The Empress’s Gigolo

“You two gentlemen, I will still need to inconvenience the both of you to watch over Xueyang City.” Ren Baqian cupped his fist in obeisance as he said this to Zuo Cheng and Qingyun Sword.

“The two of us can’t resist their army!” they both replied in unison.

“No problem. Her Majesty will leave 1,000 soldiers here to defend. The two of you only need to ensure that no enemies make their way in,” Ren Baqian said.

Currently, the three cities within the Three Rivers Delta were the most important. The first one was Xueyang City, whereas the second and third were Youxin City and Chun City, where Tie Zihe and Rao Yu were respectively located.

Among these three cities, Xueyang City bordered the Wang Estuary, Youxin City bordered Ghost Ridge, and Chun City was located to the south. These three cities provided support for one another.

In particular, Xueyang City was between the other two cities and was the most important city as a result.

Originally, the rebels were prepared to hold off the aboriginal soldiers at Xueyang City so that by the time the armies of the other two cities arrived, it would be just in time to defeat the aboriginals.

Yet, never did they expect that Xueyang City would be conquered in just one night. Xie Kun was defeated and had escaped with tens of thousands of the remaining rebel soldiers.

At this time, the empress was preparing to lead her soldiers to attack Youxin City, which was located to the northwest. This was because the only way the rebels could disrupt the supply line of the aboriginals’ rations was by passing through Youxin city. However, as she was afraid that Rao Yu would take this opportunity to attack, she left 1,000 soldiers behind to defend Xueyang City, while Ren Baqian sought out Zuo Cheng and Qingyun Sword to stand guard as well.

It was impossible to send the two of them to attack Youxin City, but it was fine to deploy them to watch over Xueyang City.

1,000 aboriginal soldiers was equivalent to about 10,000 ordinary soldiers. Furthermore, they were defending a city. Even if the city was directly assaulted, they could withstand it for at least two days.

Instead, they had to be wary of any surprise attacks from the other party.

To a Spirit Wheel expert, there wasn’t much of a difference between killing a Man Wheel expert or killing an ordinary person. Of course, killing 1,000 of them was definitely much easier than killing 10,000.

“I’ll leave behind that fellow who can never stay awake. If there are any experts from the other side who are difficult to handle, wake her up.” Ren Baqian fished out a bag of White Rabbit Creamy Candies and handed it to Zuo Cheng. “When the time comes, just pass this to her.”

On the contrary, Ren Baqian now had more trust in Zuo Cheng than in Qingyun Sword.

Zuo Cheng wasn’t like Qingyun Sword, who was ambitious. The Lingshan Sect was all he had.

Now, apart from Zuo Cheng and Su Xing, who was the chief, there were only a few cats and kittens left. The rest of their people had joined the Rearguard Commandery.

Introspectively, even though Qingyun Sword was the first to surrender, he had too many thoughts and worries that constrained him quite a bit. Even though Ren Baqian had forced him to do a couple of tasks, Qingyun Sword had never been able to break free of this, which made Ren Baqian a little dissatisfied.

As the two of them walked out alongside each other, Zuo Cheng asked emotionlessly, “Why are you still hesitating? If you are too cautious, you won’t be able to complete your task.”

After he finished speaking, Zuo Cheng didn’t look at Qingyun Sword’s reaction. He followed the paved street laid with flagstones and disappeared into the crowd after merely a few steps.

On the other hand, Qingyun Sword stood there blankly for quite some time before heading in another direction.

Not long after the two left, Ren Baqian joined the empress in her carriage. Under the escort of the soldiers, they left from the west gate and headed northwest.

“How long do you think it will take for Rao Yu to arrive?” the empress asked as she ate fruits while lying on a piece of animal hide.

“The moment we arrive at the city! Hong Cheng is the one watching over the city. With a distinguished father like Hong Wu, we believe he can definitely guard the city. Furthermore, Your Majesty’s sharpest swords were given to them. This is already enough to deal with the majority of the possible situations.” Ren Baqian laughed. Besides, he still had a huge number of skunk bombs.

As he spoke, Ren Baqian conveniently swept his gaze over the empress’s exquisite body that was covered by a red muslin cloth.

The empress then said with a threatening tone, “I’ll gouge your eyes out if you continue to look.”

She licked her lips as she spoke, and it made her even more charming. The tone she was using was completely different compared to when she had dunked people’s heads into water.

“Your Majesty’s elegant appearance has already been etched in my heart. Unless my heart is to be ripped out,” said Ren Baqian as he clutched his chest.

Both Qing Yuan and Hong Luan stuck their tongues out. Sir Ren had the nerve to say such things!

The empress glared at him intensely. With regard to someone shameless like Ren Baqian, she loathed him at times, but adored him at times too.

“Damned thing!” the empress cursed with a gentle tone and looked upon him with a docile gaze. Even though she swore, that suddenly soft and gentle voice made his heart melt.

“Your Majesty, where did you learn this from? If you let the imperial officials hear this, they’ll definitely swallow me alive,” Ren Baqian continued with a smile as he looked at the empress’s expressions that had suddenly turned gentle. Just like how one would dance, his fingers swiftly jumped onto the back of the empress’s hand.

Shortly after, the guards at the side saw a person flying out of the empress’s carriage.

“F*ck!” Ren Baqian muttered as soon as he got onto the back of his fork-horned cow.

It was clear that you seduced me, yet you kicked me out!

Your tactics are getting out of hand!

After marching for half a day, they finally stopped to take a rest at noon. For lunch, each of them had four buns that were the size of four fists and some meat soup on top of tht.

Not long after they finished their lunch, the situation in the surroundings began to grow chaotic.

Seated in her carriage, the empress was frowning as she asked, “What’s happening?”

