146: Chapter 146 This damn stone slab looks so familiar

Sleeping soundly until the break of dawn.

Awakening slowly, Xie Feng opened his eyes, returned to the imperial palace, and filled the silk with some new points of attention he felt were necessary.

A very faint fragrance of ink drifted through the hall.

Xie Feng placed the cinnabar imperial brush on the brush holder and rubbed his aching wrists.

Outside the window, the sky was already fully bright.

In the plaza of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Imperial Guards were still dragging out the last batch of unconscious Cultivators who had forced the palace.

Brain Matter had already brainwashed these people and helped the Imperial Guards rewrite their memories to prevent them from suffering mental shocks when recalling, lest a few more people went mad upon returning.

Tu Ziguan sat on the threshold, tilting his head to clean his ears. The low-frequency buzzing when The King in Yellow descended had rattled his eardrums severely, and now everything he heard sounded as if separated by a layer of water.

Moreover, he was extremely ruthless with his own actions; he reckoned one of his ears was deaf.

After coming back online, Lu Mingyuan squatted beside him, holding an extremely thin bronze probe in his hand, carefully repairing his eardrum for him.

"Don't move." Lu Mingyuan pushed Tu Ziguan's head half an inch to the side, "There are three cracks on your eardrum. Another millimeter off and it would have perforated."

Tu Ziguan grunted with a grimace, muttering that if he went deaf, Mo Tang would definitely laugh at him upon his return.

Xie Feng walked out from the hall.

Zhou Shudan stood on the steps at the entrance of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, his bright yellow dragon robe stained with blood left from scratching the slate last night.

He took the silk fabric, unfolded it, read through it once, and then raised his head to look at Xie Feng.

"Although We do not quite understand these Spells, We will never forget the descent of that being last night for the rest of Our life.

How long did it take you to write these?"

Xie Feng sat down against the veranda pillar of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, moving his stiff fingers.

"Just a moment ago. Mainly, the conditions for casting Hastur's Spell must be written clearly; not a single one can be missing.

The nine boulders must be of full size, the four-square-kilometer large lake must be sufficient, and Aldebaran must be right in the center of the zenith. As for the chanters, you must try to find direct Bloodlines, with nine people speaking simultaneously, and not a single one can stop.

It is recommended to prepare a few extras; this thing is prone to fainting while chanting."

Zhou Shudan smiled slightly, carefully rolled up the silk fabric, and placed it on his lap.

He thought for a moment and asked whether these conditions could still be simplified if the spiritual power of the imperial descendants waned in the future and they could not gather so many offerings.

Xie Feng thought about it and said they could not be simplified, but they could be accumulated in advance.

Black Water Lake was the most cost-effective investment. With the lake, there was a Foundation, and the remaining stones and Aldebaran were just a matter of time.

Xie Feng added another sentence: "Among your descendants, there is one named Emperor Zhou Weixi. He gathered all these conditions together and successfully made The King in Yellow squat in the imperial palace for hundreds of years.

And he stabbed me in the back."

When Zhou Shudan heard this name, a trace of an extremely faint smile emerged between his brows and eyes: "Emperor Zhou Weixi, the name Weixi is well chosen."

He lowered his head to look at the dried bloodstain on his cuff, his voice relaxing a bit: "We probably won't see the day he ascends the throne. But knowing that he does better than Us, We are relieved."

Xie Feng inverted the cold crystal blind staff, tapped his own back, and nodded.

Tu Ziguan stood up from the threshold. With his eardrum newly repaired, his whole person looked much more spirited.

He walked to the entrance of the side hall and overheard the conversation between the two, chiming in to say that Xie Feng called Emperor Zhou Weixi "Boss" in the plaza of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and even let hundreds of palace-forcing Cultivators hear it.

Without turning his head, Xie Feng said that Emperor Zhou Weixi paid him a salary, so he naturally was the boss.

Zhou Shudan laughed out loud, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes bunching together. He began to wonder what kind of emperor this descendant would be.

Xie Feng thought for a moment.

"The first time I met Emperor Zhou Weixi was in the imperial palace toilet. The two of us chatted about tea for half a day separated by a chamber pot, and only found out he was the emperor after we finished chatting."

Zhou Shudan was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter, laughing almost until he choked.

The dried bloodstain on the cuff of his dragon robe was rattled by his laughter, causing a few tiny scabs to rustle down.

"The biggest regret of Our life is not being able to encounter a Rank Three official by chance in the toilet."

Tu Ziguan stood at attention solemnly beside them: "Your Majesty, you have a genuine Rank Three official right in front of you now. Why not go to Hanxuan Pavilion right now and let Xie Feng demonstrate the scene from back then for you."

Xie Feng picked up the blind staff and struck Tu Ziguan right on the buttocks.

