99: Chapter 99 These nobles are truly extraordinary!

Old Zhou recorded the four lines of poetry he had just recited word for word, adding a marginal note in small script beside it.

"Old Zhou, what is this booklet of yours used for?"

"It is an appendix to the Imperial Diary of Activity. This old man holds a concurrent sinecure, specializing in recording miscellaneous matters not carried in the official records." Old Zhou tucked the charcoal pencil back into his sleeve, closed the silk-covered booklet, picked up his purple clay teapot, and leaned back against the chair.

Before bringing the spout to his lips, he added, "Those four lines of poetry of yours are much better than all that shouting about 'death' and more 'death' you did in the ruins of Ranhuo City. Write more poems in the future and go crazy less."

Old Zhou led Xie Feng through the side corridor of the Hall of Archives, walking for about the time it takes to brew half a cup of tea, before stopping in front of an extremely heavy black iron door.

Inscribed on the lintel was the insignia of the Seal team. The Centurion did not follow them in, because further inside was the core area of the imperial city's Seal system, and Old Zhou leading the team was sufficient.

Behind the iron door was a massive council hall. On the long table in the exact center of the hall lay a map of the array foundations on the periphery of the Shituolin Swamp Seal, and several Cultivators were gathered around the map talking in low voices.

These Cultivators were all above the Fourth Realm, wearing the unified dark-colored routine attire of the Seal team, with their cuffs edged in dark red rune borders.

Xie Feng swept his Qi perception across them and found a few in the Fifth Realm, as well as one whose Realm he could not see through, at least at the Sixth Realm or above.

On the other side of the hall, a young man was organizing the leather pouch for his Qi carving knife in his hand. He wore a moon-white long robe made of exquisite fabric, embroidered with an extremely fine family crest at the cuffs, and wore thin steel gloves used for sealing on his hands.

This person's cultivation was not high, roughly around the Second Realm.

Old Zhou walked up to converse with those Seal team Cultivators and was just about to lead Xie Feng closer when a burst of extremely hurried footsteps suddenly came from the doorway of the side hall.

The Third Princess emerged from behind the door. Today, she was not dressed in her martial dark-black tight tunic equipped with a short sword, but had changed into a full set of formal dark-black court robes, holding the agarwood wooden box that Xie Feng had previously returned to her in her hands.

With hurried steps, she looked up at Old Zhou. "This Palace requests to accompany the team into the Seal."

Old Zhou furrowed his brows slightly, and before he could speak, Xie Feng had already chimed in. "Your Highness, that thing inside your body reacts to the aura of the Old Gods. We can still suppress it up here, but down below, it is too close to the core of the Shituolin Swamp, and no one can say for sure what will happen."

The Third Princess turned her head to look at him. "So what if it does? Can this Palace wait up here once or twice, and continue to wait for a lifetime? Which of you people going down can guarantee you will come back alive? If you cannot return, who is this Palace to wait for while holding this useless wooden box all by herself?"

She pressed her hand on the wooden box, her tone dropping slightly by half a notch. "Rather than staying in the side hall and watching each of you vanish from sight, it is better to let me enter the Seal as well. You all do not need to be distracted to protect me; if there are any unusual movements within, having you by my side will actually make it easier to investigate the true nature of this thing inside my body."

Old Zhou eventually drove the Third Princess back. It seemed the Third Princess was truly anxious and had somewhat lost her composure. She was genuinely afraid that Xie Feng, this powder keg, would end up obliterating the imperial city, at which point things would truly be over.

Her multiple memorials had all been ignored by Emperor Zhou Weixi, who stated that he believed Xie Feng would not run into any problems.

Xie Feng looked at the Third Princess, saying nothing more, and merely tightened the ties of his cloak. Just as he was about to continue walking further inside past Old Zhou's side, he suddenly heard the young man nearby open his mouth to call out to him.

"Young Master Xie." Xu Liujing had already put on his protective gloves. The cuffs of his moon-white long robe were tightly bound by the gloves, and he looked thoroughly courteous. "This humble one is Xu Liujing, the third son of the Jing'an Marquis Estate. I have long heard of Young Master's righteous deeds in Ranhuo City. Today, being on the same team as Young Master is this humble one's honor."

A marquis's son? What is he here to do? Oh... gilding his resume, right? That still doesn't sound right. To gild a resume, you just hang your name on the periphery; is he actually planning to go down and take a look? Do nobles not teach their children just how terrifying anomalies are?

Xie Feng nodded, then immediately asked the question in his heart. "Young Master Xu, generally speaking, with a status like yours, you probably don't need to bustle about to the frontline, right?"

