The Empress’s Gigolo

Under the night sky, two bloodied figures hurriedly ran toward Jiangbei City. With a twitch of their bodies, they landed on top of the city wall. They turned around and looked at the darkness behind them before powerlessly sitting down and panting heavily.

Now that they arrived here, they were finally safe.

“Who are you?” The guards at the top of the city wall and the winged cavalry warriors on patrol were alarmed when this pair jumped up the wall.

“I’m Shan Yu from Qingjiang Sect. I was originally sent to investigate the Wang Estuary under the orders of Sir Ren. Hurry and inform Sir Ren that we got ambushed and have suffered severe casualties. Only the two of us made it back! Previously, there were still people chasing us from behind, and they only retreated when we got close to Jiangbei City.”

The soldiers on the wall dared not neglect what Shan Yu said and promptly sent people to deliver the message. Three winged cavalry warriors that were on patrol immediately jumped to the base of the wall and dashed into the darkness. After a while, they returned without any news.

“Ambushed? Only two managed to make it back?” Ren Baqian was already lying down in his room and getting ready to take a rest. When he suddenly heard the news delivered by the guard, he immediately put on his clothes and left the house.

“Where are they?”

“On top of the south city wall. I’ve already sent someone to fetch them,” Gong Zheng answered as he stood beside Ren Baqian.

Ren Baqian became gloomy looking. With over 30 Earth Wheel experts and Zuo Cheng to oversee the operation, how could they be ambushed? Furthermore, only two of them managed to make it back?

Did they simply stand there and let people attack them?

What about Zuo Cheng?

After walking a few laps around the courtyard, Ren Baqian’s gloomy expression gradually faded.

It seemed like the enemies had been prepared for a long time. When Ren Baqian and his men arrived in Jiangbei City, the enemies were ready and had already deployed their traps, waiting for his forces to fall into them.

Luckily, these people had been sent out to investigate. If the winged cavalry had been mobilized, even if they were to win, the casualties would still have been quite severe.

However, although it didn’t turn out to be that bad, Ren Baqian still felt the pain. Those people were still a great help to him. Not to mention the plan about making them the Embroidered Uniform Guards, he was still counting on them to placate the region.

After all, they were the tyrants of Tianjing Basin. It would be much easier if they could step forth to placate the civilians.

Yet, there were actually so many casualties now. How could he not feel the pain?

After waiting a while longer, someone notified him and said, “Sir, they have arrived.”

“Bring them to the front hall,” Ren Baqian replied as he walked toward the front hall.

When he arrived, he saw two bloodied and battered men standing there.

“Sir Ren, we have been ambushed. The casualties are severe, and only the two of us managed to escape.” Seeing Ren Baqian enter the front hall, one of the survivors stepped forward and reported. His tone was filled with grief and fury. “Sir Ren, please avenge our people!”

Ren Baqian took a glance at them. He had a slight impression of the person who just spoke. The speaker was an expert from the south. He had a pair of eyes that resembled peach blossoms, which was why Ren Baqian had a slightly deeper impression of him.

After all, it was still weird to see a grown man with an unkempt beard who also had a pair of watery peach blossom eyes.

“What’s your name?” Ren Baqian asked with a cold look.

“Sir Ren, I’m Shan Yu from Qingjiang Sect,” that man replied.

Ren Baqian nodded and asked, “What exactly happened? How did you get ambushed? How many people did they have? What happened to Zuo Cheng?”

“There was a traitor among us who lured us into the ambush,” Shan Yu replied with a fierce and ferocious expression while clenching his teeth. His facial expression became a little warped.

“Who?” Ren Baqian asked with a stern voice as the murderous spirit from his body permeated the entire place.

The sinister look on Shan Yu’s face faded, and he began to smile instead. In a flash, he swatted his palm at Ren Baqian’s forehead.

“Me!”

Ren Baqian’s face turned pale. A moment ago, Shan Yu was standing around three meters away from him. For an Earth Wheel expert, this was actually a very short distance. In an instant, he appeared right before Ren Baqian.

