After the spectacle with Tang Ning, the trio were walking in silence, but Wang Ming sneaked a few amused glances at Tang Ning, who had a red face and averted her eyes from Wang Ming.
'What the hell was I even thinking, why the heavens did I behave like that?' Tang Ning scread internally as she tried to push down the blush on her face and then looked at Wang Ming and her sister neutrally.
"Wang Ming, you are definitely not from the Kingdom. You must be from outside the continent?" Tang Nian insisted.
Well, she is not wrong, Wang Ming thought, as technically she was not wrong—just he was not from this continent but not from this world at all.
"Anyway, can you ladies guide
to the butterfly district you talked about so that I can buy high-quality cauldrons and Alchemic Flas?" Wang Ming reminded both of them.
"Oh, right, it slipped my mind," Tang Ning paused, as she had nearly forgotten the main reason Wang Ming tagged along with them. She looked at Wang Ming and said, "We are almost there, it's just a short walk."
10 min later
After walking for so ti, they finally arrived at their destination.
"This..." Wang Ming was shocked by the scenario.
The entire place was bustling with people, and the fragrance of pills and various dicinal herbs perated through the air. Wang Ming could even see so wearing different robes, hinting they belonged to different sects.
'Well, this is the capital. I should have expected this,' Wang Ming thought. He had visited the normal market of the sect and even other cities, but none could co close to the extravagance of this market. He walked between the stalls with the girls and had used his soul eyes to check the items, and they were all high-quality items.
"Hehe, look at you, you're shocked by the items in the non-affiliated stores. Wait till you see the direct shops under the Tang Family," Tang Nian said in an amused voice, looking at Wang Ming.
"Non-affiliated?" Wang Ming threw a questioning look their way.
"You see, even though these stores are in the Butterfly District—which is in the domain of the Tang Family—they are not all owned by the Tang Family. This is the outer region of the Butterfly District, where non-affiliated stores or independent stores are set up and have lower-quality items. Let
take you to the inner ring," Tang Ning explained and walked deeper toward the center.
Wang Ming could see a wall dividing the outer ring from the inner ring, and there were so guards at the Peak Core Formation Realm and even one at the Golden Core Realm standing guard at the entrance.
Seeing the new scenario caught Wang Ming's attention, Tang Ning opened her mouth to introduce.
"Behind the walls are the main stores of the Butterfly. Almost every shop under the Tang Family is located there. Not only that, even most rchants in the country and outside the country have paid huge fees to open shops in the inner ring."
"Not only the Tang Family—even the Jiang Family, who are the richest among the clans and control all the auction houses across the kingdom; the Mui Clan, who are a family of array masters; and the Xu Family, who are the most famous blacksmiths and own countless weapon shops—each owns a comrcial district like the Butterfly District and follow the sa structure of Inner and Outer Ring."
Tang Ning explained, to which Wang Ming nodded his head. "I see."
As they reached the gates, before they even entered the city, Wang Ming could already sll the aroma of pills, which was ten tis stronger than the shops he passed by.
"Do you sll that, Wang Ming? The sll of pills and money," Tang Nian said to him arrogantly.
"The Golden Leaf City is also known as the land of opportunity. People from all around the continent co here to either start their own business or find jobs — it's one of the busiest places in the world. The comrcial districts of the top families are the main reason for the city's wealth."
"The top families also started and found success thanks to the Comrcial Districts; hence why this place is very important to us, so they have placed very powerful guards here."
Once they reached the gates, the guards stopped them and said, "Are you here to visit or stay? Do you intend on doing business here? Do you have any permits to enter the Inner Ring?"
"Permits?" Wang Ming asked the girls beside him.
"Yes, permits. You need permits to even enter the Inner Ring. The only way to get permits is to buy them using large amounts of money or get recomnded by other permit holders. You might think this is unfair, but we wouldn't want destitutes to pollute the atmosphere of the Inner Ring, where wealthy custors visit, and many of them are petty and get offended by even staying near poor people. Choosing between the satisfaction of the custors who will spend large amounts of money vs. poor people who cannot even afford the cheapest item, the answer is obvious, isn't it?" Tang Ning said with a shrug, and Wang Ming nodded his head in agreent.
'To gain respect you need money or power, this was the sa on Earth even,' Wang Ming thought. He did not think anything was wrong here; if he was running a business here, he would set similar rules.
"If you are here to open up your own business, you will need a business permit, which will cost 100,000 gold coins at minimum. If you are only here to visit, you will need a visiting permit, starting at 10,000 gold coins."
Tang Ning rely glanced at the guards before retrieving a red badge from her robes.
"T-The Tang Family's dallion!"
Tang Ning ignored their shocked looks and said in a neutral voice " Can we go in?"
" O-Of course" the guards hurriedly said as the group walked inside
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