Haizhou City
As a famous city in the Twin Orchid Realm, Haizhou City, like White Foothill City, is not under the jurisdiction of any sect. However, unlike White Foothill City, the city lord of Haizhou City is not selected through a martial arts competition among cultivators, but is appointed by the Lineage.
This great city, built by the sea and inhabited by sea Demon Beast, is ruled by the Hai Clan.
Anyone in the Hai clan, regardless of gender, who reaches the age of eighteen can participate in the competition for the position of city lord, or family head.
The final victor will be chosen as the next head of the Hai family, and will then take control of the entire Haizhou City.
Sang Ying remembered that in the original book, the one who became the next city lord was a young cultivator named Hai Cheng'an. Of course, he was also one of the male supporting characters who admired Su Fuyun.
While she was still lost in thought, Sang Ying had already reached the skies above Haizhou City. Before she even landed, a strong, salty, fishy smell assaulted her nostrils and filled Sang Ying stomach.
This is the taste of Haizhou City.
She landed quickly and hugged the spirit sword to her chest.
Gu Shu, who had remained silent for a long time, gazed at the towering city walls before him and couldn't help but sigh, "I never imagined that I would be able to see the scenery of the Twin Orchid Realm in my lifetime!"
Is it here for a vacation? Sang Ying chuckled to herself.
Haizhou City is the only way to enter the Shimmering Gold Island Secret Realm. It is also backed by powerful cultivation Aristocratic Clan, and the abundant Demon Beast in the sea are a great Cultivation Resources. Therefore, it attracts countless young cultivators to try their luck here every year.
However, Haizhou City has limited capacity, so it's impossible to put everyone inside.
Therefore, Haizhou City set a condition: anyone who wants to enter the city must pay an entrance fee of one mid-grade Spirit Stone and register accordingly.
Although a mid-grade Spirit Stone is a lot, if one really wants to get in, even a Rogue Cultivator can scrape together enough by gritting their teeth.
However, this condition deterred many people who only wanted to try their luck in the city, which finally made Haizhou City less crowded.
While Sang Ying was handing over the Spirit Stone, Gu Shu was still muttering to himself, "This is too expensive! It's just entering the city; what if we don't get anything? Wouldn't that be a huge loss? Tsk tsk tsk, Haizhou City really knows how to make money!"
Having spent some time by Sang Ying's side, even Gu Shu had gained some understanding of how to use Spirit Stone. It was unclear who he had learned it from, but he had now become quite the miser, always offering his opinions whenever Sang Ying spent money.
Sang Ying didn't think there was anything wrong with it, and even explained to Gu Shu, "These Spirit Stone will be returned. As long as the cultivators who enter the city do not cause trouble or violate the city rules, they will return the Spirit Stone when they leave Haizhou City."
Hearing this, Gu Shu felt a little better. "That's more like it!"
As the long queue entered the city, separated only by a city wall, the inside and outside of the city seemed like two completely different worlds.
Looking around, Sang Ying saw that the wide, long street was lined with stalls selling seafood. The strong smell of the sea was much more noticeable than outside the city, and the continuous cries of vendors were also much louder.
Sang Ying walked and looked around. The stalls sold sea monster teeth and meat. But both the teeth and bones were much larger than Sang Ying had ever seen before. It was hard to imagine what kind of enormous creatures these things came from.
In addition, Sang Ying also saw several "people" with fluffy tails behind them.
"Look! Demon Race cultivator!" Gu Shu suddenly exclaimed.
Sang Ying looked in the direction the sword hilt was pointing and indeed saw a boy with fish fins on his arms. The fins were too big to hide, so he simply didn't bother to cover them up.
Perhaps the senses of Demon Race are more acute; Sang Ying had only looked over a short while when the boy glared at her fiercely.
Upon seeing Sang Ying's appearance, his fierce expression froze, and he subconsciously concealed it.
Sang Ying realized that her behavior was somewhat impolite, so after the other person noticed her, she cupped her hands in a respectful gesture.
Seeing this, the boy silently lowered his head. But where Sang Ying couldn't see, the Demon Cultivator's ears, hidden in his gray hair, suddenly turned red.
Now that we've entered the city, the first thing we need to solve is the problem of accommodation.
Sang Ying calculated the time; the Shimmering Gold Island Secret Realm wouldn't open for about eight days. And after coming down from Gleaming Gold Island, Sang Ying might have to stay here to fight some sea monsters or something.
After thinking about it, she felt that staying in an inn was not cost-effective, so she decided to rent a courtyard or something first.
In large cities like Haizhou City, small courtyards are usually built specifically for cultivators to rent. Although the furnishings inside may not be as complete as those in inns, the rent is much cheaper.
Sang Ying secretly discussed it with Gu Shu. Upon hearing that the rent was cheap, she didn't care about anything else and immediately urged her to hurry up and rent a courtyard.
Sang Ying paused for a moment, genuinely curious about how it had developed such a stingy nature.
This was Sang Ying's first time in Haizhou City, and she didn't know much about it. Fortunately, she remembered that the original book mentioned that the courtyards where cultivators rented their homes were located in the west of the city.
So as soon as she arrived, she headed straight for the west side of the city.
She was lucky; as soon as she arrived in the West City, a boy of about eight or nine years old came up to greet her.
"Is the fairy here to rent a courtyard?" The young boy was tall, but somewhat thin. Judging from his barely advanced Qi Refining Second Stage cultivation level, his clothes were also rather plain.
Sang Ying guessed that he was probably Rogue Cultivator in the city.
Haizhou City was controlled by the Aristocratic Clan, so naturally there was a clan school. However, this clan school only accepted children of the Hai Clan; even children from collateral branches might not be able to attend, let alone children from ordinary families.
Moreover, because the Hai clan occupies this area, major sects rarely come here to select disciples. This has led to the Hai Clan becoming increasingly powerful, and ordinary people, even those with good aptitude, ultimately end up only serving as guards for the Hai clan's direct descendants.
Because there are no renowned teachers to guide them, ordinary cultivators have to spend more Spirit Stone to cultivate. That's why the cultivators here brave dangers to go out to sea to hunt Demon Beast in order to earn Spirit Stone.
Thinking of this, Sang Ying's attitude towards the young boy softened.
"That's right, I'm here to rent a courtyard. Do you have any connections?" If the other party does well, Sang Ying wouldn't mind helping them out.
The young boy probably didn't expect Sang Ying to be so easy to talk to. After all, in the past, disciples of major sects like Sang Ying, who wore exquisite robes and carried spirit swords, were generally unwilling to do business with children like him.
He only dared to try his luck today because he was really short of money and saw that Sang Ying didn't seem to have a bad temper.
However, seeing that Sang Ying looked young and inexperienced, perhaps she felt sorry for him.
The young man quickly put those thoughts aside and decided to focus on making the best of his first deal in the past few days.
"Then please come with me, fairy!" The young man hadn't done business much, and his speech was still a bit awkward. "By the way, fairy, you can call me Xiao Liu."