Shangyu Market

Biodata

Geography and Layout

• Original inner city: The Lin Household’s seat of power, protected by a defensive grand array 1 11.
• Original outer city: Home to market stalls, shops, and Rogue Cultivators’ residences. Its inhabitants initially bore the brunt of barbarian raids 1 11.
• Southeastern stall district: Qin Fei, Old Zhang, Li Tiezhu, Tang Zhan, and Xu Meiniang formerly traded here as a close-knit group of impoverished Rogue Cultivators 10.
• Central commercial district: The busiest part of the outer city, surrounding the Star Radiance Merchant Association 18.
• Northern edge: Site of the northern puppet scrapyard, where Qin Fei was stationed as a Lin Household attendant 26.
• Nearby settlements: Qinghe Market, the closest other market before its destruction, lies three thousand li away. Before its expansion, Shangyu was already the largest market in the surrounding area. After Shangyu’s fall, Hongyan Market is identified as the closest remaining human settlement 14 15 81.
• Northern secret realm: The Heavenly Secrets Sect’s ruins lie north of Shangyu Market, where human and barbarian territories meet 33 39.
• Strategic position: Shangyu serves as a northeastern gateway to Repel the North City. Fairy Caiyi warns that its loss would allow barbarian forces to advance directly toward that city 54.

Following the victory over the barbarians, the market doubled in size. The Lin Household announced that the distinction between inner and outer city would be abolished in favor of shared defenses 25.

Government and Major Powers

Law and Security

• Flight ban: Strictly enforced even when the Lin Household’s enforcement team could no longer contain widespread street violence 17.
• Early raid conditions: Rogue Cultivators used barbarian attacks as opportunities to rob and murder other residents. The danger inside the outer city could rival that posed by the invaders 11.
• Refugee unrest: Fighting, arson, killing, and looting increased sharply after the first displaced cultivators arrived 17.
• Later internal conflict: The ruling households eventually attacked one another’s businesses inside the market, undermining the security gained through fortification 40.
• City lockdown: Following the loss of the secret realm, the gates were sealed and departure forbidden. This was the first citywide closure since Shangyu’s founding. Guards publicly attributed the decision to the Lin and Lu Households 56 57.
• Forced conscription: Residents were compelled to undertake wartime duties. Qin Fei’s registered identity prevented him from avoiding conscription, while Fairy Caiyi’s intervention secured him a monthly patrol assignment outside the market 57 82.
• Loss of public support: Infighting, the secret-realm disaster, and forced conscription squandered much of the ruling households’ earlier goodwill. Qin Fei and his companions declined invitations to bind themselves more closely to the Lin Household 71.
• Reopening and flight: Restrictions on the gates were eventually lifted. Large numbers of Rogue Cultivators fled, further weakening the settlement as a renewed barbarian offensive approached 77 80.

Defenses and Military

• Army recruitment: Lineage cultivators and ordinary Rogue Cultivators were to receive equal treatment, with positions awarded according to military merit 25.
• Academy admission: The announced academy would accept anyone of the appropriate age, regardless of aptitude 25.
• Regional support: The northern frontier defense network called for mutual assistance and intelligence sharing between its participating powers 25.
• Strategic protection: The three great cities and major sects initially tied down the barbarians’ main forces. Nearby smaller tribes lacked the numbers to overcome Shangyu’s fortified defenses 28 38.
• Wartime assignments: Qin Fei patrolled outside the market, some of his companions guarded nearby spiritual fields and mines, and Tiezhu escorted supplies to the front 57.
• Recruitment revival: Early victories inspired a wave of enlistments and earned praise from the three great sects, temporarily overshadowing the loss of the secret realm 61.
• Attritional limits: Despite battlefield successes, prolonged fighting depleted Shangyu’s reserves. Its leaders eventually warned that further campaigning would drain the settlement dry 74 78.