Xu Liujing looked at Xie Feng, the expression on his face even more puzzled than Xie Feng's, as if he had never heard such a question before.

"What does Young Master Xie mean by this? My family has been passed down in the imperial capital for generations, enjoying the offerings of those tenant farmers and pariahs from generation to generation. Since I am the descendant of a marquis, and even more so a noble, of course I must stand at the front; otherwise, how am I worthy of receiving those offerings? If even I hide, what will those unarmed pariahs do? They do not have estates to protect them, nor spiritual weapons in hand. Those offerings do not raise nobles like me who step back."

Xie Feng was stunned into silence upon hearing this.

He wanted to curse, but felt he couldn't get the curse out; he wanted to praise him, but felt something was off.

This person's tone was extremely sincere, clearly not reciting a script.

How could you people be both feudal and progressive at the same time? What is feudal is that set of hierarchical order of 'pariahs and nobles'; what is progressive is that nobles actually feel from the bottom of their hearts that they should rush ahead of civilians to court death? These two things existed in him simultaneously, and they blended quite naturally.

Exactly what kind of soul-stealing soup did Emperor Zhou Weixi feed you all? You are truly willing to be used as human shields by him, and you even take pride in it.

Xu Liujing did not notice Xie Feng's complex expression, instead twirling the rune carving knife in his hand, turning around to continue organizing the Seal team's equipment, and casually adding, "Besides, Old Zhou said your understanding of the Seal system already makes you half an expert. Later after we go down, I still have many questions I would like to consult you about. I heard that there is a very unique Seal structure inside your body that was personally reinforced by Lord Governor of Qingzhou?"

Hearing this sentence, Xie Feng finally knew where this flood of complex emotions should find an outlet. He took half a step forward, his voice lowered very softly: "Young Master Xu, do you happen to think that we will definitely come back alive from going down this time, and by the way, even exchange insights on sealing?"

"Precisely. With so many Seniors present, you and I will naturally return safely." Xu Liujing said it open and aboveboard. "Besides, loosenings of the Seal happen often, and this time is merely routine."

"Then you truly do not understand me. Speaking of which, don't you think I am a pariah?"

"Aren't you from a local powerful clan? Even though you are also a fallen family of humble origins, you still count as a minor head of a household of sorts, so you aren't a pariah."

"Later on I will introduce someone to you; Mo Tang should be able to get along well with you in conversation."

"Is this person as fond of Seals as I am?"

"She speaks without using her brain just like you, and she's extremely punchable."

Old Zhou interrupted their moronic conversation. When Xie Feng stepped past the final layer of the rune barrier in the Seal passageway behind Old Zhou, his Qi perception felt as though someone had given it a fierce yank downwards.

An extremely heavy and dull oppressive sensation surged up from directly beneath the soles of his feet, piercing through every layer of runes in the Seal foundation, passing through the soles of his boots, traveling up along his leg bones, and pressing all the way to the miniature sun in his chest.

In that instant, that miniature sun suddenly flared brightly, and the dark red light membrane automatically expanded by a circle, as if it had completed a violent heartbeat that should have naturally occurred for the heart.

The patch of silver-white Void Realm inside his right eye socket trembled ever so slightly for a split second, and Tawil's mark silently reminded him that the density of this swamp had already exceeded the limits that ordinary spatial structures could withstand.

"This is the Shituolin Swamp." Old Zhou's voice came from ahead, sounding a few shades heavier than usual amidst the oppressive weight of the swamp.

Xie Feng spread his Qi perception out anew, laying it across every corner of the open space beneath the Seal passageway.

He "saw" a swamp.

The entire swamp was composed of skeletal remains, densely packed skeletons piling up from the extremely deep and distant bottom layers all the way to a height close to the Seal foundation. Boundless and endless, it was as if someone had crushed all those who died in battle and those who died of old age across the entire Nine Provinces, reassembling them into a gray ocean.

Those skeletons were not stationary; they were writhing extremely slowly. Every single bone was sinking downwards at a speed almost imperceptible to the naked eye, with new bone fragments churning up from the bottom layers while old bone fragments were squeezed deeper down. The entire swamp cycled and alternated in an extremely stable and unstoppable rhythm.

"The people of the Nine Provinces are all madmen." Xie Feng stood at the end of the Seal passageway, his blind cane tapping against the final layer of rune steps beneath his feet, his voice lowered to an extreme.

Xu Liujing stood beside him, slipping the other thin steel glove onto his hand, and glanced at him upon hearing this.

"What kind of thing wouldn't be fine placed in the capital? Why put this thing down below?"