The Empress’s Gigolo

At night, the empress got her men to draft a rough map of the area.

It was truly just a rough sketch with points marked out at places where people were located.

They then pulled out a few strings to link the points, before marking five, six, eight, and 14 days at the side. These points were where they had discovered the herdsmen previously.

The days referred to the duration of the journey to these locations.

Mountains and rivers weren’t indicated on the map at all.

It was more of a scribble than a map.

With this, it was as good as not having a map.

“We’ll head here first!” The empress held the map and analyzed it for 30 seconds before she pointed at a spot.

Ren Baqian took a look at it and saw that the site was a five-day journey away from their current location.

There was also another spot that wasn’t too far away from where they were heading.

However, a two day journey from that location would take them to where Gong Zheng and the others had disappeared.

It seemed that the empress held Lin Qiaole and those winged cavalry in high regard.

After they had ascertained the direction, their remaining task was much simpler.

With the 1,000 newly joined soldiers, in addition to the 600 winged cavalry warriors, there was currently a total of 1,600 Kismet Heaven experts.

After the army set off the next day, the winged cavalry and the new soldiers were grouped together along the way. 300 winged cavalry warriors were made the vanguard while the other 300 led three new soldiers each.

This way, they were able to quickly form up into teams and muster up their fighting strength.

However, because of this, their journey had been held up.

After all, these new soldiers were pretty strong, but they were very poor at following military orders and still had a lot to learn.

After Gong Zheng disappeared, Qi Ziting undeservingly took over the position of commander of the army. One could hear his angry shouts among the troops.

There would occasionally be people who got knocked out of their formation by his crutches, but they would quietly hurry back to their positions afterward.

In less than two days, discontent started being openly voiced out among the troops.

After all, the new soldiers were all aboriginals who were used to being undisciplined. Besides, these Kismet Heaven warriors were already considered the core strength of their villages. They were already the strongest among the majority of villages.

As a result of joining the winged cavalry with mixed opinions, they grumbled nonstop.

However, it was already too late for them to pull out now.

Back when Qi Ziting was overseeing the Protectorate of the Northeast, he had experienced countless ordeals. How could he be unable to control these aboriginals?

“Elder brother-in-law still enjoys leading the troops!” Ren Baqian whispered into the empress’s ears as he sat behind her. “These days, I see a difference in the expression in his eyes, he seems to be in high spirits!”

He had already felt that Qi Ziting was a fierce and tough person since the first time they met.

However, Qi Ziting treated the empress pretty well. As such, Ren Baqian had not seen much of Qi Ziting’s fierce side.

Nowadays, Qi Ziting’s eyes were filled with compelling power and influence. Even when he simply stood there in silence, everyone’s heart still swelled with fear.

He appeared even more fearsome whenever he spoke!

Ren Baqian thought about the various officials in the imperial court and couldn’t think of anyone who could match up to Qi Ziting’s might.

Not even Hong Wu!

The empress felt his breath when he spoke into her ears. It felt extremely itchy all the way to her chest. She leaned back and knocked him away before asking, “Elder brother-in-law?”

“Your elder brother! On Earth, I have to greet him as elder brother-in-law!”

The empress turned around. Even though she couldn’t see Qi Ziting, she heard his voice shouting from behind, “I’ll break your legs if you walk sideways again!”

“But I’m riding a giant tarantula…” the man replied in an aggrieved tone.

A giant tarantula was about eight meters wide and two meters tall. It fed on small beasts and birds and walked sideways like a crab!

“Ah!”

What followed was a blood-curdling screech.

The troops took a week to complete the five-day journey before nearing their first destination.

After all the drilling by Qi Ziting throughout the journey, the heroes of the woods seemed a little more disciplined.

“This bunch of trash. If this were back in the day, would I have allowed them to live until today? They are simply asking for a beating!” Qi Ziting’s words were extremely apt and corresponded to the new soldiers behind him. The majority of them were badly battered.

“A sapling won’t grow straight if not corrected!” Ren Baqian added.

