Chapter 608: What Money Cannot Buy
The Shen family's private archive occupied a long, low room behind the counting house. Shielded lamps hung between shelves of maps, route records, cultivation notes, and histories that had never appeared in Moonfall's public bookshops.
Shen Yuanhe walked slowly, but his steps grew steadier as they continued.
"Where does Moonfall truly stand?" Leon asked. "People in the market speak as if every important road ends here."
"For most of them, it does," the old man replied. "Moonfall is a frontier gate. Resources from the Three-Moon Desolation pass through us before becoming wealth elsewhere. That makes the city valuable, not supreme."
Four major houses divided most of Moonfall's authority. They controlled the gates, auctions, large formations, and contracts that kept trade moving. Yet none wanted a direct conflict with a regional power such as Ninefold Ridge.