Notable Locations

Commerce

Puppet Trade

• Early stall sales: Qin Fei sells Puppet Soldiers for ten Spirit Essences each. Demand is driven partly by their usefulness as scouts and expendable protection during raids 1.
• Cargo puppets: Wooden Oxen and Flowing Horses introduce transport capabilities unfamiliar to the small market, despite other first-tier puppets already circulating there 5.
• Reconstruction demand: Gathering and transporting logs and boulders causes demand—and prices—for cargo puppets to rise 28.
• Zhang Yu Motor Vehicles: Their battlefield appearance under Tang Zhan and Wang Hu makes them famous throughout Shangyu. Both ruling households place orders 27.
• Scarcity and prestige: Heavy demand eventually leads to full-payment orders with waits of at least two months. Zhang Yu Motor Vehicles become status symbols among the market’s upper class 28.
• Secret-realm salvage: Exploration of the Heavenly Secrets Sect’s ruins supplies the scrapyard with large batches of damaged puppets. Their unfamiliar construction methods and inscriptions provide Qin Fei with valuable research material 40.
• Refugee identification: After the evacuation, Shangyu’s displaced cultivators are recognizable in Repel the North City by their distinctive two-wheeled Zhang Yu Motor Vehicles 82.

Cultivation Goods

• Common cultivation methods: The Everlasting Spring Art is available for only a few Spirit Essences 6.
• Advanced Technique Methods: Difficult to purchase; some shops carry individual methods, while others stock none 43.
• Black-market goods: Include rare Demon Beast materials and Stage-Breaking Pills 44.
• Auctions: Wang Hu once witnessed frenzied bidding for a Foundation Establishment Pill at a Shangyu auction 49.
• Foundation Establishment scarcity: Despite the earlier auction, Foundation Establishment Pills are not obtainable locally when Qin Fei’s companions discuss his prolonged absence before the evacuation 77.
• Currency: One Spirit Stone is worth one hundred Spirit Essences 1.

History

Barbarian Raids and the Fall of Qinghe

At the beginning of the story, Shangyu’s outer city suffers recurring barbarian border raids. The opening chapter takes place the morning after an attack, with blood and severed limbs still being cleared from the streets. Residents continue trading despite the casualties 1.

The destruction of nearby Qinghe Market changes Shangyu’s situation. Qinghe falls after the Lu Household’s counterattack provokes a larger barbarian assault, leaving roughly a million Rogue Cultivators homeless. Shangyu becomes a principal destination for the displaced 14 15.

An advance group of two to three hundred thousand refugees settles beyond the outer city, creating a settlement outside the existing settlement. The Lu Household also relocates, and the two ruling lineages establish their alliance 17.

Victory and Expansion

The remaining seven to eight hundred thousand refugees arrive amid widespread disorder, just as a barbarian army begins its charge. Rather than remaining behind the inner city’s defenses, the six Foundation Establishment cultivators launch a counterattack 24.

The battle lasts seven days and seven nights and ends in a human victory. Shangyu settles the displaced population, doubles in size, and attracts cultivators from across the frontier. Its rulers announce shared defenses and new military and educational institutions 25.

Six months of reconstruction transform the settlement into a heavily fortified city. Small barbarian incursions continue, but the raids that once devastated the outer city no longer penetrate its defenses 28.

Marriage Alliance and Secret-Realm Discovery

An engagement between the Lu Household’s young master and the Lin Household’s daughter prompts a celebratory lantern festival. Residents welcome the proposed marriage as a means of stabilizing joint rule 29 30.

The discovery of a Heavenly Mystery Key and the nearby secret realm disrupts that reconciliation. Lin Man’s wedding is postponed, and the marriage alliance is reduced to a nominal arrangement as the households prepare to compete over the ruins 31 32 33.

Outsiders flood into Shangyu seeking the realm’s treasures. Qin Fei circulates additional Heavenly Mystery Keys to divert attention from himself, triggering further struggles over access to the ruins’ core 35 36. Humans and barbarians eventually agree to divide the realm along its central river, while the Lin and Lu Households abandon their attempt to monopolize it 38.

Conflict Within the Market

A dispute over a medicinal herb escalates into open fighting between the Lin and Lu Households. Their leaders reinforce the combatants rather than stopping the dispute. Battles initially remain within the secret realm, but eventually spread to businesses and streets in Shangyu 40.

The Lin Household’s extensive local holdings become a liability: it has too many properties to defend, while the Lu Household concentrates its guards around comparatively few businesses. The attack on the Wondrous Pill Pavilion demonstrates how directly the conflict has reached ordinary commerce 40.

Fairy Caiyi’s support temporarily gives the Lin Household the advantage, until Daoist Fuchen intervenes on the opposing side. By the struggle over the secret realm’s central tower, Qin Fei and his companions fear that either household’s victory will badly damage Shangyu and leave its residents vulnerable to renewed barbarian pressure 46 49.