Qi Ziting smacked his lips and pondered over Ren Baqian’s words for some time before bursting into laughter and exclaiming, “I like what you said! Even though you are as weak as an egg, your words are to my liking!”

Ren Baqian grinned. Was this a compliment?

He would simply take this as a compliment!

As they approach their first destination, the vanguard of the army let out a cry that was similar to that of a cat. Soon after, a man emerged from the forest ahead.

“Greetings, Your Majesty!”

“Are there any changes to the situation?” the empress asked.

This wing cavalry warrior cupped his hands and reported, “The demonic butterflies are still present, but I didn’t see a lot of them. An unforeseen event might have occurred.”

“Where are they?”

“About three kilometers away from here. They appear at around 12 AM and leave at around 4 AM every night!”

“Pass down orders to rest here. I shall go and take a look!” the empress ordered.

Ren Baqian, Qi Ziting, Ba Man, and Xiong Yue followed behind.

Not long after they entered the forest, they saw oddly-shaped trees that looked like monsters baring their teeth.

The yin aura was very strong in this area and exceptionally so in this forest. It was so great that they could even feel an aura of death here.

Ren Baqian had no idea why, but he somehow felt that these trees were struggling like a man before his death.

After careful thought, the forest where he previously saw the jade-waisted slaves also looked like this. He had simply focused all of his attention on the jade-waisted slaves back then and didn’t pay much attention to the forest.

“I’m afraid that there’s something strange about this forest!” Ren Baqian warned.

The others looked at each other before turning to give him puzzled looks.

“These trees merely look a little weirder.”

“That’s the problem! Why do these trees look so strange when the rest are normal? Look at this tree—doesn’t it look like a human face?” Ren Baqian pointed at a tree branch.

“I liked the things you said yesterday, but why do you sound like a wimp now?” Qi Ziting grinned and laughed.

The empress then gave him a cold stare!

If he wasn’t her elder brother, she would have taught him a lesson about how a loose tongue would cause trouble!

“The forest where we met Bor also looked like this. Along this journey, even though other forests looked half-dead, they could still be considered pretty normal. I feel that there are two possibilities for this. First, the herdsman may have chosen this place because it was different from the other forests. Otherwise, this place could have been turned into this state due to the presence of the herdsman!” Ren Baqian said after pondering about it.

“It truly does seem pretty strange. However, we didn’t face any problems the previous time. The first possibility that you mentioned could be true!” the empress replied faintly.

“We could not care less about this. We will plan an ambush in this area and wipe out all the demonic butterflies at night! At that time, leave the herdsman to me, and I’ll show him the power of the aboriginals!” Qi Ziting grinned with a murderous look on his face.

“One more thing!” Ren Baqian added.

“Why are you such a wimp! If not for my little sister, I would kill you in one swat!” Qi Ziting frowned.

The empress gave him another cold stare as she knitted her eyebrows.

Even though both of them looked very different, their frowning expressions looked very similar.

Ren Baqian ignored him and said, “The last time we met Bor, those demonic butterflies appeared at night. The demonic butterflies here are said to appear at night as well! It was also the same for those people in the villages back then.”

“Your meaning is?” The empress seemed to have understood something after hearing what he said.

“I feel that they are probably affected by sunlight. We can follow them when they start to return to their hideout. Since it will be sunrise shortly after, we can probably save ourselves some effort!”

“We shall do as you say!” the empress immediately agreed.

There was no telling how many casualties they would suffer if they were to fight at night against thousands of jade-waisted slaves under the control of a herdsman.

If it turned out to be exactly like what Ren Baqian surmised, then the aboriginals would indeed save a lot of effort!

“A wimp will always be a wimp…” Before Qi Ziting could finish his sentence, the empress turned around and kicked him in the chest.

Qi Ziting didn’t expect the empress to attack him and was sent flying almost 100 meters away!

Ren Baqian let out a peal of mischievous laughter.

I’ll let you have a taste of the trouble that your loose tongue has caused!