Lingering Echoes Run Deep, Yet Their Traces Are Hard to Find

"Keep people patrolling this area. Since we've brought it out, there's no need to hide it away."

Ye Xiu gave Qi He an instruction, and the latter nodded and passed the order down.

Although force was not the best solution, it was certainly the fastest.

After its rapid development over the past few days, Heyang City had indeed accumulated a great many underlying problems.

Take the people of the Lower District, for instance. Qi He had not failed to suggest dealing with them before, but honestly, Ye Xiu felt that eliminating them would achieve little.

At the root of it, gangs like these—much like the underworld syndicates of later generations—were born from the profitable gaps created by the vast disparity between upper and lower development.

As long as that gap remained, these people would never truly disappear.

Kill one Lion Head, and who knew whether another Leopard Head would spring up tomorrow?

To be honest, the path Lion Head had chosen was not a mistaken one.

Gathering and uniting the independent cultivators and common folk below as much as possible, using them as capital to negotiate with the Upper City and the Alliance, and thereby gaining tacitly approved privileges—this was an entirely viable path.

Back on Blue Star, Ye Xiu had seen no shortage of similar black gloves wash their hands clean and step ashore.

If Lion Head had been luckier, if the people he recruited had been capable enough and could keep their heads clear, then even the position of administrator over the docks connected to the outskirts might one day have been within his reach.

Unfortunately, all of that was empty talk now.

One mistaken judgment of strength, and he had become a bubble in the river of history.

Looking at the ashes covering the ground, Ye Xiu