Chapter 233 – Confrontation
Chapter 233 - Confrontation
Emperor Shun was sitting in the hall, wearing simple flax clothes and straw shoes. His long hair was made into a bun, stuck with the twigs of a chaste tree. Similar to how the ministers were sitting beside him, Emperor Shun was also sitting on straw cushion with his legs crossed, looking nothing special, neither was showing anything different that might indicate his legendary high status.
His eyes were especially bright, with each eye having double pupils. When he looked at you, you would feel as if you had gained an insight directly reaching your soul. This was the only specialty, which you would be able to tell from Emperor Shun’s appearance.
He had a fresh and natural smell. Although he looked like a middle-aged, or an even older man, he smelled like the pine woods after a spring rain, which was very fresh and gentle, filled with thriving life force. Based only on this smell, you might have thought him to be only a passionate young kid.
“Ah, Si Xi is here.” Seeing Si Xi, who had yelled loudly, the Emperor smiled warmly and said, “I was about to invite you here. We have been discussing the Chi Ban mountain area in the North for two days now. We currently need to open up two ten-thousand miles long rivers in that area, corresponding with our magic formations. It is very urgent, so it must be done within seven days, can you do that?”
Over a thousand people were sitting in the hall on straw cushions with their legs crossed and eyes fixed on a map, which was placed in the middle of the hall and made from golden sand.
A few Maguspriests, who were standing in front of the hundred zhang wide, square map, injected their powers into that map, causing those fine golden sand to move, forming mountains, rivers, jungles and hills. When the Emperor was talking, a Maguspriest waved his hand, right after which, two magnificent rivers appeared on the map, wriggling like two dragons along the geographic features, forming a square and powerful magic spell symbol in that mountain area.
Ji Hao was standing aside and was staring at the map, being so stunned that the fine hairs on his back were even standing erect.
He could understand the content of the map just now. They were planning on opening two ten thousand miles long rivers artificially in a mountain area named Chi Ban. Doing so, would connect all the water resources in that area, forming a gigantic spell symbol that would be able to gather huge amounts of natural powers, and would serve as a core of an unimaginably huge and powerful magic formation.
What an immense plan! What a magnificent and magical plan!
Ji Hao stared at the spell symbol on the map that was formed by the two rivers, continuously recalling those spell symbols and related knowledge he had learned in the Magi Palace recently. The more he connected his learned knowledge and spell symbols to this spell symbol on the map, the more magical and the more possibilities he found this spell symbol to be. The longer he did this, the more cold sweat gushed out of his back.
“Seven days,” Si Xi walked up to the map with big steps, flipped his fingers as if he was counting, then carelessly nodded and said, “Well, we have a natural river about seven thousand miles long, it’s no big deal to open up two ten thousand miles long rivers artificially within seven days, no big deal.”
Emperor Shun smiled and said to the other ministers sitting in the hall, “I told you, if we invite Si Xi here, he will sound like there’ll absolutely be no difficulty for him. As long as we complete this gigantic-scale magic formation, which will be corresponding with those large-scale war machines, we will have nothing worry about the Chi Ban Mountain.
Slightly slapping his hands, Emperor Shun continued with a smile, “As long as we can keep the enemies out of the Chi Ban Mountain area for half a month, until the few Northern clans have completed their harvest and have collected all the grain into granaries, if they still insist on attacking us even then, we could just accept the battle.”
Many ministers sitting in the hall smiled and nodded as well, loosening their tightened faces.
Wulong Yao was sitting not far away from Emperor Shun. Seeing Ji Hao, he abruptly yelled out, “Ji Hao, what are you doing here?!”
Once Wulong Yao yelled out, the other master Magi tutors, who were quite close to Ji Hao, stood up one after another and all yelled out as well, “Hey, you little kid, what are you doing here?!”
Before Ji Hao could say anything, Si Xi laughed out loud and said, “Ah, ha, what do you mean with what is he doing here, you bunch of old men?! Ji Hao was framed by some scums! Don’t you know?!”
The faces of Wulong Yao and the few master Magi tutors changed instantly. They glanced at each other then looked at Emperor Shun simultaneously.
Wulong Yao said with a slight trace of anger, “Shun, Ji Hao had sent us a message, but we were busy attending this important meeting, so we told the outer palace to deal with this. This seemed to be quite a small case. We hadn’t thought that he would go find Si Xi and Si Xi would take him here.”
