According to the wishes of the beautiful Purple Gold Ribbon Grand Scholar, she had appeared at the gathering simply because she was visiting here and happened to be present. She had not deliberately come from Taiyi Academy to keep them company.
Jiang Yue's restraint had been partly an act. In truth, even if Grand Scholar Linghua had not explained herself, he might have been surprised, but he would not have been so ill at ease.
After some pleasantries, everyone took their seats. Given Jiang Yue's status, he should have been seated at the end, but in fact, he had been placed somewhere in the middle. It was neither the especially conspicuous seat of honor nor the lowly seat reserved for an insignificant nobody.
When the banquet began, the atmosphere was not as solemn as he had imagined, and there were not many false pleasantries or ceremonial toasts.
As the host, the Yao Cao Clan Leader gave a brief opening speech, then urged everyone not to stand on ceremony and to eat as they pleased.
Compared to the layers upon layers of drinking-table culture in the Surface World, banquets in the Underground World were indeed much less burdened by elaborate formalities.
Jiang Yue followed everyone's example. Whatever they did, he did likewise. The quality of the food and wine at the banquet was clearly top-notch—essentially the best the Underground World had to offer. After all, the guests were all major figures, so the standards could hardly be low.
He did not deliberately keep a low profile, either. When everyone was chatting freely, he occasionally added a word or two. He did not seem abrupt, but neither did he appear overly quiet or dull. He came across as neither petty nor narrow-minded, but rather quite open and composed.
At first, the main