Chapter 281 Xu Zhenguan: How do you explain this?

Chapter 281 Xu Zhenguan: How do you explain this?

About a quarter of an hour later.

After washing himself clean and dressing himself, Zhao Duan, carrying the "Tai'a Sword" and guided by a beautiful palace lady, walked through the corridor at noon and came to the "dining hall" of the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

This is not Zhao Duan's first time arriving.

A few months ago, on the third day of his journey, he entered here and underwent a life-and-death interrogation.

That was also his first time dining with the empress.

Several months later, at noon in autumn, he came to this door again, and was about to face another major interrogation.

My mood was uncontrollably tense.

Zhao Duan tried his best to clear out his complicated thoughts and put himself into the alert state of "big secret".

He knew that if he handled this conversation between the emperor and his subjects incorrectly, it would be very likely that everything he had accumulated during this period would have to start from scratch.

"Lord Zhao, His Majesty is just ahead, please come in."

The strange female official stopped walking, her skirt still swaying.

He turned sideways and gestured "please".

At noon in autumn, the dark clouds over the palace gradually dispersed, the sun shone through, and the air was still damp and slightly chilly.

Birds flew over the palaces from the direction of the Imperial Garden. Every ten or so meters along the long corridor, there stood a palace servant.

But at this moment, everyone had a blank expression on their faces and was unusually quiet.

"...Thank you." Zhao Duan took a deep breath and showed an impeccable smile. He took a step forward and once again used seven steps to enter the role of a loyal minister.

After seven steps, he arrived at the door, bowing his head:
"Your Majesty, I am Zhao Duan."

After about two breaths of delay, a familiar and cold voice came:

"Sit down and eat."

"Yes." Zhao Duan did not try to refuse. In the officialdom, being able to understand the elegant meaning of a person's words is a basic skill.

What one hears is not the content of the words themselves, but the tone and context, in order to guess the emperor's true intention.

Zhao Duan had heard a saying in his previous life:
Language is an imperfect carrier of thought. Humans invented language and writing to express meaning.

But from the moment the words left their lips, most of their true meaning had faded and they became incomplete.

Therefore, in the long process of evolution, humans have learned to combine context, tone, expression... to understand the true intention of a sentence.

In fact, language and characters only account for a very small proportion in expressing meaning.

Thus, there is room for words and words to be misunderstood.

Just like now, when the empress talked about eating, she really just meant eating, and it didn’t mean anything else.

So Zhao Duan walked into the room, came to the table, sat down on the prepared round stool, picked up the chopsticks... After completing this smooth movement, he raised his head.

The round table was filled with delicious food.

Sitting directly opposite him was the elegant and graceful Xu Zhenguan.

She was the same as usual, wearing a white dress, with her long black hair casually draped behind her, without any accessories on her body, so she became the main subject.

Skin as white as jade, almost uncarved, natural facial features, thick eyelashes, straight nose, plump lips...

The jawline is gentle and flows smoothly downward, forming a pink neck that suddenly converges at the neckline below.

The noble ladies in the capital dressed boldly, but the empress, as the ruler of a country, was extremely "conservative" in her dress.

While Zhao Duan was quietly looking at the empress, Xu Zhenguan was also examining him.

There was no emotion visible in those slightly slender phoenix eyes, only those two pupils as black as ink, which were purely scary.

The king and his ministers' eyes collided.

"Let's eat."

Xu Zhenguan said casually, and then started eating first.

From the outside, it seemed that he was chewing slowly and elegantly, but he ate the rice very quickly, and in the blink of an eye, he had finished two meatballs.

No interrogation.

There wasn't even a single "question", but Zhao Duan felt even more stressed.

"I obey your command." He squeezed out these few words, then simply lowered his head and started to eat with relish.

The Martial God's lineage had a big appetite, and after his advancement, he fought hard, and his stomach had already growled with hunger. Fortunately, the empress seemed to have given additional instructions to the imperial kitchen to increase the amount of food today.

When two people finished their food, the palace maids would immediately remove the plates and bring new dishes to fill their stomachs.

In the room, only the king and his minister were left, and they were the only ones who could devour everything in a flash.

After a long while, when Zhao Duan felt full and his eating speed slowed down, the empress put down her chopsticks, wiped the corners of her mouth with a handkerchief, and said, "Go away."

"Yes."

One by one, the palace maids came forward, began to clean up the battlefield, and served tea after the meal.

With a mood of preparing for death, Zhao Duan drank a sip of tea to moisten his throat, and took the initiative to confess:
"Your Majesty, I am actually..."

He felt that as a man, he should take the initiative and not wait for others to ask him questions.

however……

Xu Zhenguan raised her hand, interrupting his speech. Her pure white skirt fluttered, and she stood up and walked out, saying:
"Follow."

……

...Zhao Duan, whose spellcasting was interrupted, had no choice but to keep up, standing side by side with the empress, one step behind - to avoid letting the empress's plump and perky buttocks come into his field of vision.

