Douluo Continent: My name is Yang Jian, and I achieved sainthood through my physical body

The further you go, the shorter the buildings become, and the height of the eaves gradually decreases from more than a person's height to just enough for a person to stand up.

In some places, you even have to bend down slightly to pass under the eaves.

The roof tiles became increasingly broken and old, their color changing from dark gray to light gray, and then from light gray to a grayish-white that had been washed by wind and rain countless times.

In some places, most of the roof tiles have fallen off, revealing the dark brown wooden beams and straw mats underneath.

In some places, they even simply covered the affected areas with tarpaulins and wooden boards as a form of repair.

The oilcloth had turned yellow and become brittle, its edges curled up, making a soft pattering sound in the wind.

He had already passed through the neat and clean streets of Tiandou City and the bustling commercial district.

The neatly paved stone road, the shops adorned with silk lanterns, and the well-dressed pedestrians were all left behind by him.

He is now walking in the shadows of the city.

The reality behind the high walls and on the edge of the temple fair was unfolding before his eyes, piece by piece.

Chapter 235 Jueding

The atmosphere in the slums was completely different from the outside.

The air was filled with the pungent smoke from burning damp firewood, the sour and rotten sewage from the dark drains in the corners of the walls, the stuffy smell of fermenting rotten vegetable leaves, and the heavy musty smell emanating from old clothes and bedding.

All the scents intertwined and blended together, forming a unique and heavy undertone.

It was like an invisible fog, shrouding the entire area.

The street was so narrow that only a thin sliver of sky could pass through between the eaves of the houses on both sides.

The pale gray sunlight fell on the muddy ground like a stretched ribbon of light, illuminating the unevenness and texture of the road surface clearly.

The doors and windows of the houses on both sides were tightly closed.

Some window frames were crooked, with rags stuffed in the gaps; some doors could no longer be closed properly, with dim light shining through the cracks.

The corner was piled with various odds and ends: broken earthenware pots, rotten wooden boxes, and rusty iron pots.

In some places, there were even piles of burnt beams, as if they had been dragged out of the collapsed house and were left behind.

There were very few people on the road.

Occasionally, someone would peek halfway out from the crack in the door, catch a glimpse of Yang Jian's incongruously clean white clothes, and then quickly retreat back inside.

The people's clothes were covered in patches, the stitches rough and hurried, as if the menders didn't have much time for fine work.

The color of the clothes had faded so much that the original color was almost unrecognizable. The cuffs and collar were worn white and frayed, and in some places there were holes, revealing the thin skin underneath.

The faces of those people were etched with a similar appearance by poverty and toil.

High cheekbones, deep-set eyes, rough and cracked skin, like a layer of old tree bark worn thin by wind and sand.

Every wrinkle records a time of exposure to wind and sun, a time of overwork, and a time of unbearable hunger.

They looked at him with very complicated expressions.

There was vigilance, fear, and an instinctive sense of alienation.

It's like watching something that doesn't belong to this world from behind an invisible wall.

There was no malice or kindness in that gaze, only a pure sense of alienation.

Yang Jian walked amidst those gazes, his pace unhurried.

His gaze swept over the dilapidated houses and low eaves on both sides of the street. He felt no emotion, but his eyes did not leave.

He saw an old man squatting under the low eaves, his body huddled against the damp wall.

The old man held a chipped bowl in his hands. The porridge in the bowl was so thin that you could see your reflection in it. There were very few grains of rice, and the soup made up most of the bowl, with a few small pieces of vegetable floating on top.

He slowly stirred the porridge in the bowl with a thin chopstick, as if waiting for it to cool down, or as if he was using the action to kill time.

Yang Jian's gaze lingered for a moment on the edge of the chipped bowl.

The notch has been polished smooth and rounded over many years, clearly indicating that it has been used for a long time. The glaze on the edges has been worn away, revealing the rough clay underneath.

He also saw several children squatting under a dead tree deep in the alley, drawing something on the ground with twigs.

Their clothes were more worn than anyone else's, patched upon patched, and in some places even tied together with hemp rope and scraps of cloth.

The little boy with his hair in a topknot was looking down, intently drawing a crooked circle.

The little girl with pigtails next to her knelt on the ground and drew a smaller circle next to the main circle.

Their faces showed complete focus as they were immersed in their own world.

Their focus made them temporarily forget their surroundings, their hunger and cold, and only remember every trace the branches traced on the ground.

Sunlight filtered through the sparse branches of the withered tree and fell upon them.

