Celebrations; Bane of Mind

Today was the day. Before I knew it, an uneventful week passed by in the blink of an eye, at the flip of a page, the click of a button. Some more literal than others.

I never liked going to celebrations, while I was in east. If someone wasn't dying, you couldn't call it a celebration, and if someone did die, it would be called off halfway, even though literally no one cares about the body. Of course, we did this, once, but the body started rotting. Maybe doing it on a week long celebration wasn't the best idea?

Anyways, I don't like the parties in the west any better. First of all, I feel like I'm being constantly under chemical attacks. Second, they have them way too often. Around 1% of the total population comes under the 'noble' status (including me), and that small percent basically rules over the 'kingdom', without the king doing anything about it. Possibly the reason for lacking loyalty among these nobles could be the lack of their royalty's military power.

Anyways, ignoring the potential civil war in the near future, we have the third reason: hygiene. Have these uneducated slobs never understood the meaning of all keystage 1 PE lessons?

Anyways, I obediently went to the 'king's' summer vacation palace. Yes, summer vacation 'palace'. Not house, he's apparently too rich for that. 'palace'. And don't even get me started on why he has a summer palace.

The summer palace was at the edge of the western territory and most likely crossed over the southern border, but since it wasn't burnt down, and showed no traces of being burnt before, I guess it's safe to assume it's within western territory.

When I went in, I was greeted by three people. Two of which were unfamiliar faces. The first was the king, and then was a lady, around the king's age. Presumed queen will be her name, for now. The other lady was around 15, and I'll call her presumed daughter. Why not 'princess'? Because that is the title reserved for the women of the Shensheng family, born to the emperor and empress, as well as royal concubines. King and Queen don't conflict with emperor and empress, but princess and prince conflicts.

"welcome to the summer palace!" the king shouted.

He raised his arms in the air, and came over to me for a hug. Normally, I'd refuse, but since he is of higher standing than me, and can kick a temper tantrum without losses any more than a loss of reputation.

The fat man hugged me, probably smelled me, and parted after an unnecessarily long time. Same thing happened with the presumed queen. The presumed daughter was more normal, and offered a handshake, which I obviously did not reject.

"now that we are all better acquainted, how about you marry my daughter?"

Better acquainted... I just shook hands with someone two years younger than me, for the first time in my life, and you want me to marry her??

"sorry, I already have a fiancé."

Well, at least I have Ruan Gao to shield me. Hopefully, she won't care too much. Especially since I'm trying to divorce her, at the moment.

"understandable, but polygamy isn't illegal, is it? If my daughter cannot be your wife, then at least the first concubine?"

"unfortunately, I plan on being monogamous in this life."

But maybe that was pushing my luck way too far. I literally just told him, 'your daughter can't marry me! Not in this life!'. Hopefully, neither of them take it too hard...

"well... I'm sure that's a problem that'll solve itself. Come, let us eat!"

Well... he took that pretty well. The confirmed daughter doesn't seem to mind, either. In fact, it looks like she didn't want the marriage, in the first place. And luckily, he didn't mention anything about the senior diplomat. Otherwise, it would definitely be a blackmail threat.

While we were eating, some soft music played. It was nice, but only the parts of it I heard through my fading consciousness. The perfume really was unbearable.

"Pangjia? Are you okay?" asked the king. "escort Pangjia to his room, immediately!"

"urgh. I feel like hurling."

"why? Is the perfume killing you from the nose?" asked a familiar, yet unknown voice.

"no. My nose is killing me because I went into such a... such an intoxicated room."

"it wasn't perfume. It was alcohol. You're just drunk off of air. You and your unrealistically weak tolerance to alcohol will... how do I say this, yeah. It'll fix itself."

"unrealistically weak?"

"yeah. Like the kind of people who get drunk off of new year's sake and start trying to strip, but then it's only an ecchi manga, so the naïve protag is like, 'shoot! I better fix this!', even though nothing needed fixing. And then, the author is like, 'drunk off air, ig lmao lol.', to which I spam one star reviews. That kind of cliché drunkness is what I'm talking about. And don't get me started on those so called 'great' drinkers. Your blood would turn into alcohol before you drink even half as much as they do!"

"I feel like I heard a lot of stuff I shouldn't have... and who are you?"

"take a gander. Just not down my pants. You won't find anything down there, if ya know what I mean." trailed off the voice with a laugh.

"I feel attacked."

"you weren't."

"are you sure."

"I'll reassure you. Just don't trust my reassurance."

"got it."

"hey... can you forget... everything I just said?"

"like taking a gander down your pants?"

"no, you can remember that."

"so you want me to go down everyone's pants, till I find you?"

"nah, I might be cool with it, but my parents will murder you."

"parents... so you're the daughter?"

"yep. Just don't go down my pants. And I have a name."

"I won't know unless you tell me."

"then you won't know."

"good enough. Not like I ever plan on marrying you."

"I'll be sure to bully you a ton."

"I'll be sure to do some faceslaping."

"... hey, are you from earth?"

"no. But I've heard of it."