The Empress’s Gigolo

“Black Bamboo Academy? What does that mean?” The leader thought for a moment. He seemed to have heard of this name before from somewhere.

“Ren Baqian. I’m sure you have heard of this person!” The middle-aged man laughed.

“The husband that Her Majesty has chosen?” It suddenly came to light for the leader—no wonder he felt that he had heard of Black Bamboo Academy before. Now, he finally knew where he had heard about it.

“I heard that he’s a gigolo!” The young girl behind the leader opened her small mouth and spoke out of curiosity. Since the empress was like the prettiest star in the sky to her, she was really curious what the husband that the empress had chosen would be like.

“Zhu Hua!” The leader turned his head and stared at her, causing the young girl to immediately tuck her head down.

“His face is indeed a little whiter!” The middle-aged man strongly agreed as well. “However, don’t say such stuff in the open or else it will invite trouble if others hear it. Also, don’t belittle him.”

“Zhu Zhuo, let us talk about it. You were the smartest in the stronghold back in the day and then you went to the Yun Nation as well. Currently, you are also the one with the most reliable information in Lan City. What we know is incomparable to your knowledge,” the middle-aged leader said.

Zhu Zhuo left his home stronghold around 20 years ago. He was young, extremely intelligent, and even smarter than the chief in the stronghold. However, his aptitude toward martial arts was not exactly outstanding. Plus, he also had a weaker physique. As such, before he decided to travel to the Yun Nation, he had found it hard to receive recognition in Lan City.

Precisely, because he was thinner and weaker, he looked very much like a very strong man from the Yun Nation. He actually spent quite a lot of time travelling around the Yun Nation before returning to hold a position in the Ministry of Works. At present, he was already a Secondary class, Rank 5 undersecretary in the Ministry of Works.

The middle-aged leader looked at him with utmost confidence.

“It’s hard to get news in the stronghold, and there are indeed some things that you don’t really know. However, what kind of person is Her Majesty and why would she choose a good-for-nothing husband?” Zhu Zhuo asked faintly.

Everyone felt strongly about this.

Doubting Her Majesty’s foresight?

What kind of person is she?

Why is her foresight being questioned by people like us?

“Ren Baqian isn’t very good at martial arts, and as far as I know, he had never originally learned martial arts before. However, he has extremely high levels of attainment in all other aspects. Did you see the imperial family’s spice shop when you arrived? Currently, the Ministry of Works is still planting pumpkins, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and other crops. One mu of land can produce several tons of food, and all of it came from him.”

A few of them lowered their heads expressionlessly and counted with their fingers. Several tons of crops from one mu of land—exactly how much was that? The number was too huge, and they didn’t know how much it was. After using up their fingers, they used their toes as well.

Some time later, the middle-aged leader took a deep breath and asked, “So much?”

After seeing their reactions, Zhu Zhuo laughed and answered, “Yes, indeed. I was shocked when I heard it for the first time. Besides that, there was also the salt pan, and you probably should have heard about this. Dayao now has a salt pan, which was also introduced by Principal Ren. Solely based on these two achievements, Ren Baqian wouldn’t be that highly regarded since much of the effort was provided by Dayao. However, he also introduced methods of communicating over long distances, extracting iron ore, forging steel, and provided a weird mechanical weapon that was used during the war with Great Xia. He recently pacified Tianjing Basin as well.”

Zhu Zhuo continued, “He is so heavily involved that the shaved ice, glasswares, and mirrors that you can find in the city today were all introduced by him. Also, he triumphed over the Zhang family, who came over from the Yun Nation some time ago, in a contest that included cloth dying, wine brewing, and weapon forging. You guys might not have heard of the Zhang family, but I actually know quite a bit about them and their capabilities. It was very astonishing for Ren Baqian to win in all three events of the contest.”

The rest of them were all ears. Even though they couldn’t feel it from inside their stronghold, after hearing what Zhu Zhuo said, Ren Baqian seemed to have accomplished many great things.

