Chapter 23: What? Double Taxation?

"What are you doing?"

"Huh?" Su Qingyue looked over. A player was reaching out to touch a passerby's face. The passerby, both frightened and furious, glared at him intensely.

Just imagine: if you were walking down the street and some eccentric lunatic talking to himself suddenly reached out to touch your face, how would you feel?

The player marveled, "My God, the fact that there's a reaction to touching their face is so realistic! It’s just that the texture of the dust on the skin feels a bit too rough!" He then touched his own face. "Hmm, my face feels much better to touch!"

The passerby: "..."

*What kind of bizarre nonsense is this? How unlucky to run into a madman the moment I step outside!* Too speechless to bother with someone who appeared mentally unstable, he quickly hurried away as if fleeing.

"I wonder what the texture of our beautiful little Sect Master's face is like..." everyone mused, lost in thought.

Su Qingyue grew alert and quickly covered her face, stepping backward. Although the players were itching to try, they didn't dare. Offending a random passerby had no consequences, but offending a key NPC on their own side was a different story.

Fearing they would continue to make a scene, Su Qingyue immediately spoke up, "Let's line up to enter the city! There’s still time to look around and grab dinner!"

At the mention of this, the players perked up. That was right! Perhaps the city gate was just old and simple, but the inside might be quite nice. Seeing an ancient city, going shopping, and grabbing a bite to eat—that sounded like fun!

Having finally left the wilderness map to enter a town, they were eager to explore. Concerned with the prospect of entering a new map, the players were quite disciplined, quickly lining up and waiting patiently for the guards to inspect them.

The guards wore complete sets of polished, thick iron armor, their shields and weapons gleaming with a piercing, cold light under the sun.

"Holy crap, these NPC guards have full gear!"
"They look pretty top-tier!"
"That sword, that shield—that’s my dream loadout right there!"
"Their gear is all matched sets and way better than ours!"
"The drop rate for gear from mobs is so low; our sets are incomplete, and they're just blue-tier. These guys? They look like they're sporting purple-tier at least!"
"With armor that shiny and thick, I’d bet it’s gold-tier!"

Su Qingyue had set the game so that beasts and monsters killed by players had a chance to drop gear, but the probability was low and the quality mediocre. After all, this was the world of cultivation; beasts in an ordinary forest wouldn't drop high-level equipment.

Then, she heard this:

"How about we just rush them and start a raid? Let's treat these NPC guards like bosses and farm them!"
"Great idea! In a game this realistic and humanized, we should definitely be able to strip them of their gear!"

Like in any online game, farming humanoid mobs for full gear sets was standard practice. Even Lan Ling was considering the feasibility. As an adult male with a hot-blooded streak, even if he were usually rational, his restraint vanished the moment he saw that cool, handsome armor and those grand swords.

Hearing the players' dangerous remarks, Su Qingyue could only be grateful that she had previously enabled an auto-censor for player dialogue that wasn't meant for others to hear. Otherwise, they would be under siege by NPCs right now.

Of course, she couldn't just let the players run wild, or they really might try to wipe out every guard in the city just to turn them into a loot dungeon. *Should I issue a system warning, or release a quest?* she pondered.

Lan Ling reluctantly abandoned the tempting idea. "Better not. Does everyone remember that our Sect Master is currently in a state of 'faked death' and fleeing the Xuantian Sect? Given the realism of this game, if we kill these guards, it will definitely attract attention!"

Feilong Zaitian also realized the gravity of the situation. "Exactly. Things are already troublesome enough. If we get put on a wanted list by the royal family of this city and draw in enemies, the losses will outweigh the gains!"

Xiao Mo added, "The players in the second beta phase might get beaten back to the respawn point the moment they log in. How would we play then?"

If they truly turned the whole world against them, the second-wave players would end up killing them!

The players all calmed down, though they still drooled with envy at the sight of the weapons and armor.

Xiao Mo’s eyes welled up. "Sect Master, those armor sets and swords are so cool!"
Feilong Zaitian was equally wistful. "Yeah, I want them so bad. Will we ever have a day like that?"

Since they were her own people, Su Qingyue felt a pang of sympathy. "Yes, we certainly will. Once we reach the Su family ancestral grounds, everyone will get two sets—one to wear and one to throw away!"

"Hooray!"

Having successfully lined up and passed the guards' inspection to enter the city, the group cheered and rushed inside, eager to get a good look at an ancient city.

The guards at the gate sneered. "How laughable. A bunch of country bumpkins and beggars who have never seen the world, and they have the nerve to call themselves rogue cultivators?"
"Even if they were rogue cultivators, would a real immortal look like this? Their clothes are filthy and ragged!"
"A hundred beggars claiming to be a hundred rogue cultivators! Hahaha, it’s killing me! I’ve never heard of such a massive number of rogue cultivators!"

In the cultivation world, there would never be such a large number of rogue cultivators coming to a remote little city. Combined with the players' journey of fighting monsters and traveling, their clothes were stained with sweat and grime. Looking bedraggled and covered in blood and filth, it was no wonder the guards looked down on them. In their eyes, they were just lying beggars masquerading as cultivators.

"Still, that little girl in the lead is truly beautiful! I wonder why she’s hanging out with these scamming beggars?"

Su Qingyue heard this with her sharp ears. She couldn't help but feel conflicted, thinking to herself, *Oh, why thank you very much!*

"What’s wrong, everyone? Why have you stopped?" she asked, curious to see the players standing still.

"Is this an ancient street? It’s so strange; it’s completely different from the historical dramas!"
"Yeah, it should look quite prosperous, with people coming and going, laughing and talking, children running around, and plenty of street vendors shouting their wares!"
"That’s how they act in the shows. Did we go the wrong way? Is this even a city?"

Lan Ling frowned, too. Although he realized it might not be very prosperous, the disparity was too great. The street before them had only a few sparse stalls along the sides, and the pedestrians were few and far between, the atmosphere desolate.

Moreover, the people looked exhausted and numb, wearing tattered, patched rags made of coarse fabric. They weren't just poorly dressed; they were shockingly thin and pathetic. Through their thin clothes, one could even see the protruding bones of their spines. Their exposed skin was cracked and rough, covered in scars—old wounds from years of manual labor and farm work.

Xiao Mo sniffled. "These people are so pitiful. The vibe here is strange; it makes me sad."
"I feel like ancient China in history wasn't this miserable, right?"

Su Qingyue sighed. "Part of it is because this is a remote, small city. Another part is that, besides handing over a portion of their income to the government as taxes, the common people here have to pay another portion to the cultivation sects or noble clans."

Feilong Zaitian was stunned. "You mean they have to pay double taxes? That’s too much!"

The common people were already struggling to survive, and having to pay two sets of taxes was adding insult to injury—it was too tragic! His fists tightened. *Are these people even human? How are they supposed to survive this?!*