Senior brother, stop it, you are the villain!

Dongzhou, Qingdi City.

Qingdi City is one of the largest cities in Dongzhou. It is located at the junction of Lishui and Taijiang River. It has dense shipping and developed trade. Qingdi City, relying on this unique geographical location, has gradually grown from a small village to a leading city in Dongzhou.

Miao Feng, the lord of Qingdi City, is also a well-known powerful cultivator. It is said that his realm has reached the Taiqing realm and is only one step away from the Jiejie realm. There are also many powerful cultivators working under him. With his own powerful cultivation and the heritage of Qingdi City, Miao Feng has secured the position of the lord of Qingdi City and deterred all parties from offending easily.

It is a subtle consensus of the entire upper domain that all big cities are guarded by strong people. This is not out of awe of the strong, but a compromise that must be made for survival. In the eyes of powerful cultivators, mortals are just ants, and their life and death are insignificant, so powerful cultivators often destroy a city at will, and this is true for both the righteous and the evil.

It's okay for the righteous, at least they have to come up with an excuse to destroy the whole city, so as not to tarnish their reputation. But the evil ways act according to their own likes and dislikes. Many times they will even destroy the city just because the name of the city offends their taboos.

Facing powerful monks, mortals without the ability to practice can only leave it to fate. After all, they have no strength to resist, and no one can stand up for them. The only thing they can do is to seek a powerful backer as much as possible to seek a stable life. For this reason, many cities with powerful monks have become the first choice for mortals to live.

However, it is not so easy to live in a big city. A big city means heavy taxes. Especially in a big city like Qingdi City with a population of one million, every household in the city has to pay almost two-thirds of its annual income as taxes. However, although the taxes are heavy, life is basically guaranteed, so that people will not starve to death or be killed at will.

What's more, the cultivation of monks requires a lot of resources and money, and the taxes they provide can also meet the needs of the monks who shelter them. It is a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit.

This is the unique social model of this world.

This world does not have the concept of a country, but forms a scattered city alliance with cities as the basic structure. The relationship between these city alliances is based on interests, usually relying on marriage and resource exchange as the connection between cities. But there are no eternal friends, only eternal interests. Therefore, these city alliances are actually quite fragile, and sometimes they will even go their separate ways just because of some small conflicts of interest.

The reason why this world has not established a country is not that no one has thought about doing so, but the characteristics of this world have destined the birth of a country to be extremely difficult.

Due to the existence of cultivation, the gap between personal strength has been infinitely widened, which has led to the impossibility of establishing an army basically composed of mortals. After all, a cultivator in the Tribulation Period can destroy a million troops with a casual wave of his palm.

As for establishing an army composed of monks, this matter is also somewhat unrealistic. Because the cultivation of monks requires the absorption of spiritual energy, and most of the spiritual energy is nurtured in the mountains. If the army is fed with spiritual stones, the consumption is too huge, which leads to the fact that the military support of each city is usually only a small team of monks, and it is difficult to establish a real army.

The scope of the military support of the small team of monks is limited to the surrounding areas, and it is difficult to radiate on a large scale. Even if the monk army is formed with the foundation of the city alliance, it can only be self-protective and not aggressive enough, let alone guarantee the security of a country.

If the army cannot be established, it will naturally be difficult for the country to take shape. Without the existence of a country, it will be difficult for mortals to have basic survival guarantees. Therefore, the mortals in this world are really like ants, and can only survive in the cracks of various forces. It’s okay to find a big city as a backer, but for mortals who don’t even have a backer, I don’t know how many will be slaughtered by monks like cattle and sheep every day.

Maybe someone will ask at this time, aren’t there some particularly lucky mortals who gain powerful power through cultivation and protect their own tribe in turn?

The reality is that there are such people, but they are very few.

Many mortals who started from humble beginnings, when they first embarked on the path of cultivation, also made great wishes to protect their tribes with their own strength. Many of them did get opportunities that defied the heavens and eventually achieved great things. However, after reaching the top, most of these people forgot their original intentions, and instead regarded mortals as ants like other cultivators. Because in the process of their growth, countless realities told them that in this world, the strong are respected.

As long as you are strong enough, you can do whatever you want.

As long as you are strong enough, you can look down on all living beings.

As long as you are strong enough, you can take whatever you want from anyone.

As long as you are strong enough, you can ignore all justice in this world.

So their goal is to become stronger and stronger. In order to become stronger, they even dare to trample on the dignity and life and death of all mortals.

And the only thing mortals can do in the face of powerful cultivators is to survive.

Because they don't deserve to have dignity in front of the monks.