“This man can be considered a genius,” Zhu Zhuo said reverently.

He had seen many things while travelling. Thus, he understood Ren Baqian’s value better than the others and thought even more highly of him than Tong Zhenye did.

“This Black Bamboo Academy was founded by him, and it’s the place where he imparts his knowledge. Even though martial arts isn’t part of the curriculum, he teaches mathematics and geography, which is indeed impressive!” Zhu Zhuo exclaimed in admiration

“Simply looking at how much he has accomplished and the changes he has made over a short period of less than two years, you would know how amazing his teachings are. Even though you can’t practice martial arts there, it’s an excellent opportunity for advancement. Even though it may seem a little wasteful for the innate skills of these two kids, martial arts isn’t everything, much less so from today onward. There haven’t been any changes during the 70 written records since Dayao was founded. However, for the next ten records or so, as long as Ren Baqian is still alive, there will definitely be changes in Dayao.”

The middle-aged leader kept quiet after listening. Zhu Zhuo’s words had emotionally affected him.

However, given the talent of the two kids, he was very unwilling to let them give up learning martial arts because it would be too wasteful.

…

At present, Ren Baqian was taking a stroll in the marketplace. Lately, there had been many aboriginals who came to Lan City to buy things. At the same time, they had also brought along large quantities of precious goods like rare medicinal herbs and fruits as well as other rare treasures.

For instance, just the day before, Ren Baqian found a leather sack at a aboriginal man’s stall. When shrank down, it was only the size of a fist, but when expanded, it could contain an entire man.

It was said to be the stomach of some strange beast.

Ren Baqian tried it out and found that it was very sturdy. At the very least, he couldn’t tear it apart. His current strength could generate a force of 6,500 newtons, which was sufficient to test the durability of the sack.

A sack like this only cost 30 taels of silver.

Just a while ago, he saw someone purchase a type of baby monkey called a “ting ling.” When fully grown, it would be around 40 centimeters tall with its entire body covered in short golden fur. It had lightning fast speed, tremendous strength, and was at roughly the level of a Man Wheel expert. If it was destined, it could even reach the level of an Earth Wheel expert.

Also, it was highly intelligent and could understand the human language. Most importantly, it had superb hearing abilities, so when properly trained, it could be used to aid a hunter.

At only 500 taels of silver, its price wasn’t too steep either.

After strolling around the marketplace and buying a few interesting things, Ren Baqian returned to that stall, took a few ingots of gold from his bodyguard, and placed them on the table.

There weren’t any banknotes in Dayao, so people had to carry large sacks of silver around in order to buy expensive things. Gold ingots proved to be useful in such cases.

This baby ting ling was about the size of a palm and had short brown hair covering its body. It had a pair of cartoonish eyes that were very odd looking as well as very big ears.

Ren Baqian took the baby’s leash from the hands of the aboriginal man. The nimble ting ling leaped onto his arm and looked at him impatiently with a slight grin while making chirping sounds.

“Little thing! Maybe Her Majesty will like you.” Ren Baqian stretched his finger out and rubbed the baby’s head. Then, it jumped onto his shoulders.

“Let’s go! Back to the palace.” Ren Baqian held the leash with one hand and allowed the little thing to stay on his shoulders as he called out to his bodyguard to return to the palace.

When he got back to the palace, he first went to Pingle Park for a stroll. Two pretty deft palace maids were currently making sky lanterns and had already completed a few that they placed to the side. These were prepared for Ren Baqian to release tomorrow night.

There were a total of 666 lanterns, and he felt that this number was pretty auspicious!

Ren Baqian immediately became emotional after he saw two black and white fatties rolling around on the ground.

Time was indeed a killer. The originally clumsy and adorable Gungun and Tiantian had now turned into these two lumps. Their cuteness was gone, which only left them with their clumsiness now.