It took a full hour for the welcoming procession to return to the lieutenant colonel's residence. The intimate Lieutenant Colonel William had already prepared a dinner party, and the details of Prince Marcus's meal were unknown to Qi Lang, but it was estimated that he must have eaten happily, because in that large courtyard, there was always laughter and laughter. Prince Marcus's voice is very recognizable, even if Lieutenant Colonel William's large courtyard is hundreds of meters deep, the sound of hehehe will still come out accurately.

Unlucky were the brothers Zilang and Gulf, who disguised themselves as pedestrians and walked around the gate, making it look like they were making a lively appearance late at night.

"How's that?" Gulf deliberately paused for a moment as he staggered past Qi Lang, pretending to crouch there and tighten his leggings, "Our future king must have impressed you, right?"

Qi Lang sighed: "I saw a cloud of darkness. Gurve, you're right, our future king may well be a disaster. Now, I can only hope that old Henry will hold out on to the throne for a few more years. ”

Gulf laughed heavily, and said in Prince Marcus's tone, "Is dinner ready, Lieutenant Colonel William......?

"Shhhh......h ”

Gulf pouted: "Those unlucky people are from the same country as us. As I passed by Sean, I heard his stomach growl too. This rite of passage, we've been completely tricked!"

Fortunately, Qi Lang's group of people was only on duty on the first night, and when the holiday officially arrived the next day, they still had the opportunity to appear at the dance scene as human flesh.

The coming-of-age balls were held at the opera house. The huge bowl-shaped building had long been decorated, with flowers and ribbons fluttering, and a huge banner hanging at the entrance that read "Glorious past, splendid future", and on the side of the banner, several glittering golden letters hung down, "Welcome Prince Marcus"!

According to the old rules, the coming-of-age ceremony was only held for veterans who had been in the army for three years, and other soldiers only watched from afar, and did not have the opportunity to invite dance partners to perform on stage. But this time the situation is different, because the adult is the incomparably noble Prince Marcus, and the protagonist is only him, and the others can only take a back seat. However, in order to show that the Holy Grace of the Imperial Family was celebrated by the world, all the soldiers had to participate enthusiastically, and the scale of the ball was unprecedentedly grand. Due to the large number of participants, only the opera house could accommodate it, so Lieutenant Colonel William had no choice but to arrange it to be held here.

More than 100 of the first recruits of the original 27th War Regiment stood neatly on the stage and accepted the rewards of Prince Marcus one by one. His Royal Highness the Prince brought a beautiful ribbon with everyone's name written on it. Gulf's worries were unfounded, Qi Lang's name was not misspelled, and King Henry's calligraphy was quite high, and everyone's names were completed in hollow letters. It seems that he spends a lot of time practicing calligraphy, but does that mean that the time spent managing national affairs will be taken away?

After putting the certificates, medals, and other useless items back to their seats, the soldiers came to the stage and took their seats one by one, and there was about two hours to free before a sumptuous dinner was served. But that time will never be cold, Lieutenant Colonel William has already arranged it.

"Now, with the warmest applause, the soldiers are invited to welcome the honorable Prince Marcus with a few words. Lieutenant Colonel William stood at the square table on the rostrum and slapped his hands vigorously.

"Thank you, William. Marcus slowly stood up, waved his hand to the audience, and walked over to Lieutenant Colonel William in one step—a whole five minutes in the process, not counting the half minute it took him to twist his fat body to face the group.

"Thank you for your enthusiasm, soldiers of the Luman Empire. He finally began to speak, and there was complete silence all around him, except for the sound of broken porcelain rubbing against each other echoing through the empty space, "Time is short, I have little preparation, so I can only say a few words." ”

Applause reigned. In this round of applause, Prince Marcus took out a one-meter-long document from behind him. Good guy, this is still written hastily without preparation, it seems that His Royal Highness the Prince has the potential of a generation of writers.

"Uh-huh......," he cleared his throat, "the exact date of my eighteenth birthday is actually thirty-five days later, at half past three in the afternoon, not today. However, the Sacrifice of the Holy Kings is a big day, and my father told me that every king before the Luhmann Empire had his eighteenth birthday on this day, so I was no exception. In fact, I prefer to celebrate my birthday in thirty-five days because that's the right day......"

