The procession of Sword Immortals on the imperial road passed through the Thousand Pace Corridor, truly carrying the grand air of a hundred rivers surging through the human world.
The sword cultivators walking alongside Xiao Mo and Xie Gou all enjoyed teasing Chai Wu. Either Mi Yu urged her not to be nervous, or Jiang Shangzhen asked whether she had drunk before leaving home. Chai Wu truly was nervous. Had she known, she would have downed two or three taels of liquor before coming out.
Ning Yao narrowed her eyes and looked up at the sun overhead.
By custom, when Emperor His Majesty attended court, he would first rest briefly in the great hall behind the one common folk called the Golden Palace Hall.
Yet today, Emperor Song He had arrived early and was waiting before the gate marking the boundary between the Palace City and the Imperial City. He intended to break court precedent and enter that great hall together with the newly appointed National Teacher.
Though they said the streets were emptied by tens of thousands, there were still lazy fellows accustomed to sleeping late, roused by the earth-shaking cries. They rolled over, pulled their blankets over their heads, muttering and cursing a few words. There were also households that deliberately kept their gates shut, or scholars privately compiling histories, unable to take up the brush with spirit unless they had first drunk a cup of wine. Then there were commoner literati who had always been dissatisfied with the court, out of sight and out of mind. Whoever became National Teacher, even if people talked until the sky split open, he was still merely an official eating the emperor's grain. There were also certain foreigners of special status, gathered in twos and threes, facing one another without a