Unlike other cities of Murim, where commerce, sect power, or local traditions dictate life, Jinling is defined entirely by ritualized hierarchy. Every street, every gesture, every word is bound by unspoken law. To live in Jinling is to live inside a performance of authority — a never-ending play where the Emperor is both director and audience.
When citizens speak of life here, they often say: “We breathe in ceremony, and exhale obedience.” The smallest action is regulated by custom: the way one kneels, the depth of a bow, the words one may use when addressing superiors. Even laughter is modulated; nobles laugh softly, commoners laugh only in private, and only actors may laugh boldly in public without punishment.
Etiquette in Jinling is as strict as the city’s walls.
The Emperor and the Imperial Family: The Emperor is never addressed by name, only by titles such as Son of Heaven or The August Presence. To even speak the word “Emperor” in casual conversation is seen as reckless. The Empress is addressed as Heavenly Mother, and princes as Imperial Scions.
Officials and Bureaucrats: Citizens must bow when passing ministers or court officials, lowering themselves until the official has passed. Refusal marks one as insolent, a crime easily punished by prison.
Common People: Among themselves, the people live by more familiar hierarchies of age, family, and guild. Yet even here, the palace’s influence seeps in. Street vendors bow when a tax collector approaches, and families recite palace decrees during household meals as though they were sacred texts.
The enforcement of etiquette is not mere tradition — it is a tool of control. The Royal Guards often patrol public spaces, their silent presence ensuring that all gestures of respect are made correctly. In this way, Jinling’s culture is both lived and enforced, blending ritual with fear.
Jinling is famed for its festivals, but these spectacles are as much about intimidation as they are celebration.
The Dragon’s Procession: Once a year, the Emperor emerges in a grand parade. Carried in a golden palanquin, he moves from the palace through the Celebration Gate, accompanied by ministers, eunuchs, and Royal Guards. The city is decorated with lanterns and dragon banners, yet all fall silent when the palanquin passes. Citizens are required to kneel, foreheads to stone, until the Emperor has gone.
Victory Parades: When the Imperial Army or Royal Guards return from a successful campaign, captured rebels and enemies are chained and paraded through the streets before their execution at the Imperial Prison. What begins as a military triumph becomes a carefully staged morality play: loyalty rewarded, defiance destroyed.
Harvest Festival of Heaven’s Mandate: Tribute of grain, silk, and jade flows into Jinling each autumn. The Emperor offers the first sheaf of rice at the Temple of Heaven’s Mandate, reaffirming the dynasty’s right to rule. Feasts follow for nobles, while commoners receive scattered handouts — a reminder that their survival flows from imperial generosity.
Even lighter festivals are tinged with fear. Fireworks explode in brilliant colors, but every explosion also masks the screams from the prison yard, where executions are timed to coincide with celebration. In Jinling, joy and terror walk hand in hand.
Nowhere in the empire are class lines sharper than in Jinling.
Nobility: Draped in silks embroidered with dragons, nobles live in walled estates near the palace. Their wealth is visible in every ornament, but their fear is greater than their luxury, for palace intrigue claims them as often as rebels do.
Officials and Scholars: The bureaucratic class, many of whom studied at the Jinling Academy, hold immense power. A stroke of their brush can end families or elevate villages to prosperity. Yet they too live under constant surveillance.
Merchants and Artisans: While merchants thrive in the Golden Market, they are viewed with disdain by officials, who see profit-seeking as vulgar. Still, gold buys silence and influence, and many ministers secretly rely on merchants to fund their luxuries.
Commoners: Farmers, laborers, dockhands, and street hawkers make up the majority of the population. Their lives are ruled by taxes and fear of punishment. They bow often, speak little, and know that survival depends on remaining unnoticed.
The Forgotten: In the shadow of wealth and ceremony live beggars, orphans, and the dispossessed. In Jinling, poverty is treated as a moral failing, yet these same outcasts are courted by the Rootless Clan, who turn desperation into loyalty and hunger into blades.
This division is not just economic but visible. Nobles dine on rare meats while commoners scavenge rice gruel. Nobles walk under silk parasols, commoners under the glare of watchmen. The contrast is so stark that travelers from other cities often remark: “In Jinling, the poor kneel lower, and the rich kneel slower, but all kneel the same.”
Martial artists and sect disciples are both feared and restricted in Jinling. Unlike Chengdu, where sects operate openly, Jinling tolerates Murim only under imperial control.
Registration: All martial practitioners must register with the Warden’s Office upon entry. Names, sect affiliations, and martial levels are recorded. Those who refuse vanish into the prison cells.
Restrictions: Duels and displays of martial arts are forbidden within the city walls, punishable by imprisonment or execution. Despite this, underground duels thrive in gambling dens, often sponsored by nobles who seek entertainment.
Employment: The throne occasionally employs Murim heroes as guards, generals, or assassins, offering them gold and titles. But such honors are gilded cages; refusal to serve or attempts to leave often result in sudden disappearances.
Surveillance: The Royal Guards maintain informants within sects, ensuring no gathering or meeting in Jinling goes unnoticed. Even whispers of rebellion are swiftly silenced.
To the martial world, Jinling is a paradox: a city where strength is feared yet coveted, where sect leaders bow in public even as they scheme in secret. Many Murim wanderers avoid the city entirely, preferring the freedom of mountains and rivers. Yet all know that to influence the empire, one must eventually pass through Jinling’s gates.
For all its order, Jinling is steeped in superstition.
The Mandate of Heaven: Famines, plagues, or rebellions are read as signs that the dynasty has lost Heaven’s favor. Citizens whisper such things in private, but to speak them aloud invites prison.
The Dragon Veins: Daoists claim Jinling sits upon a convergence of earth’s dragon veins, giving it power and longevity. They say the palace’s golden roofs are aligned to channel this energy directly into the throne.
The Palace Ghosts: Servants speak of spirits haunting the Lotus Gardens and Shadow Cells. Some are said to be ministers executed unjustly, others sect leaders who died resisting imperial chains. Guards dismiss such stories, but few dare linger in the prison at night.
Auspicious Gestures: Citizens believe touching the golden lion statues at the gates grants luck, while others claim feeding koi in the palace’s moat ensures safety from persecution. Such practices blur loyalty and survival.
For ordinary citizens, life in Jinling is a rhythm of fear and survival. Farmers rise before dawn to deliver tribute grain. Merchants haggle under the watchful eyes of inspectors. Scholars chant in unison at the Academy, their voices echoing through corridors like prayers. Evenings bring lantern festivals and markets, but also curfews enforced by Royal Guards who patrol with silent steps.
Every day begins with the sound of drums from the Divine Ming Encampment, signaling the army’s drills. Every night ends with the clang of the prison gates locking shut. To live in Jinling is to live within walls of gold and iron, where every sunrise is authority renewed, and every sunset is obedience sealed.
In sum, Jinling’s culture is one of spectacle and submission. It dazzles with pageantry, silks, and fireworks, but beneath the splendor lie chains of etiquette, fear, and surveillance. Here, even laughter is political, even festivals are warnings, and even silence carries the weight of rebellion.