Chapter 369: Chaos in the City

Quite a lot of snow piled up in Riverside. Large palm-sized snowflakes landed on the roofs as the blizzard raged on, causing the tiles to wobble.

While the major terrestrial-vein formation still ran even with the divine armament gone, it wasn't able to keep the heavy snowfall out completely. The best it could do was dampen the weather to a point where the city's infrastructure could survive it, but whether normal humans could was a completely different matter.

An Jing was in no rush to head to the guild's headquarters at the city center. Instead, he walked normally from one street to the next, observing how people were living. The roofs of many houses in Riverside had icicles forming on them. Yet, the cold weather wasn't able to suppress the smell of rot in the air.

As he waded through the ice, he noticed lumps on both sides of the street that looked like they were sealed off by the snow. They were corpses, all of them frozen solid in odd positions, completely exposed to the blizzard. People who didn't look carefully might mistake them for rocks or rubble from torn-down buildings. An Jing saw quite a lot of them, all in odd positions, some frozen to death, some dying from hunger and others who perished from beatings.

Some workers from Bejeweled complained as they shoveled off the snow and loaded the corpses into carts, seemingly intent on disposing of them outside the city. Apart from that, the rest of the guild's goons forced food and fuel sales on the remaining cityfolk.

Even though they could just rob them by force, they're forcing sales on them instead. I really don't know whether it's because of their mercantile instincts or that they're still afraid of outright breaking Grand Chen's laws. An Jing stopped and watched it all unfold.

Maybe they're not willing to go overboard on account of that powerful friend they have. Though that was his initial theory, it didn't take long for him to be proven wrong. He suddenly felt incredibly naive. He simply hadn't seen enough of the world.

The Bejeweled Traders Guild wasn't beneath taking things by force either! An Jing coincidentally came across a food carriage on the street. He didn't take particular notice of it at first, but he soon turned around and saw the marking on the carriage. It was the blue, wavy insignia of Hanlang Wayguard Logistics.

Huh? An Jing blinked a few times and switched his gaze between the people and the carriage. Are they for real? So they robbed the supplies that the settlements in the city provided only to sell them off themselves! Even bandits would have a harder time stealing as much money as they do!

An Jing had been in a good mood after reuniting with his mother, so he went easy on the guild's martialists earlier. They would recover after a few days' rest at most. However, seeing this made him feel that he should've gone much harder. What is the deal with these animals? How could they deign to make profit in such a horrid manner?!

He approached the carriage and asked, "Hey, where did you get these supplies from?"

"Why do you care where we got it from?" said the martialist on the carriage impatiently. "Are you here to buy or not?!"

"Sure. Give me one box." An Jing raised his hand and grasped his fist, emitting some aura and gently lifting a box out of the carriage into his hand, causing the snow around him to flutter.

Tide Aura? Or is this Fortification? The martialist on the carriage shook with awe. Someone who could use aura to manipulate heavy objects wasn't someone he could afford to offend. He hurriedly got off the carriage and chuckled amicably. "Ah, I see we have a respected martialist here. It was fortunate of me to run into someone like you! Consider the box a gift!"

"For real?"

"Yes!"

"I wouldn't mind if you wanted me to pay for it, though," An Jing said, stretching out the end of his sentence. "How much do you think a box is worth?"

"Hmm..." The martialist looked at the box and hesitated for a moment. "How about two-and-a-half liang of silver?"

This was a realistic price. The box was much heavier than the one Shen Mubai had bought. While it was still more expensive than usual, one had to account for the increased cost of transporting these goods during such a heavy snowstorm. If those goods had actually been paid for by Bejeweled and shipped to the city, the price was nothing if not reasonable.

"You are quite an interesting lot... So you do know how much these things would actually cost. Heaven only knows how many people have been forced to die because of all of you."

The moment An Jing smiled, the carriage driver immediately sensed bloodlust. Before he could say anything, An Jing tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Relax. I won't do anything to you, but here's a word of advice."

He turned to the guild headquarters not far away and said, "You should leave the city now and go back to your hometown down south. Something bad might happen if you stay here."

The martialist trembled as he felt a chill colder than that of the snowstorm from the young man before him. Right before he nodded, An Jing vanished from his sight.

"Did... did I just see a ghost?!" The martialist looked around and saw no trace of An Jing at all. He had left too quickly and quietly using Profoundstep. The frightened man made a silent prayer before calling someone else to take over and sneaking away.

***

Xu Tai entered the city some time ago and headed downtown. He saw a group of people walking away from the guild headquarters in a crestfallen manner, intent on leaving the city.

They're going out when the weather's this harsh. It doesn't look like they have much food with them either. Isn't that just suicide? While Xu Tai loved money, it was mainly because he needed it for martial cultivation. If he didn't charge enough and ended up injured for a mission, his martial progress would falter. But at the end of the day, he was quite a warm-hearted person, so he approached the group and asked, "Hey, old guy, what's the deal here? Why are you all leaving the city during a blizzard?"

The leader of the group was an old man with a long, white beard. Seeing the hulking man with a facial scar gave the old man the impression that he just came across a powerful martialist. Respectfully, he bowed and said, "Sigh... We ran out of money and even sold our ancestral homes. None of us can bear to face our forebears now, and if this keeps on going we'll perish anyway. Others might be afraid of the beasts swarming the city, but those of us here have already lost everything. So, we no longer care about it. We're going to take this gamble to see if we can go south to seek out a different life."

Xu Tai saw that there were women and children in the group too. The youngest of them were around seven months old, cradled by their stick-thin mothers. Sighing, he said, "Is there anyone among you who can cook?"

"Umm..." The old man didn't quite understand why he asked this question. "Well, of course."

"Then come with me," Xu Tai said. "Don't go too far away from the city just yet. I need you to go to the southern bank of Yonder River outside the city. Wait in the empty house there. Once I finish what I need to do here, I'll take you down south. You just have to cook for me and my fellow wayguards. That'll be enough to pay us for transporting you."

"Umm..." The old man looked at his family and began to tear up. They had finally encountered a good person! They knelt and wanted to kowtow to him. "Our benefactor! A benefactor at last!"

Xu Tai sighed and motioned for them to stand before giving them detailed instructions. Only after that did he head toward the traders guild.