The light spots flickered on the worn-out clothes, making them appear to be glowing.

A woman sat on a low stool by the door, holding a crying baby in her arms.

Her expression was tired and numb, like a machine that had been used for too long.

Sunken cheeks, dark shadows around the eyes, and chapped lips.

She gently patted the baby's back with one hand, the movement mechanically repetitive, the rhythm as even as a pendulum.

It was as if this action had been going on for so long that it could be completed automatically without any thought.

The baby's cries echoed intermittently in the air, sometimes loud, sometimes soft, sometimes near, sometimes far.

It's like a fixed component in the background sound of this area.

Yang Jian walked slowly through the two streets.

His gaze swept quietly across all the images, lingering on nothing and missing nothing.

He saw a young man wiping a small patch of a dirty mat on the ground with a rag, his movements careful and meticulous, as if he were doing something important.

He saw a thin, middle-aged man sitting on the doorstep, holding an extinguished pipe, staring blankly at the sky cut across the eaves at the end of the alley.

He saw two old people sitting by the wall, one peeling beans and the other mending clothes. They didn't speak, only the sounds of their hands moving in turn could be heard.

He walked through those streets and alleys, through those gazes and atmospheres, each step firmly planted on real ground.

When he left the slum, his steps were as steady as when he came, neither fast nor slow.

As he passed through the narrow alley and broke down the door, the hem of his coat lightly brushed against a clump of wild grass in the corner of the wall.

The tips of the grass blades left a very faint green mark on the fabric.

Then he stepped out of the shadows and back onto the brightly lit street.

The changing light cast a clear dividing line on his face, half bright and half dark.

Then the bright areas become more and more numerous, the dark areas become narrower and narrower, and finally they are completely covered.

Warm light fell on him.

The shadows behind him seemed to have been completely left in another world the moment he stepped out of the alley.

He slowed his pace as he walked back to the main street.

The low eaves of the slums, the figures in the corners of the walls, the tired and numb faces, the children drawing circles under the withered trees—those images still remain quietly in the corners of his consciousness.

He made a decision.

He should mention these things to Qian Renxue.

Qian Renxue has already ascended the throne and holds the power and resources of an empire in her hands. Entrusting this matter to her is much faster and more thorough than leaving it unattended.

She needs to add this to the routine governance after the regime stabilizes.

Yang Jian walked along the main street for a while, his steps casual and relaxed, his gaze sweeping aimlessly over the shops and pedestrians on the street.

Then it stopped at a corner.

Across the street is a horizontal street, and at the street corner there is a small stall selling steamed buns.

The steamer in front of the stall was steaming with white vapor, which billowed out in clumps and was then blown away by the wind.

In the afternoon light, it forms flowing white swirls.

Several people were standing next to the pancake stall.

Their clothing was quite different from that of the pedestrians on the street.

Although not luxurious, it has an incongruous looseness compared to the busy and orderly street scene around it.

Yang Jian's gaze passed over the pancake stall and landed on those people.

Flander, Zhao Wuji, Tang San, Ma Hongjun, Oscar, and Dai Mubai stood in a row under the shade of a tree in front of the stall.

Chapter 236 What are you doing here?

Flanders was talking to the stall owner, gesturing with one hand as if asking for directions, while holding a few banknotes in the other.

Zhao Wuji stood to the side with his arms crossed, his square face full of impatience, his brows slightly furrowed, and his gaze wandering around.

Tang San stood silently in the middle of the crowd, head down, his gaze fixed on the tips of his shoes.

He was thinner than before, with slightly prominent cheekbones and a more defined jawline, like someone who had been weighed down by a heavy object for a long time and was slowly shrinking inward.

Ma Hongjun squatted by the roadside, his round body curled up in a ball, sweat dripping down his face.

He wiped his face with his sleeve, and sweat started pouring down again.

Oscar stood next to Tang San, one hand in his pocket and the other holding a half-eaten pancake.

The edges of the pancake still bore teeth marks. He seemed distracted by something, and stopped chewing mid-chew.

Dai Mubai stood at the back of the procession, watching the endless stream of carriages and pedestrians on the street.

He stood there, dressed in drab gray clothes, as quiet and as somber as a shadow.

There wasn't a trace of the former Third Prince of the Star Luo Empire on his body.

Yang Jian stood at the corner across the street, his gaze sweeping over those faces one by one, his heart unmoved.

Those faces had once occupied a place in his memory.