The soldiers below began to scratch their heads. This is actually no wonder of them, whoever wants to encounter this big scene will be a little confused, especially when they have raised their hands for a long time, but they have not been able to find the right time to start applauding, and the feeling of being overwhelmed at this time is undoubtedly quite normal.

Lieutenant Colonel William was evidently experienced in this area, and he had apparently calculated the speed of His Highness's speech, so that he had plenty of time. At the same time, the lengthy speech may also have his credit, because many words in it made Qi Lang feel a sense of déjà vu.

The soldiers had apparently given up on applauding, and either stared at the stage with their fingers crossed and their eyes empty, or simply dozed off, or the women had found a proper job - they all picked up small mirrors and secretly put some rouge on their faces.

Finally, more than an hour passed, and before Owu's snoring could be heard, Prince Marcus's slow speech finally came to an end. The soldiers all slapped their hands vigorously and behaved with great enthusiasm. But it is likely that they did not remember a single word of the speech, and they applauded because the beautiful hostesses had already brought the plates.

Gulf should have been disappointed, because there was no lobster on the plate, but there was a lot of meat, which must be more to the taste of His Royal Highness the Prince, and it could be seen from his body that he must have consumed a large amount of high-calorie food every day in the past thirty-five days and eighteen years of life. But there is nothing to complain about, after all, the food is specially supplied, and the soldiers no longer have to worry about whether the beef has been contaminated with radiation, and the chicken legs will definitely not be taken from the white-haired chickens that have died of disease.

The atmosphere is finally starting to get hot. This is a good meal that has been exchanged for three years of hard work, and the soldiers should cherish this hard-won reward.

However, considering that there was still some free time before the ball officially began, Lieutenant Colonel William was kind enough to help the prince and try to bring the enthusiasm of the soldiers to a climax.

"Your Royal Highness, I have heard that you have traveled all over the country this time, and you have set yourself a grand goal, can you share it with the soldiers, and let us be happy with you?" said Lieutenant Colonel William with a flattering expression.

The prince laughed heartily, and he put the steak in his hand back on the plate, and it seemed that Lieutenant Colonel William's sycophant was just right, and he felt that it was very useful, and he even quickened the speed of his speech.

"That's a very ambitious goal, and I promise you've never thought of it in your life. "I'm going to use this time to write a book—you know books, they're thick ones, sometimes as pillows, sometimes as footpads, if you want to reach the agate cups on top of the high cupboards." I'm doing this kind of work, yes, I'm going to write a book, an encyclopedia of animals about the continent of North Lelikum, and the title of the book is set, it's called "The Imperial Animal Encyclopedia". You have to trust me, I'm very good at it, because I've played with a lot of bugs, like crickets, beetles, ......."

The people below calmed down in confusion, and it took a long time before they applauded under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel William. Although Lieutenant Colonel William's smile was a little embarrassed at the moment, he was so good that he could even cope with such a scene: "Despite your repeated prohibitions, I still have to say that you are really young and promising, worthy of being the future master of the empire, the star of hope of North Lelikum...... Belch...... Would you like to go into more detail?"

Prince Marcus had already raised his chin triumphantly: "The preparations have been made, and it was in the carriage on the way here that I made a preliminary classification of the animals. ”

Lieutenant Colonel William seemed to be sweating, but he still showed a deferential look: "You say, you say ......"

Marcus didn't take out the prepared manuscript paper this time, he was obviously already in his mind: "The first category is the animals that belong to the royal family, the second category is disgusting animals, and the third category is the animals that may break into the women's bathroom......"

"That's really creative!" exclaimed Lieutenant Colonel William, but his praise followed in time. But in fact, everyone could see that the corners of his grinning mouth had frozen.

The soldiers' reaction was even stronger: Zilang and Gulf squirted orange juice out at once, and Ou was a little slower, but he almost dropped his plate to the ground. Luckily, the soldiers were well trained, and most of them applauded Prince Marcus's ambitions, which masked the troublemakers' bad reactions.