It was still early the next day when the city wakes up from its slumber. Sounds of people walking around filled the city, rousing anyone left asleep. Cao Yaun, staying in one of the inns in the city, suddenly sat up, nearly knocking his head on the hanging lantern by his bedside.
Thinking that he was still in the forest, Cao Yaun become instantly vigilant as he looked around sharply. After a few seconds of realizing it was not the case, he let out a sigh of relief and relaxed his muscles, leaning back on the bed in the inn.
"Darn… this is such a good and comfortable bed," Cao Yaun groaned.
After a whole month of sleeping on the floor, and tree branches, this was almost enough to make him fall asleep. Looking outside the window, Cao Yaun admired the view of the sun's rays piercing through the window panes of the Travelers' Quiet Inn.
"Ahhh!!! What a nice and relaxing nap."
Glancing at the sun that was already almost in the middle of the sky, realizing it was almost noon, and getting up, he grabbed his iron rod and walked out of the room towards the downstairs hall.
As he walked into the inn's main hall, the murmuring and gossiping of the customers suddenly ceased as everyone turned their heads in his direction. Countless sets of eyes turned to stare at him, giving him goosebumps as he did not know what to feel. Not knowing their intentions, Cao Yaun waved at the inn owner, a middle-aged man behind the counter, before asking,
"Morning, Mr. Zhao."
"Morning, boy."
Afterward, no one uttered a word as all the customers stared at him, making him a little uncomfortable. As Cao Yaun approached a seat by the window, some of their mouths even formed a circular shape in pure astonishment.
"Holy moly!" someone shouted as another customer walked in, cursing at the colossal figure of Cao Yaun sitting by the window in the hall. All the other customers in the hall gave a solemn nod, not saying a word.
"What are you cursing about, you bastard?"
"Come one, get out of the way," someone said.
"Urghhh…"
With the first voice, more voices followed from those entering the inn and saw Cao Yaun. Although it was common to see tall people, what they saw would have made any of them think otherwise. Sitting in the chair, Cao Yaun was at least a head taller than the tallest person in the inn. In fact, he almost seemed to grow as he cultivated, reaching almost 4 meters in height.
"Can you guys stop looking?" Cao Yaun's voice thundered as he sat there, feeling more scrutinized with every passing second, giving him goosebumps all over.
Still in the bedclothes given to him by zhang wei, cao yaun felt quite alien among the group wearing silk, cotton, and other high-end fibers as clothing. Although he was almost two times taller and bigger than those in the hall, he felt as if everyone here could kill him with the auras projected unconsciously.
Bang! Bang!!
"Everyone, can you give me a little face and stop making our little….. ughm, sorry, iur giant friend here, uncomfortable with your stares?" Feeling the stares boring into his bones, Mr. Zhao slammed the counter with a wooden mug, catching everyone's attention.
"Sorry about that, everyone. Just eat your food," he added.
"Ugh… sorry," muttered one customer before taking a sip of his drink and looking away.
"Yes… sorry, we are just surprised."
"Yeah, just surprised."
"Yeah," others echoed, all like robots, finally taking their eyes off Cao Yaun, although they would still occasionally glance in his direction from time to time.
"Ughhh… can I ask what you are?" after what seemed like an eternity of silence, one of the customers who had just entered and could not contain his curiosity asked loudly towards Cao Yaun's direction, Mr. Zhao's lips twitch as the others nodded in agreement.
He also was surprised when Cao Yaun came in last night. When he opened the door, he had almost sliced Cao Yaun's head with his sword that hanged on his belt before realizing he was in the city and that it was highly unlikely that some monster had taken a short trip from the forest to his Gentle and Peace-Loving inn.
Recalling the event, Mr. Zhao chuckled to himself as he watched the curious expressions of the customers who flooded Cao Yaun with questions.
Cao Yaun replied to some of them patiently. "I'm just a traveler passing through. I came from the other side of the forest."
The customers' eyes bulged even more as they bombarded him with questions. Cao Yaun replied concisely, giving some information about his travel before finishing his meal, getting up, paying Zhao, and exiting the inn under the watchful gaze of the customers.
Cao Yaun then proceeded to the Baixun City's market district to sell his beast materials. The city was indeed quite lively and full of people. Merchants, cultivators, and ordinary citizens filled the roads. Beautiful buildings made of wood and stone stood tall alongside the street.
Colorful banners that fluttered from store to store announced the various goods and services available. A delicious aroma of food, incense, and other goods wafted in the air, while all kinds of other goods could be found at the many different shops that could fill one's mind with various items one would never imagine existing in this world.
With his large figure, he attracted more attention to himself than the shops and their goods as he pushed through the crowd and, at some points, moved away from people's stares.
"Damn it!" Cao Yaun shuddered at one point as his hands moved around his body, as if people were inspecting him as a buyer would inspect goods on display. Still, some had the audacity to touch where they should not, luckily for them, Cao Yaun has fast reflexes, allowing him to quickly escape the busy crowd as he hastened to the beast material market.
When he got there, Cao Yaun sold almost all his materials collected from the forest for a good price in silver coins. As he turned a corner, he ran into a familiar sight of the young lady in the red robe of the previous day, Lin Qing. She waved at him enthusiastically.
"Cao Yaun! You're still in the city!"
"hello line qinq" cao yaun greeted politely returned her greetings. "yeah I am still in the city probably stay for some days before moving on."
"i guess that already, you wouldn't have cross the yaunxin forest, just to come and stay in the baixin city, would you?"
"nope…" cao yaun consented, while asking about her friends. "where are the others?"
"well, we don't stay at the same place" lin qinq replied as they move through the crowd.
"though we plan to meet later in the day, would you care to join us?"
"nah… I would leave you guys to you thing" cao yaun shakes his head. "I want to explore the city a bit more and relax while at it"
"oh. Then let me give you a briefing on the baixun city…" lin qinq said as they make a beline around a path leading to the out market area.
"the baixun city is sectioned into five parts, there are 3 major clans and 2 sects in the city, the bai sect in the north, the west side of the ciy houses the silver leaf sword sect and the yaun clan, the east has the lin clan, and the south house the zhen clan where also the market district is located. The city lord resident and other officials are all located in the center of the city"
As lin qinq talked continued… cao yaun come to have a primilinary understanding of the city's layout. Supposedly the southern side is the city's commercial district which housed the alchemy pavillon, the blacksmith area, the hunters association and also cultivation inns. It is said that the southern area was turned into a commercial hub by the zhen clan's enormous wealth. The zhen clans are shareholders to almost all of the major stores and business in the area.
They specialized in doing bussiness across the entire azura province, sometimes even going to other provinces as they have accumulated wealth upon wealth over the years since the establishment of the clan. They posses over dozens of marchent caravens alone.
The other clans also have their specialities. The lin clan majored in doing alchemy bussines and handling of herbs and other alchemy related materials, while the bai clan where are mostly blacksmith.
Each of the clans each held power over certain areas and maintain balance between themselves and the sect. The baixun province is said to be founded by the ancestors of the bai, who came all the way from the western region of the desolate domain.
The currrent city lord is said the be the from the tenth generation of the bai clan, and a tier 3 qi realm expert, one of the major reason for electing him as the city lord was said to be his genius level cultivation and honest character. He had been the city lord for the past 20 years, now in his late 50 and still strong.