Chapter 31: Entering the City
A/N:
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After ten minutes of whistling down from the top of the mountain, Xiao Ming was approaching the large city gate.
After approaching the city gate, Xiao Ming gradually slowed down and finally turned into a slow walk, lining up behind that crowd of people and quietly waiting in line to enter.
It seemed that the crowd here was extraordinarily large because of the upcoming auction in Black Seal City.
Apart from some casual people two by two, Xiao Ming also saw many caravans with merchant banners.
The caravan lined up in front of Xiao Ming was such a caravan, which was not small in size and probably consisted of hundreds of people.
Among these people, the strongest was only in the Dou Master realm.
The owner of the caravan seemed to be a little crazy, as he had the courage to do business in the chaotic Black-Corner Region with such a force.
In fact, the composition of the Black-Corner Region is actually similar to Jia Ma Empire, in the sense that most of them are ordinary people.
Although here the people are more bloodthirsty and unprincipled.
But in reality, these people are similarly talented, and a Dou Master may be the highest point these people can reach in their life.
In the Black-Corner Region, the Dou Grandmaster realm is a small expert.
In the wild, as long as you don't encounter large groups of horse thieves, the security of such a caravan is actually quite high.
And in the big cities, mostly dominated by powerful forces, as long as you give them enough money, you won't end up in a miserable situation where they steal your goods and slaughter your team.
The people of Black-Corner Region are not productive, and these caravans are responsible for keeping them alive.
The forces in these cities would not be foolish enough to kill a chicken to get an egg, something that would bring in sustainable income and increase life expectancy.
Of course, there are no absolutes.
All this assumes you don't have anything too good, otherwise Black-Corner Region would live up to its reputation as the most chaotic region.
Standing behind the caravan carriage, Xiao Ming looked at the huge black city wall and turned his gaze to the three large words "Black Seal City" in the center of the city gate.
His eyes slowly moved downward and finally stopped on the dozen men dressed in strong black clothes at the city gate.
They seemed to be like the city guards outside, anyone entering the city had to pay them a large entrance fee.
If this kind of entry fee were paid in an ordinary empire, there would probably be a riot.
However, in this Black-Corner Region it was not a rare occurrence, and was considered a special feature of the Black-Corner Region.
"Get out of my way, stop jumping in front of your father."
Just as Xiao Ming was inspecting this city, which had a special style that was very typical of the Black-Corner Region a cursing voice full of anger suddenly sounded not far away from him.
Xiao Ming shifted his gaze and it turned out to be a large, bald man who, perhaps because he was a bit impatient from waiting, picked up a thin man in front of him.
"Ah..." just as the big bald man's words fell, the skinny man who had been picked up turned sharply and a dagger flew out of his sleeved tunic.
The dagger cut with a cold aura and stabbed mercilessly at the bald man's throat, but he reacted fast and quickly retracted his neck, the dagger missed and stuck half a centimeter below the throat, immediately, blood spilled wildly and a miserable scream sounded from the bald man's mouth.
After the blow severely wounded the bald man, the skinny man's body swayed, like a fish, his body came out from under his robe, and then rolled into the bushes, disappearing.
"You bastard, I'll tear you apart!"
Red-eyed, the bald man drew his dagger and rushed headlong into the bushes, and after a long while, a scream like the one he had shouted before came from the bushes.
Standing in the doorway, Xiao Ming's face was indifferent as he looked at the bushes.
Hearing the last scream, he knew that that bald man would not be able to survive.
He had seen dozens of similar incidents in the past ten days.
At first, he thought it was something new, after all, the bald guy was stronger than the skinny guy, and the gap between the two was so big that it was commendable that the skinny guy could overcome the strong guy with his weaker cultivation.
However, after seeing more of them, Xiao Ming was able to take it easy.
The rules of the Black-Corner Region were that there were no rules, so in the Black-Corner Region, people were never to be judged by their appearance or superficial strength, and every year, the bodies of people like the bald guy who just died were almost capable of filling a city.
After all, those who can survive in the Black-Corner Region are not ordinary people, they are all old and experienced.
In other places, if people are not cruel, they cannot stand their ground, but here, if people are not cruel, they will not be able to live long.
The previous fight between the two was like a minor incident, which only made the people in the queue a little more interested, but not many people sighed about it.
The queue moved slowly, and after waiting for almost half an hour, it was finally the turn of the caravan in front of Xiao Ming.
When the caravan arrived at the entrance to the city, the caravan leader hurriedly handed over a large bag of gold coins.
Xiao Ming had sharp eyes and saw clearly that when he handed over the large bag of gold coins, he also had a small bag hidden in his hand.
The indifferent man in black took the gold coins and casually weighed them, his face softened a little and, without saying anything, he let the caravan enter the city with a wave of his hand.
When the caravan left, it was Xiao Ming's turn.
Standing in front of the crowd, not wanting to cause trouble, he followed the example of the man in black and handed the gold coin to the man in front of him.
Weighing the small package in his hand, he saw that Xiao Ming was alone and no-nonsense, casually waved his hand, indicating that he had passed and hurried inside.
...
Walking slowly down the street, Xiao Ming's eyes constantly swept the stores on both sides of the street.
To be honest, the Black-Corner Region was really a bit too chaotic, especially these big cities.
After walking a short distance of less than a hundred meters into the city, he had seen no less than ten incidents of fights and even bloodshed with knives drawn.
'Can you really make money when these stores open in such a chaotic environment?'
'If you don't have strength, you will be afraid of being robbed every day.'
Shaking his head and dodging a flying severed hand, Xiao Ming no longer thought much about these miscellaneous matters.
Instead, he made his next plans.
He had already successfully entered Black Seal City, and the secret realm would open tomorrow, so it was best to find an inn to stay at now and move early tomorrow.
However, before finding an inn, he still had to make preparations to enter the Great Plain of Black-Corner Region, such as preparing a map or something.
Without a map, Xiao Ming feared that he would not be able to leave the Great Plain of Black-Corner Region.
After avoiding the bloodbath on the street, Xiao Ming turned two corners and walked for nearly twenty minutes, his gaze finally landed on the plate of a small store, and on the pale red plate, there were two ancient words, "Cartography Pavilion".
"There must be a map of the Great Plain of Black-Corner Region here, right?" Xiao Ming muttered in his heart, and then entered this small store, which didn't seem to be frequented by many people.
Only after entering did Xiao Ming realize that the store is not as small as it looked from the outside, and that there are more things inside.
In the rather large space, there are wooden shelves arranged on the east and west vertical and horizontal sides, each with a map of a different color, and at this moment, in front of these wooden shelves, there are several people who were stopping to look, and the sound of noisy conversations would constantly come out from them.
Evidently, the store is not very popular, but it did have some customers.