Fall down, get wiser.

Tu Ziguan had long been prepared, flashing behind Lu Mingyuan, and the blind staff almost poked Lu Mingyuan's forehead.

The side hall became a ball of laughter. Sunlight leaked in through the hollowed-out carved window lattices, landing on the newly written roll of silk on Zhou Shudan's lap, where bright yellow light spots slowly moved across it.

At this moment, there were no emperors and Rank Three officials in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, only a few young people who had just fought a hard battle, sitting on the steps chatting about tea and sesame cakes.

Afterward, Zhou Shudan rewarded the three of them with some items, but Lu Mingyuan didn't want them—presumably the Great Race of Yith didn't have much need for such worldly possessions.

As for Tu Ziguan, he took away a jade thumb ring.

"How is it? Do you feel like a master of the imperial city?"

Tu Wu rubbed the jade thumb ring and began to show off to Xie Feng.

"The item is a good item, but it's a pity it's worn on your hand."

Xie Feng looked at the showing-off Tu Wu with a speechless expression.

"If you didn't say it's jade, I would have thought you went back to Blue Star and cut a section of PVC pipe to wear on your hand."

"What do you know, damn it! Tea can improve vision!"

Xie Feng really couldn't stand this psychiatric patient anymore and turned back to help Zhou Shudan.

In the days that followed, Zhou Shudan mobilized almost all the laborers and craftsmen that could be mobilized in the country to the imperial city.

First, he channeled an underground conduit from the upper reaches of the moat to cut off the living water, forcefully storing an extremely wide and extremely quiet artificial lake on a low-lying saline-alkali land in the northern suburb.

The lake water was channeled from an underground subterranean river, connecting to no surface water systems. It was wave-less and ripple-less, perfectly matching the requirements for water in The King in Yellow's script.

Then came the nine boulders. The imperial offerings selected nine complete, untouched pieces of granite from the quarry in northern Yuzhou, each over two people tall, and transported them into the imperial city suspended by flying boats, arranging them in an extremely precise V-shaped orientation by the lake.

Xie Feng tapped each piece with the blind staff to confirm the resonance frequency of the stones, and had Lu Mingyuan calibrate the placement angles one by one.

Xie Feng said that the chanters were best being direct Bloodlines, so Zhou Shudan called over all his few children—three sons and two daughters—along with his own brothers and a few paternal cousins, barely making up the count of nine people.

"In case someone faints halfway through chanting, who will substitute?" Zhou Shudan asked.

Xie Feng turned his head to glance at him.

"You."

Zhou Shudan nodded, lifted his dragon robe, sat down in the main seat among the nine boulders, and began to recite the set of summoning texts that he had copied dozens of times repeatedly.

He recited very earnestly, his lips moving, occasionally raising his head to glance at the position of Aldebaran at the zenith.

The earnest drive with which the Third Princess prepared the imperial offerings before her expedition to the Hyperborean Continent centuries later probably was passed down from him.

On the night when Aldebaran rose to the very center of the zenith, nine imperial Bloodlines spoke simultaneously within the stone circle.

The chanting sound was extremely soft and extremely uniform, every syllable falling on the exact same frequency.

The surface of Black Water Lake began to darken, and the phantom image of the attic slowly emerged in the center of the lake, its flying eaves and bracket sets solidifying layer by layer from the mist.

That bright yellow figure slowly stepped out from the depths of the attic once more, standing on the edge of the flying eaves. The face beneath the hood faced the young man wearing the bright yellow dragon robe on the lakeshore.

He raised his right hand, pointing extremely lightly and extremely slowly into the Void Realm.

An extremely thin and extremely heavy square slate silently floated up from the depths of Black Water Lake, landing in His palm.

It was precisely the previous The King in Yellow.

With His fingertips, He carved a mark extremely slowly and extremely slowly on the surface of the slate. Bright yellow light patterns seeped from His fingertips into the stone texture, every stroke and line looking as if it were crushed from stars and dipped in to write.

Zhou Shudan knelt by the lake, his dragon robe spread out on the saline-alkali land, his head lowered almost pressing against the surface of the slate.

The King in Yellow placed the slate before him and turned to walk back into the depths of the attic.

Xie Feng stood at the edge of the lakeshore, looking at this slate; no matter how he looked at it, the more familiar it seemed.

(Please look back at Chapter 118, Emperor Zhou Weixi's gift to Xie Feng.)

After the slate was thinned down, the text on it disappeared, leaving only a yellow sign.

Xie Feng recognized that slate!

Isn't this the slate Emperor Zhou Weixi gave him?!

Xie Feng remembered the one stuffed into the abdominal cavity to dry in the plaza of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

These two were actually the bloody same piece?!