The Empress’s Gigolo

“In the future, all of you can go out and take a look to see if it is like what I said it would be. There’s no need for me to lie to you. I’m an official, all of you are bandits, and cheating you doesn’t do me any good. If you guys revolt again, I will have to bear the responsibility as well. After all, Tianjing Basin is under my care now.

Beheading all of you would actually resolve all the problems.

The winged cavalry could spend a few months traveling from the north to the south and destroy the sects one by one. However, I’m sure all of you can imagine that kind of scene. Heads would naturally be rolling everywhere.

However, from what I see, there is no need to do that.

In fact, in the beginning, I wanted to kill each and every single one of you here. Tianjing Basin would be stabilized this way. With no one to take the lead, the remaining people wouldn’t have the means of creating any waves. After interacting with you guys for a period of time, however, it actually made me gain new insights.

All of you are just people who operate independently from society. You guys neither have any big ambitions nor wish to be a ruler. All of you just wish to walk out of this place, set up a sect, teach some disciples whenever there’s nothing to do, and occasionally fight from time to time. All of these are small issues that don’t matter at all.

No matter how well all of you can fight, can any of you defeat the empress or the big shots in the Dayao imperial court?

As long as all of you remain content, sparring your lives isn’t impossible.

Sparring your lives will also make it easier to stabilize the situation in Tianjing Basin. Everyone here is also one of Her Majesty’s people. In the future, all of you will be able to serve Her Majesty. There is no need for us to kill excessively and increase the hatred that you people have for the aboriginals.

In addition, I get lightheaded upon seeing blood. I’m afraid of seeing heads roll on the ground. It isn’t a pretty sight.

Therefore, we are giving you guys a chance to live! At the same time, it’s also an opportunity for others to survive!

Go back and think about it.

Guards, bring them back and give them some time to think about it.” First of all, Ren Baqian repeated exactly what Qingyun Sword had said to them. Then, he continued to talk endlessly without getting to his main point for half the day. At last, he finally stopped talking and ordered the guards to bring the captives back to let them think through what he had just said.

“Principal Ren, why go through this hassle?! Just like what you said, kill each and every single one of them and this place will be peaceful,” remarked Gong Zheng who stood by the sidelines.

“That would be the easy way, but if we want to stabilize the situation in Tianjing Basin, we will have to put in a lot of effort.” Ren Baqian gestured with his hands. “In the future, the system inside Tianjing Basin has to be changed. With these captives stepping up, things will be much easier for us too.”

In addition, if Ren Baqian hadn’t met them, these captives would just be numbers to him. Killing them wouldn’t mean anything, but he had interacted with many of them, so in his mind, they were all flesh-and-blood people that had become a part of his memories. In this case, he didn’t find that it was necessary to kill them and decided to spare their lives.

In just the short span of one year, Ren Baqian rose from being merely a commoner to having a high official position and attaining the Man Wheel level. These sudden changes made it so his mentality was easily influenced by others.

Previously, he had experienced the fine line between life and death, got poisoned, headed to an underground organization to grab biological weapons, went onto the battlefield, witnessed dead bodies everywhere with heads rolling on the ground, personally killed several people, and fled abroad to escape… Everything that he had experienced over the past year practically reeked of blood.

The empress and the other aboriginals that he often came into contact with treated slaughtering people as something as simple as eating and drinking.

These experiences had made his killing intent very strong.

Even if an ordinary person got rich overnight, their mentality would change, let alone mention the things that Ren Baqian had experienced.

As time elapsed, however, his temperament had gradually calm down.

The inhabitants of Tianjing Basin should actually be grateful toward that little girl.

Over the past few weeks, Ren Baqian had interacted a lot with that sweet and naive Zhan Caixian. This actually made him calm down quite a bit.

In any case, she was his favorite erhu disciple and was innocent to the point of being pitiful. Ultimately, he didn’t want to see her being displaced and living the life of a vagrant while being hated by her nation. Moreover, if this sweet and naive girl were to wander outside, he was afraid that she would be sold to a brothel in no time.

After another two hours passed, Ren Baqian finally saw Lin Qiaole entering from outside.