This situation has lasted for thousands or tens of thousands of years, and it may continue like this and will never change.

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Let's turn our attention back to Qingdi City.

As the largest city within a thousand miles, Qingdi City has tens of thousands of people entering every day, including many cultivators. Today, a team of 15 cultivators entered the city.

These 15 people are the two disciples who left Taiwei Mountain and Lu Qingyuan.

The two disciples were surprised but also welcomed Lu Qingyuan's joining. After all, in the entire Taiwei Sect, Feng Shao has the highest cultivation among their generation of disciples, followed by Ye Chen and Lu Qingyuan. After Lu Qingyuan broke through and Feng Shao left, Lu Qingyuan has become the leader of this generation of disciples.

How can they not be happy to have such a person join them?

Lu Qingyuan soon learned that the two disciples also planned to find Feng Shao after leaving the sect. However, in the vast territory of Dongzhou, how easy is it to find someone? So after some discussion, they decided to go to Qingdi City to inquire about the news. After all, as one of the largest cities in Dongzhou, its source of information is also very broad.

Since they were all cultivators, the city gate guards who always liked to extort people entering the city consciously ignored them.

After entering the city, everyone first found an inn to settle down temporarily, and then began to discuss where to go to inquire about the news.

Their first option was Linglong Pavilion in Qingdi City.

As a large city in Dongzhou, Qingdi City has attracted many large chambers of commerce, and so has Linglong Pavilion. Moreover, the scale of Linglong Pavilion here is much larger than that of Liyang City. Even the shopkeeper is in the realm of transformation, which is a whole realm higher than the shopkeeper in Liyang City. The status of a shopkeeper of this realm in Yunjian Pavilion will naturally not be low.

However, after Lu Qingyuan and others inquired, they were very disappointed, because even Yunjian Pavilion had no news of Feng Shao.

However, after learning that they were people coming down from Taiwei Mountain, the shopkeeper of Linglong Pavilion entertained them very warmly and gave them some suggestions, such as issuing a missing person notice through Linglong Pavilion, or inquiring about the news from other chambers of commerce. All large chambers of commerce have several branches, so intelligence is also one of the goods they sell. As for issuing a missing person notice, it is also one of the ways for large chambers of commerce to make money.

However, after asking about the price of issuing a missing person notice, everyone couldn't help but be amazed. They could afford this price, but after paying the money, they were basically out of money.

And issuing a missing person notice does not guarantee that the person can be found.

In desperation, they had to settle for the second best and decided to try their luck at other chambers of commerce first.

Next, everyone dispersed at the door of Linglong Pavilion and went to large chambers of commerce in the city. As Lu Qingyuan was the strongest, she acted alone.

Lu Qingyuan went straight to Tianbao Pavilion in the south of the city. As soon as she entered the door, she went straight to the point and consulted for intelligence.

It's just a pity that although Taiwei Sect is quite famous within hundreds of miles around Taiwei Mountain, it has basically no influence outside this range. As for Feng Shao, the son of Taiwei Sect, many people have only heard of him but have never seen him, so they have not paid attention to Feng Shao's whereabouts, and naturally there is no relevant information.

Lu Qingyuan was very disappointed with this result. But she didn't plan to give up. She decided to go directly to the headquarters of Yunjian Pavilion if nothing worked. Yunjian Pavilion must be paying some attention to Feng Shao's whereabouts.

But when she was thinking, she didn't notice that in Tianbao Pavilion, a young man in luxurious clothes was looking at her with a playful smile on his face.

When Lu Qingyuan was about to leave, the young man suddenly came forward and said to her with a smile: "Miss, you said you were looking for Feng Shao, the Saint of Taiwei Sect?"

Lu Qingyuan was startled and couldn't help asking: "Sir, do you know the whereabouts of my Senior Brother Feng?"

The young man took out a folding fan from somewhere, waved his hand, opened it, and fanned it in a romantic way, while smiling and saying: "I am not talented, but I have had some friendship with the Saint Son Feng Shao. And it is a coincidence that Feng Shao is now a guest in my house. I wonder if the young lady is..."

Lu Qingyuan didn't expect to hear the news of Feng Shao here. She was overjoyed and said quickly: "I am the junior sister of Senior Brother Feng Shao, and I am also from Taiwei Mountain. If you can take me to see Senior Brother Feng Shao, I will be very grateful!"

The young man smiled and said: "No problem, it's just a piece of cake."

Lu Qingyuan, who was delighted, didn't notice that in the young man's eyes, there was a hint of a conspiracy.

Sure enough, this kind of naive little girl is easiest to fool!