“Sir Ren! What’s happening?” Hong Luan extended her head out of the empress’s carriage and called out to Ren Baqian.

“Let me go and take a look.” With a barbecued meat bun in his mouth, Ren Baqian was about to take a step forward

“What’s happening?”

“It should be the insect soldiers from the Six Doors!”

“Since it’s the insect soldiers, that implies there’s someone controlling them. Find and kill the person!” Ren Baqian instructed coldly. As he had heard such news before, he was able to calm down almost immediately.

While talking and moving forward, he noticed a lofty figure outside of the crowd. It was Qing Ping.

He saw a long saber in Qing Ping’s hand, and the ground in front of him looked as if it had been ploughed; all the soil had been turned over. At the same time, lumps of yellowish and greenish liquid appeared on the soil.

Ren Baqian looked over carefully and could see everything clearly this time.

The ground in front of him was filled with large and small insects wriggling around as well as snakes. This included spiders, serpents, centipedes, and other unknown bugs. The scene was brightly colored and densely packed with these creatures, which made it extremely revolting.

In particular, the sound produced when those creatures crawled around gave people goosebumps.

“Captain Qing, I’m sure someone is controlling them! Do you hear any strange noises?” Ren Baqian asked as he stood behind Qing Ping. After speaking, Ren Baqian pricked up his ears, but didn’t hear any strange noises at all. He only heard the noises made by the movements those creatures.

Qing Ping struck once more with his long saber and listened attentively. Shortly after, he frowned.

It was evident that he didn’t hear anything.

“Guards, I will handsomely reward anyone who can find the person controlling these insects and snakes!” Ren Baqian shouted to the back.

“Sir, perhaps there isn’t anyone controlling them!” One of the baihu stepped forward and said, “I have discovered this thing!”

He revealed a stalk of a yellow flower as he spoke.

“What’s this?” Ren Baqian asked.

“This is a Hedychium Coronarium ¹ . It isn’t special, but if you sprinkle a type of special powder on it, it will emit a smell that attracts poisonous insects. When we were resting, we found that this flower stalk had been sprinkled with the special powder. In other words, these snakes and insects weren’t manipulated to attack us, but rather, we are blocking their way! ”

“How do you know this?” Ren Baqian was curious.

“Back in the day, I learned an assortment of tricks in the south by coincidence,” the baihu said.

“How did they know that we would be resting here? Who found this place?” Ren Baqian asked as he glared around.

“Sir, they didn’t necessarily know where we would be resting at. This type of flower is very common. As long as someone sprinkles the special powder on these flowers in locations that are spacious and suitable for camping, then when the soldiers are resting, all the person has to do is release the snakes and insects from afar. Naturally, they will make their way over. If we didn’t know better, it would be easy to think that these snakes and insects were being manipulated to charge at us.”

“Good job!” Ren Baqian patted his shoulders and complimented him. “That means if we retreat, nothing will happen, right?”

“That’s right!”

Xi Wanya, who had just arrived, shouted upon hearing the prior conversation, “Everyone, retreat onto the road! Check carefully if there are any small yellow flower petals.”

Moments later, the crowd returned back to the road and realized there really were such flowers along the paved path. Moreover, some petals were even littered on the road itself.

It wasn’t easy for such a matter to attract anyone’s attention. If it wasn’t for that baihu, perhaps they might have suffered a huge loss.

After burying those flowers, sure enough, those snakes and insects stopped moving forward.

“What’s your name? Ren Baqian shouted for that baihu.

“Sir, I’m Yue Kaiyang!”

“Previously, I said that I will handsomely reward anyone who catches the person who was controlling the snakes and insects. Even though you didn’t capture anyone, you have a made a great contribution. Note down that Yue Kaiyang has been promoted two grades higher to qianhu!

“Thank you, Sir!” Yue Kaiyang was elated.

“Do your job well!” Ren Baqian was very pleased.

“You did well!” From the side, a husky voice sounded.

Ren Baqian turned his head to look and saw Xi Wanya nodding his head at him.

“Thank you for the compliment, Sirs!” Yue Kaiyang responded almost immediately.

“Take your leave! I’ll get someone to send a token over to you. As for the documentation, I’ll send it to you on a later day,” Ren Baqian continued.

After Yue Kaiyang took his leave, Ren Baqian turned and said to Xi Wanya, “It seems like we have to be extra cautious. I heard that apart from insect soldiers, the Six Doors still have monkey and elephant soldiers that are very hard to deal with!”

Just when Ren Baqian finished his words, he felt the ground shaking violently.

The source of the vibration was the ground in front of everyone.

From this scale of vibration, it’s as if a large number of mounted soldiers are heading in our direction. I’m sure that the rebels don’t dare to meet us head on. Since it isn’t them, I believe that it must be the elephant soldiers! Immediately, a thought like this emerged in Ren Baqian’s head after already witnessing the insect soldiers.

Since the insect soldiers had already shown up, it was logical for the elephant soldiers to appear now.

For the first wave of attack, the other party had sent out their insect soldiers. If Ren Baqian’s subordinate didn’t detect any issues, perhaps they would have incurred a substantial number of casualties. Ultimately, they would have discovered that they were attacked less on the roads, and retreated here as well.

Then, the elephant soldiers would charge over! If everyone was in the way of the elephants, then they would inevitably sustain serious injuries or even die.

If they were to enter the underbrush on either side of the road, they would end up as food for the snakes and insects.

The opponent’s plan was pretty well thought out!

Ren Baqian looked over as he continued to ponder in his head.

Then, he saw a few huge animals rampaging toward their direction that were about six meters talls and had two long tusks that were almost three meters long.

The road, which was seven or eight meters wide, was just enough to accommodate two of these giants running side by side!