Book 4: Chapter 10
When I ran into the old guy, Sung Wei at the Golden Spire back on Earth, he’d told me that there’d be ‘Places like this’ on every world. But I didn’t think he meant literally. Especially not by name even. But I supposed it made sense in a way. How else were star flung soldiers to find their way to the veteran’s bar no matter where they were?
Although I figured the Golden Spire here would be ten times better than the one back in Jurin, judging by what I could see of the capital city of Lu Shui Prime thus far. The street I was making my way down looked straight out of the imperial city back home.
Ornate blockwork covered every road like tile and along the sides were all manners of shops and stores, just like being in a city back in the old world on Earth. People by the thousands pushed up and down the streets, some of them driven in rickshaws, hauled by people dressed in nothing but rags.
The disparity became even more evident the further we got from the imperial palace, with cultivators of standing dressed in the finest of robes ignoring the filth-covered beggars lining the streets. I tried my best not to ignore them myself, shelling out a few coppers here and there, but after a couple of blocks, the spare Wen in my purse was completely exhausted.
I kept close to Hein, who seemed to know both exactly where he was going and who to stop and bow to and who to simply ignore. We got a few bows as well, but only from people of the lower castes it seemed.
“How do you know who to bow to?” I asked.
“Anyone who is in finer robes than you, is a good rule of thumb,” Hein said looking at me oddly. “Even you should know that. Although, I guess with what you used to wear back home, that would be everyone to you, so you probably wouldn’t know the difference.”
I just laughed, mostly because it was true.
“Yeah, whatever,” I said with [Indifference].