The Empress’s Gigolo

“Selling newspapers, newspapers, the Lan City Newspaper. One copper each! Lan City newspapers, hot off the press!”

Early in the morning, these words sounded all over Lan City. Groups of children wearing animal-skin skirts shouted nonstop as they ran around the city holding thick stacks of newspapers.

“Lan City Newspaper? What’s that?” Passersby were puzzled. What was this?

“It’s a newly released newspaper published by the Black Bamboo Academy. It contains everything about Lan City and all the latest news, such as the Minister of Revenue and Minister of War fighting at the imperial court, the Minister of Rites getting kicked into the drain by his wife after returning home drunk from the brothel, a secretary from the Ministry of the Army challenging an unknown expert last night and falling to the ground after getting kicked in the crotch, how Zi Donglai quickly took down seven cities in the war at the Yun Nation…”

“Come over here kid—are those things you said real?” a burly man asked.

“Of course! It’s all written inside.” Having been called out to, the seven year old boy raised his head, looked at that man, and asked, “Do you want one? Just one copper.”

“I can’t read!” The burly man burst out laughing.

The kid’s face immediately turned black, “Why ask if you can’t read?”

“I merely asked if it was real.” The man couldn’t care less.

At that moment, another girl ran over and shouted, “Buy the newspaper—there’s a half-length portrait of the empress! And also all sorts of news about Lan City!”

“Give me one!” The burly man threw a copper over without hesitation, took the newspaper, and left happily.

Even though he didn’t understand what was written in it, being able to see the empress’s half-length portrait was good enough!

This newly released Lan City Newspaper had a half-length portrait of the empress on its first page. Even though it was monochrome, all of its readers could visualize her wearing bright red clothes. Her eyes were narrowed, and it looked as if the tip of a blade was flashing across her eyes.

Those who bought the newspapers could even feel the empress’s aura through that portrait.

They didn’t know who drew the portrait of her, but it was extremely life-like.

The man went back home, displayed her portrait, and offered flowers and tributes day and night. He wasn’t the only person who thought like this. Some people even made wooden frames to encased that piece of newspaper.

This way, it was easier for them to display it.

“Sir, the newspaper is selling pretty well. However, most of the people bought it for Her Majesty’s portrait because very few of them know how to read. I’m afraid that we will not be able to sell that much from tomorrow onward.”

In the afternoon, more than half of the newspapers had already been sold. Zhu Zhuo, an official from the Department of Commerce, reported this to Ren Baqian.

“There’s no harm in that. Put up the leftover papers on the streets and get people to read them out loud,” Ren Baqian replied.

Newspapers could broaden the knowledge of the civilians and also induce discussions among them. It didn’t matter even if they had to spend money on it.

Besides, this venture wasn’t even able to generate revenue.

However, it was indeed Ren Baqian’s good foresight to have placed the empress’s half-length portrait in the paper. At the very least, the Lan City Newspaper’s reputation shot up instantly.

It had been a month in Dayao since the martial arts center opened for business. He constructed the paper mill during this period of time with the main focus of producing two types of paper. One was newspaper… The other was toilet paper! After the mill was set up, he left the rest of the tasks to the Ministry of Works.

If it wasn’t an expensive item or luxury items that were required for a short period of time, such as mirrors or glass, Ren Baqian practically had no intention of getting involved. This was to avoid having a reputation among the commoners of fighting for benefits. It actually wouldn’t bother him, but for the empress, he had to give it some consideration.

By doing so, the Ministry of Works and Ministry of Revenue were also able to obtain some benefits.

As for the contents of the newspaper, they were basically provided by the students of the school.

The students were very interested in such novel things and revealed many of their house secrets after school. For instance, Tong Lan revealed the entire dark past of her grandfather, Tong Zhenye, without hesitation. This information alone was sufficient to publish a few issues under the Tong Residence’s special column in the paper.

