Heaven Dou City was the political and economic center of the Heaven Dou Empire. Its urban expanse was vast, its streets a brocade of bustling prosperity. Countless people yearned for this place, the capital of a nation, with its supreme power and endless wealth. But only those who lived here truly knew that it was a paradise belonging to nobles and the wealthy. Citizens of the lower classes could survive only in the city's most remote corners.
A single window: nobles lived inside it, commoners outside. Through that one window, two worlds came into view. Inside, life was beautiful, and people lived in comfort and elegance. Outside, life was cruel, full of snobbery and bare-boned hardship, and people struggled in pain.
Tang Xuan sat before just such a window, watching the worlds on either side like an outsider.
Commoners performed acrobatics in the street, their exquisite skills winning cheer after cheer. Among the spectators were wealthy merchants dressed in fine, splendid clothes. When the performance ended, the audience dropped coins into the performers' brass gong. One rich spectator paid as well. With his round belly thrust out and his face thick with flesh, he looked down on them contemptuously, casually tossing a gold coin beside a performer before striding proudly away. The commoner kept smiling ingratiatingly. This was the only way his life could go on. The city's homeless huddled in the dark corners of buildings, living without hope. Beggars constantly threaded through the tangled crowds, living without dignity. Ordinary citizens endured enormous pressure just to get by, living in pain.
The same city, the same street, yet two worlds stood in stark contrast.
Over the past month, Tang Xuan had traveled across more than half the Heaven Dou Empire, relying on the Dragon Wings' ability to cover ten thousand