Viewed from high above, Blessing Town's Upper Mountain District was lined with grand mansions and ablaze with lights, while ramshackle houses stretched across the flat ground below the mountain, their lights few and far between.
A broad road in the town center ran from the foot of the mountain all the way out of town.
The lights on Fortune Peace Street could barely rival those of the Upper Mountain District.
Almost all the town's businesses stood on either side of Fortune Peace Street.
On Fortune Peace Street, more than a hundred people shouted below the steps at the entrance to the Zhang Medical Hall.
Every one of them had a twisted body and ragged clothes. A few barely looked human at all, their entire bodies seemingly infested with ghosts and monsters, like a horde of demons dancing in wild chaos.
A round-faced, middle-aged man wearing a green silk robe and a square cap came out, stood beneath the "Zhang Medical Hall" sign, and said with a smile, "Everyone, why do this? Our Zhang Medical Hall lists its prices openly and cheats neither children nor the elderly. We already give you people from the Lower District plenty of preferential treatment. Your consultation fee is only fifty copper coins per visit. For the gentlemen of the Upper Mountain District, we charge at least a tael of silver."
"But we really can't afford that much."
"See? There you go again, claiming that being poor makes you right. We need to survive too. We're running a business. Do you expect the medical hall to live on the northwest wind?"
"But when Blessing Town was first established, didn't everyone agree to build it together, united like the stones of a fortress? Now that the fortress is built, you won't even treat our illnesses?"
Not far