Chapter 4409 — The Grand Gathering Opens
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
A whole year and more—all that had happened in that time, how could ten thousand words ever suffice? And women were emotional creatures besides; whatever happened, they always wanted to share it with the man they loved. Even Qiu Lingshan was no exception.
Over the matter of how long these letters should be, they went back and forth, one chiming in after another, debating enthusiastically in their little group for a full hour before they finally managed a grudging consensus. Then each fetched paper and brush, found a spot at random, and began writing furiously, until the whole scene felt exactly like the tense hush before a major exam.
As for what these characters would actually end up writing—that would only be known once Wei Zhao received it on Cloud Terrace Island. Of course, there was also the chance he'd never receive it at all: for instance, if the letters they produced, gathered all together, proved simply too heavy and too thick, and Central Express refused to ship them...
Cloud Terrace Island, South Continent, the Demon Cold Sea.
Demon Cold City, already a bustling place, was today more crowded than ever. No mystery why—the long-anticipated South Continent Escort Guild Assembly was finally officially opening today.
Though it was called an escort guild assembly, which at first hearing sounded like it had nothing to do with the vast majority of people, in truth the great escort guilds, within the perpetually chaotic waters of the South Continent, occupied a status far beyond that of ordinary logistics organizations.
Lacking any unified, powerful official authority, the many escort guilds, beyond their core duty of guarding cargo, largely doubled as the keepers of order across the many seas of the South Continent. Their very existence served as an indispensable deterrent to pirates and every manner of petty ruffian.
And so it was: though all the waters of the South Continent were lands of chaos, the degree of that chaos varied greatly from place to place. Where a powerful escort guild held sway, order tended to be relatively stable; where only weak guilds existed—or none at all—the chaos ran unchecked.
The Demon Cold Sea, for instance: with the Four Seas Escort Guild, perennial occupants of the top spot, holding sway there, its order had always been the best among all the seas of the South Continent.
The Weihu Sea, likewise: home to the Heaven-Supporting Escort Guild, ranked fifth, its order might not match the Demon Cold Sea, but at least it had yet to descend into utter ruin.
The Zhen Duan Sea, however, had no proper powerful guild within its bounds at all. Its chaos far surpassed that of the Demon Cold Sea or the Weihu Sea; it had always been a gathering place for pirates. Even if pirates openly discussed their robberies, no one dared interfere—because seven of the ten people around you might well be pirates themselves, and the remaining three were brokers who found them work and fenced their stolen goods.
So were it not for these escort guilds, the state of the many seas would likely be far more chaotic and far crueler than it was now—quite possibly a total wasteland, where not even a somewhat prosperous city like Demon Cold City could be found.
Thus the quinquennial South Continent Escort Guild Assembly gathered every escort guild of real strength in the South Continent seas. This was no mere trade gathering—it was a core event watched with the keenest attention by every soul across the South Continent waters. (To be continued...)