By noon on Day Three of the great price war, the commercial avenue of Planet Seventy-Five looked like a tale of two different universes.
On the north side of the broad avenue stood Taichu Sanctuary Mall Number Seventy-Five.
A line of laughing, singing families stretched for ten miles down the boulevard. Children ran across the emerald lawns, clutching free blue baby Star-Whale plushies that squeaked when squeezed.
Grandmothers carried woven baskets filled with one-coin wood-spirit healing pills and fresh spiritual scallions. Taichu couriers in bright yellow vests wheeled out carts of chilled melon juice and warm steamed meat pies, handing them to anyone waiting in line.
Inside the glass doors of the sanctuary mall, soft celestial flute music drifted through the air.
Elderly couples sat in comfortable massage chairs in the wellness lounge, drinking sweet herbal tea while young medical apprentices checked their meridian pulses. Clean-Spirit Reactors hummed quietly in the corner, keeping the temperature cool and the air fragrant with pine blossoms.
Across the four-lane mag-rail street, on the south side of the avenue, stood Blood-Tax Mega-Mall Number Seventy-Five.
It was an eight-story palace of black obsidian and gold leaf, covering thirty city blocks.