The damage includes both the Wondrous Pill Pavilion and the Gathering Immortals Pavilion, whose destruction the Lin Household later cites when disputing responsibility for the conflict 56.

Barbarian Diversion and City Lockdown

While the ruling households concentrate their strength in the secret realm, barbarian troops secretly deploy outside Shangyu. The guards discover the army only as it charges the walls, forcing Fairy Caiyi to return to defend the market. The attack is subsequently revealed as a feint that enables barbarian forces to seize the secret realm and its tower 54 56.

After the defeat, Daoist Fuchen demands that the Lin and Lu Households cooperate. Displaying strength approaching the Foundation Establishment Late Stage, he assumes temporary command and orders a counteroffensive. He also threatens to report the households’ conduct to his Core Formation master, whose authority could secure their replacement 56.

Qin Fei decides to leave with Tang Zhan, Tiezhu, Xu Meiniang, Old Zhang, and Wang Hu, but the group finds the gates sealed and heavily guarded. The unprecedented closure traps residents whose livelihoods depend on hunting and gathering outside the walls 56 57.

Shangyu then mobilizes its population for war. Fairy Caiyi arranges relatively favorable duties for Qin Fei and most of his companions, while Tiezhu receives the more dangerous task of escorting frontline supplies 57.

Counteroffensive and Blood-Sacrifice Scandal

Over the next two years, Shangyu’s vanguard wins repeated victories against the Barbarian Tribe. The successes inspire enlistment and earn commendations from the three great sects, gradually eclipsing the disgrace of losing the secret realm 61.

The households’ rivalry nevertheless persists. The Lu Household secretly uses reinforcement squads to protect Lu Tianchou’s Foundation Establishment attempt near the human–barbarian border. Qin Fei exposes the arrangement, alerts Lin Man, and urges the squads to escape and seek the Lin Household’s protection. The Five Extremes Spirit-Devouring Grand Formation at the site is revealed to be a forbidden blood-sacrifice array 64.

Lu Tianchou’s breakthrough fails, and news that the Lu Household sacrificed patrol cultivators provokes public outrage. The scandal attracts the attention of the three great sects, and Daoist Fuchen demands that Lu Tianchou be handed over 65.

Exhaustion, Evacuation, and Fall

Despite destroying two small barbarian settlements, Shangyu cannot indefinitely sustain its campaigns. Its leaders warn Daoist Fuchen that the costs in manpower and wealth have become intolerable. Rogue Cultivators increasingly flee to avoid conscription, and the lifting of gate restrictions accelerates the exodus 74 77 80.

The Barbarian Tribe responds to its defeats by gathering substantial reinforcements. With Shangyu’s reserves depleted, even the Lin and Lu Households begin moving valuables and preparing to retreat. Qin Fei’s companions remain in the market for a time while trying unsuccessfully to contact him 77 78 80.

When Qin Fei returns from gathering Demon Beast cores in the Luoping Mountain Range, he finds barbarian soldiers on the walls and tribal totems flying in place of the Lin and Lu banners. The walls are barely damaged, leading him to suspect that the humans abandoned the settlement rather than losing it in a destructive siege 78.

Hundreds of thousands of Rogue Cultivators flee with the ruling households toward Repel the North City. Qin Fei follows their trail of discarded belongings and corpses after failing to contact his companions 78.

Refugee Beast Tide and Resettlement

During the retreat, A Luodan and Gutulu lure a million-strong beast tide toward the refugee procession by stealing a Crimson Zheng cub. The Lin and Lu Households have placed their descendants at the front to avoid barbarian pursuit, but this position exposes them to the approaching beasts. Both households lose more than ninety percent of their people; the Lin Household’s third elder and the Lu Household ancestor perish, while the Lin Household ancestor and one Lu Household cultivator escape 79.

The destruction of the households’ leading contingent gives the Rogue Cultivators behind them time to react. Tang Zhan and Wang Hu initially try to escape through the air with their companions, but descend after recognizing Lightning Mantises among the airborne beasts 79.

Surviving Shangyu cultivators are eventually settled in the southern part of Repel the North City’s Heavenly Pivot District, in a remote southeastern area with damaged housing. Their reception reflects recognition of Shangyu’s earlier contributions to the war. Qin Fei follows reports of their distinctive vehicle puppets to find them 82 83.

Qin Fei later confirms the beast tide’s origin by searching Gutulu’s memories, learning that he and A Luodan caused the disaster while stealing the Crimson Zheng cub for the Barbarian Tribe 107.

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