Emperor Shun remained silent for a short while, the he smiled and looked at Ji Hao from head to toe, while nodding continuously nodded, and said, “Hm, he is a good kid, good kid. Hm, the Gold Crow bloodline. The Gold Crow Clan people haven’t been travelling out of the Southern Wasteland for many years, isn’t that right, Master Libation?”[1]
There was a young man, who had a breathtakingly beautiful face that could make the most beautiful women in this world feel embarrassed, yet was tall and study, wearing a luxury red cloak. Hearing Emperor Shun’s words, this young man spurted large amounts of fire sparks from his pupils, then said blandly, “Hmmm, Ji Hao, I know about him, Man Man’s little friend, he has saved Man Man’s life. What happened, someone framed you?”
Ji Hao looked at this young man, who had a similar face as Man Man, clearly realizing that this young man was no one else but Man Man’s father, the Fire God, ‘old man’ Zhu Rong. On behalf of both, Man Man and the Gold Crow Clan, Ji Hao politely saluted to Zhu Rong and said, “Yes, I have told Count Chong all the details.”
Si Xi was about to talk when a tall and muscular elderly man with dense curly beard and whose every single pore seemed to be spurting streams of power out, yelled out harshly,
“Nonsense! Are saying that I, Meng Jiang, have sent out useless people?! This kid sent messages to elder Wulong and the others seeking for help. Those few elders were busy at this important meeting, so I, as an elder of the outer palace, had sent the most capable apprentice of mine, Meng Ao, to help him. What more troublesome could have possibly happened?!”
Si Xi let out a scornful sniff, pointed his finger at Meng Jiang’s nose and yelled, “You old stupid bastard, those douchebags sent out by you have messed up! What ‘most capable apprentices’? Those were clearly cowardly scums!”
Before Si Xi had finished his speech, Ying Yunpeng walked into the hall with big steps and face filled with sorrow. After walking in, he shouted out instantly, “Shun! I have just discovered a shocking, unbelievably horrible fact. I had never thought that such a shameless, cruel and contemptible person existed in our Magi Palace!”
Ying Yunpeng raised both his arms in rage, waved towards the sky while screaming, “God! Are you blind? Why don’t you just send down a lightning bolt and strike that little bastard, named Ji Hao to death? And his little group of flunkies, named Shaosi, Taisi, Yu Mu and Feng Xing.”
Throwing a glance at Zhu Rong, Ying Yunpeng continued in a cold voice, “And a little bitch called Man Man! Those few little bastards fled away from danger, leaving those poor Rong Mountain Clan people to face groups of fierce wild beasts. They have ruined my reputation, which I can still cope with, but they tried to blackmail the poor Rong Mountain Clan, kidnapped and threatened a Deacon of the Magi Palace!”
The face of Ji Hao tightened. Seeing Ying Yunpeng come in, Ji Hao realized how wise he had been to decide to go find Si Xi and seek for his help, instead of going to seek help back at the Magi Palace, when he first sneaked into Pu Ban City.
Since Ying Yunpeng had claimed that Ji Hao had kidnaped Meng Ao and the two fellows of his, he must already have heard about Meng Ao and the two young men not managing to return safely to the Magi Palace.
Zhu Rong stood slowly up, while staring at Ying Yunpeng with a pair of blazing eyes, sneered and said slowly, “Ying Yunpeng, do you want to die?”
Ying Yunpeng stared back at Zhu Rong, letting out a sneer as well and responded, “Can I ask, how I, a poor old man, did offend you, my dear Master Libation, and made you say something like this? I assume that our respectful Master Libation is clearly aware of that, although you possess an incomparably high statues and amazingly great power, our Eastern Wasteland people, our great Ten-Sun Country, will not be willingly bullied by anyone.”
Zhu Rong let out resonating laughter, showed a stateliness on his beautiful face, then suddenly released a great raging flame. His entire body turned into a bright and glowing flame.
Watching Zhu Rong about to launch an attack on Ying Yunpeng, Emperor Shun helplessly let out a sigh, then said a sentence.
“Who can tell me what exactly has happened?”
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[1] Libation: According to Taoist scripture, this is someone who offers oblation at a sacrificial ceremony. This was the title of someone in charge of inning taxes of grain, donations and overseeing road construction and other civil duties. According to pleco, one of the suited definition would be ‘a high-ranking official in ancient imperial court’.
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SR: The Ten Sun Country must really be powerful to give Ying Yunpeng the balls to call Man Man THAT in front of her father, who happens to be a god…
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Edited by SecondRate
Translated by XianXiaWorld