95: Chapter 95 The Emperor is truly a succubus!

The Third Princess was stunned for a long time, the expression on her baby face changing from blank to confused, and then into a very restrained kind of abandonment—she had probably repeated the words "Amaterasu" in her mind a dozen times over and over again, yet still failed to understand them.

Ever since she got to know Xie Feng, she had probably grown accustomed to him suddenly blurting out a few completely incomprehensible words at critical moments, only to find out what they meant much later.

She looked up at Xie Feng, her voice returning to its usual composure: "Then you study. This princess will wait for you."

Xie Feng turned the notebook to the last page, scanning the incantation of the Spacetime Gate from beginning to end with his spiritual power perception.

The incantation itself was not very complicated; Liu Yanqing had obviously deliberately simplified it when copying it down. Every rune circuit was marked with the guiding direction of mana values and the node sequence, making the steps extremely clear, as if writing an instruction manual for someone who didn't understand phantasm script at all.

The more Xie Feng read, the more he felt that this bastard ancestor was most likely not a proper Cultivator. A proper Cultivator never wrote notes like "Step 2: Focus your magic power half an inch below the Dantian and silently chant your own name three times."

This was clearly a Simplified Chinese user manual.

Xie Feng ate and drank for a few days while furiously studying this damned Spacetime Gate down below. He had to admit that the quality of the royal food was really quite reliable.

After finally mastering this Spell, Xie Feng slowly activated it. He wasn't planning to walk in and take a look; he just wanted to activate it first to see if there were any problems and grind some proficiency.

As the incantation was chanted, an azure mirror surface slowly emerged before Xie Feng's eyes. The moment Xie Feng took a step forward, this mirror surface began to twitch crazily, flashing at a frequency just like a static-filled television.

First, a bluish-green river valley emerged behind the mirror, only to be violently kicked away, replaced by a blazing red world of nothingness that looked scorching hot. Immediately after, an aura of the deep sea accompanied by snoring appeared, and another flashback brought the regular breathing echoing from an underground cave.

"Hehe, the Big Three of Severn Valley, Cthugha, Cthulhu, and Tsathoggua, you are all doing just great."

Xie Feng abruptly shut down the Spacetime Gate, then threw the damned notebook onto the ground and stomped on it fiercely a couple of times.

"How could I forget that the Spacetime Gate would be affected by Them? Those bastards can change my destination! Isn't this delivering myself right to their doorstep?"

After learning so many Spells, not a single one was usable; they were all chicken ribs. Finally learning a versatile one, only to find it couldn't be used.

Moreover, Xie Feng had thought about it over the past few days—the Third Princess couldn't go either. This damned Spell required Transmigration across space; if used, the Third Princess would instantly turn into a bite-sized doggy biscuit, hunted by the Hounds of Tindalos for a lifetime.

"What should we do then? We can't possibly walk there, right?!" Xie Feng shook his head desperately.

The most fatal problem had appeared: nobody even knew when this expedition team had gone, and now the royal family didn't even have a route, only a map. If they wanted to go, they would have to pioneer a brand-new route.

Xie Feng picked up the notebook on the ground that had been stomped on a few times, patted the dust off the cover, leaned against the bookshelf, rested the cold crystal blind staff on his shoulder, and let out a foul breath.

Before he could think of an alternative plan, the Centurion appeared at the entrance of the library, saying that Your Majesty summoned him.

That was fine too; he had originally wanted to have a chat with Emperor Zhou Weixi anyway. This Mortal emperor had left too deep an impression on Xie Feng last time at Hanxuan Pavilion and the waterside pavilion.

How on earth did a person without even any spiritual power make a Ninth-Realm Loose Cultivator like Zuo Ciyuan willingly serve under him as the Governor of Qingzhou? A person like Zuo Ciyuan could not be suppressed by authority, nor could he be tied down by Bloodline.

Being willing to guard Qingzhou for Emperor Zhou Weixi must be because of Emperor Zhou Weixi himself, and not because he was the emperor.

The location of the summons was neither at the waterside pavilion nor in the imperial study, but in an extremely small warm pavilion on the west side of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

The warm pavilion was not large, and the furnishings were extremely minimalist. Hanging on the wall was an ink-wash landscape painting depicting mist-shrouded, unknown mountains, and beside the window stood a pear-wood low couch draped with a somewhat worn dark cyan cushion.

Emperor Zhou Weixi was sitting on the low couch, holding a half-read memorial in his hand. Today, he had changed into an indigo plain-faced robe; the fabric was still quite exquisite, but there was a very faint ink stain on the cuff, probably accidentally splashed while grinding ink himself.

"You're here." Emperor Zhou Weixi put the memorial aside, pointed at the low stool opposite him, and spoke in a casual, chatty tone: "We heard that you've been locked up beneath the library for a few days—have you learned it all?"

Xie Feng sat down and leaned the cold crystal blind staff against the side of the low couch.

"I've learned it, but I can't use it." He briefly explained how the Spacetime Gate was intercepted by the Great Old Ones, without mentioning specific names, only saying that teleportation-type Spells were interfered with by the many marks on his body, causing them to go off-course the moment a gate was opened. If the Third Princess took this route, she would face life-threatening danger halfway.

