed shoulders as they passed. The smells of sweat, body odor, greasy food, cheap spices, and animal dung intertwined into an indescribable, life-filled muddy current.

Cultivators and mortals mingled here, most hurrying along. Occasionally, someone with slightly finer clothing