The founding ceremony designed by Ding Cangsheng and the many other renowned scholars of the Confucian Sect was elaborate in the extreme, despite Chu Xisheng's repeated demands that every ritual be kept simple and the repeated cuts he had made.
By the time the entire ceremony was over, however, evening had already fallen.
Even Chu Xisheng, who possessed the Blood of Eternal Ages, felt a little weary, to say nothing of Chu Yunyun, whose physical constitution now fell slightly short of his.
Once everything was over and the two returned to the rear palace in their ceremonial finery, they each slumped into a chair, too listless to move for a while.
It was mainly mental exhaustion. All those cumbersome rites had bored Chu Xisheng to death.
If he had had his way, founding the dynasty would have involved issuing an edict declaring himself emperor and receiving the homage of his officials. There was no need to make things so complicated.
But his officials, Jian Zangfeng included, had all strenuously remonstrated with him. Even Chu Yunyun believed the rites could not be abandoned.
People of ancient times attached great importance to ritual propriety.
Xunzi of another world had said that without ritual, people could not live, undertakings could not succeed, and a state could not know peace.
This meant that people who did not understand etiquette, or did not abide by the constraints of ritual propriety, would struggle to find even a foothold in society; undertakings could not succeed without observing propriety; and a country without ritual propriety would never know a peaceful day.
The situation in this world was much the same. If anything, even greater importance was placed on it.
What was called ritual propriety was, in essence, the rules and standards that kept society functioning and regulated its