After listening, Emperor Zhou Weixi did not press for details and simply nodded.

"Teleportation-type Spells won't work, so that only leaves the clumsy method." Xie Feng shifted the topic: "Your Majesty, does the royal family have any trade routes or old post roads leading to the Northern Continent? How did the expedition team travel back then, and are there still archived routes?"

Emperor Zhou Weixi crossed his hands and rested them on his knees. "Let's talk about the matter beneath the imperial city first."

Xie Feng's brows furrowed beneath his hood; the Emperor was changing the subject, and he did it very directly.

He sensed a trace of extremely subtle solemnity.

"Recently, the anomaly in the imperial city has loosened somewhat."

"What? Stop for a second!" Xie Feng was drinking water and almost choked to death, "What do you mean there's an anomaly in the imperial city? And it recently loosened?"

What was the imperial city? It was the supreme power hub of this world, and almost all the famous major Cultivators from the outside world gathered within this radius.

Previously, at Zuo Ciyuan's Governors Mansion, ordinary anomalies wouldn't even dare to step into its perception range.

"When the penultimate late Emperor was on the throne, Jiuzhou once encountered an anomaly surpassing the provincial level." Emperor Zhou Weixi put the teacup back onto the low table, as if telling a story from long ago that had no direct connection to himself, "What exactly it was, We do not know. The court's case files only wrote 'Greatly ominous, indescribable'. At that time, the royal family mobilized three Ninth-Realm court honored guests to join forces, paying the price of the fall of one of them to subdue it. But its power was too colossal, and its core could not be destroyed, so it could only be Sealed. The location of the Seal was chosen directly beneath the imperial city."

"Directly beneath the imperial city?" Xie Feng repeated, his spiritual power perception subconsciously probing downward through the stone floor of the warm pavilion.

No wonder when he first arrived, this entire city wall exuded the scent of a grand array. Why did you people in Jiuzhou love to Seal things so much? Didn't you have any new methods?

"Why was it Sealed beneath the imperial city?"

Emperor Zhou Weixi smiled, the corners of his mouth unconsciously curling up slightly. He picked up the memorial from the low couch, placed it on the side desk, tidied up the ink stain on his cuff, and then raised his head to look at Xie Feng.

Those eyes were very clean, without any spiritual power fluctuations, yet they possessed a tranquility that was hard for people to describe.

"Look at Us, are We a Mortal?"

"Yes." Xie Feng did not hesitate.

"That's right." Emperor Zhou Weixi crossed his hands back over his knees, his back leaning slightly against the cushion of the low couch. "We are a Mortal, and Jiuzhou has countless Mortals just like Us."

They had no spiritual power, no cultivation, no defensive Magical Artifacts, and no Sect to rely on. Once an anomaly went out of control, Cultivators still had the strength to fight, but Mortals could only wait for death. We placed the Seal beneath the imperial city, right directly beneath Our dragon chair.

Should something go wrong with the Seal, the first to die would be Us. When the emperor dies, the world will shake, and every province and Sect will immediately react—raising arrays where arrays should be raised, dispatching troops where troops should be dispatched, and sealing provinces where provinces should be sealed.

With so many Emperor Zhou Weixis in Jiuzhou, it is better for this one of Us to die first."

Xie Feng leaned against the back of the low stool, running this sentence through his mind over and over again. He finally understood why he had developed that subtle favorable impression towards Emperor Zhou Weixi.

When Emperor Zhou Weixi pressed the safety of the entire Jiuzhou onto his own shoulders, what he used was not the confidence of Cultivators who felt "I can fight," but the sobriety and self-awareness unique to Mortals, not even intending to push this responsibility onto anyone else.

The person before him had no cultivation whatsoever, yet with the safety of the world pressing down on him, he still sat here quietly drinking tea.

In a sense, this was more admirable than any Cultivator.

Emperor Zhou Weixi lucidly and proactively placed himself in the most dangerous position, day after day for decades, and could still chat about this matter with him in the warm pavilion using a casual, everyday tone.

"Then what about the extent of the loosening now?" Xie Feng's voice had subconsciously straightened up a bit.

"The court honored guests have monitored over the past few days that the luster of a few runes on the outermost layer of the Seal has begun to fade. It's not serious, but according to the rules, it must be reported." Emperor Zhou Weixi slowly poured a cup of tea for Xie Feng.

"Since you've been locked in the library for several days, you're probably suffocatingly bored. We were thinking that as an outsider from beyond the heavens, you might have some novel ideas—would you like to go down and take a look? Perhaps you can be of some help."

Xie Feng hesitated almost not at all. "When."

"Tomorrow We will arrange for someone to lead you down."

Emperor Zhou Weixi put down the teacup, his tone returning to the casual chatter of everyday life. The momentary solemnity in the warm pavilion just now had slowly receded like the sunset outside the window.

"After you come back, We will have the imperial kitchen steam a fish for you. You've just been gnawing on pastries in the library these past few days; you ought to eat some proper food."

He picked up the memorial again and spread it open, resuming that posture of waiting to listen to someone speak.

Xie Feng picked up his blind staff, stood up, and bowed to Emperor Zhou Weixi at the doorway.

Emperor Zhou Weixi did not look up, merely waving his hand to signal that Xie Feng could leave.