The two of them walked through the long corridor, left the Hall of Mental Cultivation, and on that autumn afternoon, crossed the huge square in front of the palace's noon gate, which was large enough to accommodate thousands of people fighting in battle array.

Arrived outside the "arsenal" that was used to guard the imperial city.

"Your Majesty." The old eunuch Hai Gonggong in a dragon robe had been waiting here for a long time. Upon seeing the two arrive, he bowed and saluted.

Xu Zhenguan looked dignified, and said softly, "Yes,"
"If it's not important, no one is allowed to disturb me."

"Yes."

Xu Zhenguan stepped forward, crossed the threshold, and entered the building complex where many palace treasures were displayed.

...When Zhao Duan passed by Lao Hai, he winked at him frantically, asking:

What do you mean?
But Eunuch Hai pretended not to see anything and acted like an invisible person, which made him depressed and even more uneasy.

In the silent armory, the king and his minister walked one after the other along the central axis, passing through one red wooden door inlaid with brass nails after another.

Arriving at the deepest part, we came to a small courtyard overgrown with weeds.

In the autumn, the weathered buildings before our eyes seem particularly desolate and sad.

"Go upstairs."

Xu Zhenguan said softly and walked up the stairs.

Zhao Duan crossed the stone wall with the "Picture of the God of War" engraved on the first floor and climbed to the second floor with the empress.

The door was pushed open with a creaky sound. The layout of the second floor was almost the same as the first floor, the only difference was.

The stone wall in the room was much narrower and higher, and more like a "monument" than a "wall".

The sky was not bright, and the room seemed a little dark.

The surface of the second stone wall was gray and no patterns could be seen.

The king and his ministers stood side by side in front of the door, letting the dim light behind them cast into the room.

"Your Majesty...I actually..." Zhao Duan spoke for the second time.

"Sword." The empress interrupted him again, and uttered this word from her red lips.

"……oh oh!"

Zhao Duan was stunned for a moment, then quickly took off the Taia sword from his waist and offered it with both hands:
"I dared to borrow the sword, which is a heinous crime. It is unforgivable and extremely evil..."

Xu Zhenguan looked at him disdainfully, ignored his nonsense, stretched out his white wrist, and casually grasped the hilt of the sword with his slender fingers.

With his other hand, he put his fingers together and gently brushed the black and red sword. The magical weapon, which was originally only wielded by Xu Zhenguan in the world, was as docile as a cat.

The surface has a ripple-like sheen.

A soft, joyful sound of a sword could be heard faintly.

There seemed to be a hint of... flattery in the sound.

Zhao Duan had a strange expression on his face. He inexplicably felt that he and the sword were a good match. Facing the peerless beauty in front of him, he was just a dog-licker...

It's a difficult situation for a brother to be in trouble...

“Do you know how long it took me to transform from a mortal to a god?” The beautiful woman stroked the sword and asked softly.

Zhao Duan shook his head frankly and did not try to be witty at this inappropriate time.

"Half a year." Xu Zhenguan gave the answer.

Zhao Duan admired:

"Your Majesty is a man of extraordinary talent, a rare talent."

Crossing a realm in half a year is indeed very fast. Although Zhao Duan is also very fast, it should be considered that he had been in the low-level mortal realm for a long time before crossing over. The total time was several years.

Well, if we count from the time when I traveled through time and practiced the Martial God Diagram, it has been less than half a year...

Xu Zhenguan shook his head and said:

"This kind of talent is nothing. The path of cultivation becomes more and more difficult as one advances. Moreover, the time spent in the mortal realm is nothing more than training and accumulating experience... Therefore, in the royal lineage, what is truly valued is how much inheritance and recognition one can obtain from Emperor Taizu."

She was silent for a moment, then said meaningfully:
"Just like this Tai'a Sword, among the many offerings in the palace, there are only a few princes and grandchildren of all generations who can truly cultivate to the point where they can wield this sword and be recognized by it...

Oh, this is a secret within the royal family. Even my uncles and princes don’t know the key to holding this sword.

I just thought that one needs to have a high enough level of cultivation, or the permission of the emperors of past dynasties..."

Zhao Duan's forehead was covered with sweat and he felt a little panicked.

Xu Zhenguan stared at him with her beautiful eyes, and said in a calm tone:

"Do you know when I was recognized by this sword?"

"...I don't know."

"That was a long time after I was promoted to the worldly realm. Before I ascended the throne, even during a coup, I could only hold the sword with difficulty, but I could not summon it at will."

Xu Zhenguan recalled with melancholy.

Then, he gently turned his wrist and placed the Taia sword on Zhao Duan's shoulder.

The empress's jade-like face was frosted, her beautiful eyes were filled with evil, she stared at him, her breath was as fragrant as orchid:

"How did you do that?"

……

Correct typos first and then correct them
(End of this chapter)