90: Chapter 90 The Uncivilized Modern Man and the Highly Elegant Ancient Man

Early the next morning, Xie Feng was jolted awake by a knocking on the door.

The door was struck urgently and loudly with knuckles, and while knocking, the person shouted in a shrill voice, "Young Master Xie! Young Master Xie! People from the palace have arrived! The schedule for the Hour of Chen has been moved up, so hurry up and get up to wash and change your clothes. This humble servant still needs to teach you the etiquette for entering the palace!"

Lying on the couch, Xie Feng instinctively pulled the pillow over his face.

"Hisss, damn it!"

This pillow was made of porcelain, and it almost made Xie Feng see stars from the impact.

Xie Feng had not rested very well; in the middle of last night, he had sewn shut that mouth in the palm of his left hand.

There was no other way, that mouth kept talking nonstop, and every time it spoke, Xie Feng's jade pendant would tremble. This ghostly thing—if not for the jade pendant, Xie Feng would have performed a self-detonation right then and there in the imperial city. To prevent going mad later, Xie Feng endured the pain, infused mana into a piece of hemp rope, and forcibly sewed shut the mouth of this God of Depravity.

Having lost his heart, his hand still hurt.

Xie Feng was in a very bad mood right now.

Taking a glance at his left hand, the hemp thread was still there, and the pulsing frequency was slightly slower than last night.

Logically speaking, Ygolonac should have occupied his entire body; the parasitism of the God of Depravity was never as simple as just growing a mouth.

The reason was probably not hard to guess:

This body of his already had Cthugha's imprint occupying the heart, Ghatanothoa's imprint occupying the chest, Tawil's silver-white Void Realm occupying the right eye socket, the Nightgaunt curled deep inside the left eye socket, the cold crystal blind staff stuffed with gray flames, plus Cthulhu's residual tentacles slowly roaming within his blood.

Even as the God of Depravity, Ygolonac could not seize more territory amidst the domains of so many Great Old Ones and Outer Gods. It could only pull some tricks on one hand, which was already the maximum gap it could squeeze into.

The knocking continued. "Young Master Xie! If you still refuse to get up, this humble servant will use the key to open the door!"

Xie Feng rolled over and sat up, slammed the cold crystal blind staff against the ground, and pushed open the bedroom door.

Standing outside the door was a middle-aged eunuch dressed in a dark blue attendant robe, with a fair, beardless face and a hint of an extremely standard courtly smile at the corners of his mouth.

Behind him followed two young eunuchs holding a bronze basin, a sweat towel, and a neatly folded set of dark court attire.

"Young Master Xie, this humble servant's surname is Gao, sent by the Imperial Household Department to teach you the etiquette for entering the palace for an audience. This is your first time entering the imperial city, so how to bow, how to kowtow, and how to answer when meeting Your Majesty are all things you must carefully learn from this humble servant..."

Xie Feng did not speak.

Eunuch Gao shifted the whisk to his other hand and continued, "The palace gates open at the Hour of Chen, and you still have one hour. This humble servant will first teach you how to kowtow. Kneel down first, and this humble servant will demonstrate it for you once."

Xie Feng did not kneel.

Eunuch Gao's smile stiffened for a split second before quickly returning to normal.

"Young Master Xie, this humble servant knows that you are an Inner Sect Disciple of the Qingyun Sect and a person recommended by the Governor of Qingzhou. However, the imperial city is not like Qingzhou, and ritual propriety cannot be abandoned. If you do not know how to kowtow and lose your decorum before Your Majesty, it won't be this humble servant who gets caned, but your own head that rolls. Come, kneel down first."

He tucked the whisk into his waist and reached out to press down on Xie Feng's shoulders.

Xie Feng shifted the cold crystal blind staff to his left hand, clenched his right hand into a fist, and smashed it straight onto Eunuch Gao's bridge of the nose. This punch was extremely crisp and decisive, executed without circulating spiritual energy, using purely Physical Body strength.

Eunuch Gao fell backward the whole way, his whisk slipping from his waist and rolling twice on the ground. The two young eunuchs dropped both the bronze basin and the sweat towel onto the floor, screaming in unison.

"Get the hell out of here!"

Xie Feng's mood was extremely terrible; where would he have any leisure time to learn bowing etiquette for someone?

You were the ones who invited me over to do work in the first place, and yet you old feudal folks want to police a mythological entity? Furthermore, having died just yesterday, even the Third Princess treated me politely, yet you, a damn eunuch, actually dared to come over and push me down? Why don't you go inquire around Qingzhou—which prominent noble family nowadays doesn't have my nude photos?

Xie Feng didn't care much about the emperor's identity; at most, wasn't it just the Ninth Realm? His mental state was fantastic right now.

Be polite, and everything is negotiable; fail to speak properly, and Xie Feng will definitely let you know what a madman is.

A favor of a single drop shall be repaid with a gushing spring.

Glare at me, and I'll exterminate your entire family.

He removed his hand from Eunuch Gao's chest, stood up, and picked up the cold crystal blind staff.