Ren Baqian left the Department of Commerce’s office and took a walk in the districts of Beihong and Zhulian. A few houses on a plot of land had been cleared up, creating a circular plaza. Countless sacks of cement, bricks, and tree trunks were piled up in the middle of the plaza as many of the aboriginals came and went.

What they were intending to build at this location was a clock tower.

Currently, the 66 meter clock tower was already half finished. It would take roughly another month before the tower was complete.

Also, the Zhang family was busy making the clock that would sit atop this gigantic tower.

If it was successful, the entire clock tower would be completed in under two months. This could then be considered as a landmark building of Lan City.

Ren Baqian returned to the palace after spending some time looking at the clock tower from the surroundings. He saw the empress standing in front of a table where a set of writing stationery was laid out. While standing there, she held the brush for a long time before wielding it intensely.

He walked over, saw her drawing something, and immediately smiled before saying, “Your Majesty, you are actually painting today. What put you in such a good mood?”

“Indeed… I need to calm myself down. It’s said that painting has such an effect.” The empress finished her painting very quickly and tossed the brush aside promptly. She stretched her body and held her waist, revealing the curves of her upper body to Ren Baqian.

The empress felt that her level of cultivation was still increasing, which made her a little vexed.

She basically didn’t have to do much training. Regardless of whether she was happy or angry, her level of cultivation would randomly increase.

She would occasionally be faced with a flash of insight, causing her level of cultivation to increase substantially.

If she hadn’t forcefully suppressed herself the previous time, she probably would have made a breakthrough to the Cardinal Heaven stage that the previous emperor had attained.

However, no matter how much she suppressed herself, her strength kept on gradually increasing, and this made her a little annoyed.

Recently, she had been worried about her strength increasing too quickly.

If other people came to know about the empress’s worries, they would probably throw up three liters of blood before hanging themselves on a tree. There were so many people who got stuck at a bottleneck and were never able to advance as well as many who worked tirelessly just for a little bit of improvement.

On the other hand, the empress was worrying about not being able to control the rate of her increase in strength!

“Your Majesty, the thing you are drawing is… a comic?” Ren Baqian was surprised when he looked at the thing on the paper. There was a ball with two crescent eyes and an arc at the bottom. If it wasn’t a comic, what was it?

“What’s a comic?” The empress was a little puzzled. She stretched out her finger and pointed at her painting, then said, “The sun, the red moon, and the yellow moon! Doesn’t it look like that?”

Ren Baqian kept silent for some time.

Yes, there were indeed two lunar cycles in this world; a cycle of red and a cycle of yellow. The red moon could be seen every night, whereas the yellow moon only appeared once every three days.

Even though the painting looked comical no matter how he looked at it, it was at a kindergarten standard!

However, she was the empress, so it was what she said it was.

“Yes it does! I was too slow-witted and actually didn’t think of it at that moment. After listening to your description, it indeed looks like that. If colors were added to it, I would definitely have recognized it at first glance. Your Majesty actually painted something so incredible that no one is capable of matching it.”

“Do you take me for an idiot? Trying to fool me again?!” The empress rolled her eyes at him, swung her sleeves, and walked back to the couch.

“How so? For instance, nobody who has practiced for less than ten years would be capable of drawing a sun so round! There was once a great artist who drew eggs for many years, but still wasn’t able to draw two identical ones. He later went on to become one of the most famous artists in the world. Looking at Your Majesty’s painting, it looks almost similar to a circle drawn by a compass. If you were to draw another one, it would surely still be at that standard. As for the two moons, both their angles and sizes are exactly the same. Such precise control makes you far superior to others and naturally allows you to do half the work and produce twice the effect when you draw!” Ren Baqian exclaimed earnestly.

He continued, “Regardless of whether it’s training or painting, you are much better than anyone else the moment you try your hand at it.”

“Did this great artist that you mentioned really exist? What was his name?” the empress turned her head and asked.

“Da Vinci!”