Ren Baqian thought that she would scratch him since he had left her behind on Mount Wu, but contrary to what he expected, she yawned, headed to the courtyard, found an empty room, and continued sleeping.

It seemed that nothing was more important than sleeping in Lin Qiaole’s heart.

After standing for a while, Ren Baqian went to find Xi Wanya and wanted to find out if he could mobilize another 5,000 soldiers to Tianjing Basin. At the same time, Ren Baqian contacted Li Qianqiu to send the three scholars he had kidnapped over to Tianjing Basin.

Since they had even begged Li Qianqiu to kidnap their entire families back to Dayao, this meant that they had given up all hope of returning to Great Xia.

These three people would actually be useful.

At the very least, he could mix these intellectuals with the laborers in Tianjing Basin.

…

Even after tossing over 40 people inside a house that looked like a warehouse, there was still a large amount of open area. Although slightly chilly, there were still lots of empty space remaining.

“Do all of you think that his words are credible?” One of the women shifted her body to lean against the wall because this position was a lot more comfortable.

Right after the aboriginal soldiers left, she couldn’t help but to speak up.

“I don’t believe a single word that a bandit says.”

“Just like what he said, how does he benefit from lying to us?”

“Who knows? He might be plotting something.”

“I actually feel that he isn’t lying!” one person said. “First of all, we are already in his hands. Whether we live or not isn’t up to us anymore. It isn’t necessary for him to lie to us about this aspect. Secondly, he’s also an outsider to the aboriginals.”

Everyone looked over at this person after he spoke.

“He is an outsider. Although Qi Zixiao chose him to be her husband, everything he owns is based on Qi Zixiao’s feelings. He doesn’t have any foundations in Dayao’s imperial court and will not be accepted by any of the other officials in the court either. Just a thought from Qi Zixiao and he would be reduced to nothing.”

“What are you trying to imply?”

“He has to cultivate his own power, a power that doesn’t belong to the aboriginals, in order to stabilize his own position. Nobody in their right mind would hand over everything they have to another person.” The person speaking was a woman who wore a brocade top. One of her legs had been broken by someone and was dragging on the floor in a distorted shape. However, she ignored the pain in her leg and analyzed Ren Baqian’s situation for everyone instead.

She continued, “Regardless of whether it is to allow the people of Tianjing Basin to walk out of here or to urge us to surrender, it was necessary to disrupt the internal situation of Dayao. If we want to stand firm, we have to rely on him. Similarly, if he wants to stabilize his position, he has to garner support too. Will the aboriginals support him? Only our people have the possibility of doing so.”

After hearing what the woman said, everyone fell into deep thought. The likelihood of what she said was pretty high.

“In any case, we aren’t willing to take things lying down. My master and junior died at their hands. If I can’t avenge them, am I still considered a human being?” asked a man with one arm missing as he lay on the floor. His eyes were filled with resentment.

…

In the afternoon, Ren Baqian returned to Earth. Just when he arrived in the living room, he heard sounds coming from the television only to see both Qing Yuan and Hong Luan sitting on the sofa, holding a bag of chips, and wiping their tears while they watched a television series… Moreover, it was a Korean television series… At this moment, the scene on the television was showing a couple as they parted forever!

“Principal Ren, why do they always have terminal illnesses? Why can’t they be cured by a doctor? Why can’t couples be together? The terminal illnesses here are very cruel!” Listening to what the both of them had to say, he knew that they had watched more than one television series over the past few days.

Most of the deaths suffered by the aboriginals were due to old age or from fighting a war. It was rare to see an aboriginal dying on their sickbed.

Ren Baqian thought for a while and replied, “It is because they ate too much kimchi! That thing causes cancer!”

Once Ren Baqian finished speaking, he turned his head and looked, only to see a badly battered Shen Feng who stood in a corner in a well-behaved manner. She was looking at Ren Baqian with her eyes full of tears.

“What happened to you?” Ren Baqian got the shock of his life.

Shen Feng didn’t only seem like she had been wronged, she was practically depressed…

Those two ladies completely ignored what she said and insisted that the villa was the empress’s temporary residence. To her dismay, she couldn’t defeat the two of them…