Eunuch Gao scrambled backward on the ground using hands and feet for a couple of steps, tripped over the bronze basin behind him, and climbed back up. His nasal bridge wasn't broken; Xie Feng had held back his strength, only letting him bleed a little from the nose.

But his lips were already trembling so much that he couldn't speak a complete sentence, only nodding repeatedly and vaguely responding with a few "Yes, yes, yes," before turning around and stumbling out of the post house with the two young eunuchs.

Xie Feng stood at the door, watched the three figures disappear at the end of the alley, and then turned back into the room.

The Third Princess's Centurion was standing in the shadows at the end of the corridor at some unknown time, his hand resting on the hilt of his saber. Xie Feng glanced at him. "Centurion, morning."

The Centurion fell silent for a moment. "Morning."

He took his hand off the saber hilt and turned to leave.

Xie Feng closed the door and leaned against the door panel. The place on his left palm sewn shut by the hemp thread twitched slightly again, as if it were laughing.

He glanced at his left hand. "What the hell are you laughing at? You're still being sewn onto my hand."

The hemp thread twitched once more and then stopped moving.

Following the Centurion toward the imperial city, the outer walls of the city were vermilion red.

The walls were extremely tall and thick, and beneath the vermilion lacquer lay solid blocks of white jade foundations, repelling any spiritual energy that tried to probe inward.

Every single section of stone was a node of the formation base for the imperial city's grand protective array.

The corridor behind the palace gates was extremely long and wide.

The ground was paved with grayish-blue flagstones, every single one polished as smooth as a mirror. Every five steps along both sides of the corridor stood an Imperial Guard, their dark armor branded with a golden Phoenix emblem, standard-issue sabers hanging at their waists with the bronze ornaments on the scabbards polished to a bright shine.

No one uttered a sound, but Xie Feng's spiritual energy perception could touch the extremely subtle circulation of spiritual energy inside the armor; these Imperial Guards were all Cultivators above the Fourth Realm.

The Fourth Realm was already capable of standing alone as a Cultivator outside, but here they were merely standing guard.

The Centurion walked in the front; today he wasn't wearing that old armor worn back from Ranhuo City, but had changed into a full set of new armor, the golden Phoenix emblem on his arm guards shining brighter than usual.

A few young eunuchs holding memorial tablets jogged out from a small side door of the corridor, and upon seeing Xie Feng's cloak and hood, their steps noticeably paused. Then Xie Feng turned his head to glance at the young eunuch, the three pupils in his eyes spinning in unison.

"Hello."

"A monster!"

Xie Feng speechlessly turned his head back, watching the Imperial Guards stop the eunuch to say something, after which the young eunuch tremblingly detoured around them.

Walking to the end of the corridor, the field of vision suddenly opened up.

That was an exceptionally large garden.

The placement of every Taihu stone and the orientation of every ancient cypress secretly aligned with some extremely brilliant Feng Shui formation base.

"The Imperial Garden." The Centurion stopped, turned sideways, and yielded half a step. "The Hour of Chen has passed, and the morning court session has ended. You wait in the water pavilion, and a eunuch will serve you tea. Your Majesty will come over later."

Xie Feng nodded.

The Centurion turned around and walked back along the corridor, the sound of his armor gradually fading away in the corridor. A young eunuch jogged over from the direction of the water pavilion, stopping right before him with his head lowered almost touching his chest, his voice trembling as if he had just been fished out of an ice cellar: "Young Master Xie, this way please."

An old acquaintance, precisely the one who had greeted him earlier.

The water pavilion was built right in the center of an artificial lake, featuring hexagonal flying eaves and extremely thin dark golden curtains hanging on all four sides. The curtains swayed gently in the breeze from the lake's surface, revealing a corner of the interior furnishings inside the water pavilion:

A low sandalwood table, two master chairs, and tea sets already neatly arranged on the table. Xie Feng followed the young eunuch across the nine-turn stone bridge over the lake, the schools of koi fish under the bridge sinking uniformly to the bottom of the water as he passed by.

Even the fish knew how dense the bizarre aura on Xie Feng's body was, giving him a wide berth.

Xie Feng had been drinking for quite a while; anyway, it was free, and this tea was truly exceptional. The young eunuch kept coming over to refill the water, until Xie Feng felt that the sun inside his chest had cooled down a bit from drinking too much.

"Isn't this emperor putting on way too big of an air?"

The eunuch by the side wished he didn't have ears, closing his eyes and pretending not to hear anything.

By the end of his drinking, Xie Feng simply couldn't take it anymore. It wasn't that he couldn't wait any longer, but rather that he had drunk too much and urgently needed to use the restroom.

"You cannot, Your Majesty might arrive in person at any moment, and you cannot leave your post."

"If you don't take me, I'll jump into the pond and drown myself."

"Please follow me, this humble servant will take you to Hanxuan Pavilion." The young eunuch lowered his head and turned to lead the way.

"What the heck is Hanxuan Pavilion?"

Like Granny Liu entering the Grand View Garden, Xie Feng followed along.