Ren Baqian continued watching as that hand came closer and closer to him. He could even feel the wind from this palm directly on his face. In his mind, he thought about what would happen to him if that palm actually hit him.

He would definitely not be any better looking than a piece of sachima.

His brain was sending warning signals to his entire body, but he couldn’t move his body at all.

Ren Baqian finally realized that a human’s brain reacted much faster than the body, especially in such a life threatening crisis.

However, this was of no help at all. Even if his brain could process countless thoughts, his body totally couldn’t keep up and failed to react in time.

F*ck! Too careless! Ren Baqian clenched his teeth as he wondered, Who did I offend? Why am I always the target?

This thought circled in his head. From the corner of his eye, he saw the other bloodied man take off from somewhere nearby, moving at almost the same time as Shan Yu. Both of this man’s hands were raised up, and there were six short blades in his hands. He attempted to obstruct Gong Zheng, who was rushing over.

“Courting death!” Gong Zheng bellowed. He was feeling extremely anxious. If Ren Baqian was killed, he would be done for.

Mustering the strength of his entire body, he fired a punch at Shan Yu while completely ignoring these blades.

However, since Shan Yu launched his attack first, his palm had almost reached Ren Baqian’s head, and the most Gong Zheng could do was avenge Ren Baqian.

Shan Yu sensed a fist approaching from behind, but he actually began to smile.

He came here with no intentions of leaving the place alive.

Shan Yu’s senior didn’t fear death and had exchanged his own head to obtain this opportunity. Why should he have anything to fear then?

He only had to kill the person in front of him…

At this moment, Shan Yu felt a little regretful.

The ambush in the mountains was originally intended for the winged cavalry, but Ren Baqian suddenly sent this group of people to scout and disrupted their plans. As the investigations progressed, all of the arrangements were exposed.

Having no other alternatives, they had no choice but to change targets. Besides, with such things happening, Shan Yu was also exposed. Before the rest of the ambush survivors could escape and return to the city, he came back first to kill Ren Baqian.

In the eyes of the southern revolutionary army, Ren Baqian was Qi Zixiao’s number one evil dog who was almost as dangerous as Xi Wanya. In particular, the proof of alliance which he suggested had caused unrest among all the sects and made everyone anxious as well.

Unfortunately for him, his personal strength was pathetically weak, which made him the easiest to assassinate.

Without Ren Baqian, the proof of alliance tactic naturally couldn’t proceed. Then, the aboriginals’ habit of exterminating every single foe would surely provoke the rebels of Tianjing Basin to attack.

Even those who surrendered before would probably rebel again. At that time, the odds of winning for the southern revolutionary army would increase greatly too.

The thoughts in Shan Yu’s head were all very short-lived. With a smile on his face, his palm was on the verge of smacking against Ren Baqian’s head. He could already visualize the sight of Ren Baqian dying under his palm. Wouldn’t Qi Zixiao probably go crazy?

All of a sudden, he felt like laughing out loud and even opened his mouth. However, the immense pain he felt in his hand the next second made his eyes open wide, and his laughter got stuck in his throat.

He saw the tip of a spear poking out from the top of Ren Baqian’s head, which happened to pierce through his palm and directly impale it.

After that, a metal chain trailing behind the spear twined around his hand and neck before looping around his body. It was like a huge python that was firmly constricting him.

Heaven-grade weapon? Spirit Wheel? How is this possible?

Shan Yu opened his mouth, wanting to shout out loud. However, before he could even make a sound, Gong Zheng’s fist struck his body.

The sound of bones fracturing could be heard as Shan Yu crashed through the wall like an artillery shell.

At the same time, six wounds appeared on Gong Zheng’s body with blood spewing out.

The Earth Wheel expert who had just injured Gong Zheng looked at the spear with a golden veined pattern as well as the metal chain that was twined around it. They both had emerged from the top of Ren Baqian’s head. He had the same astonished face as he yelled out what Shan Yu had wanted to say previously, “Heaven-grade weapon? Spirit Wheel? How is this possible?”

Back then, when they tried to kill the empress on Mount Wu, almost everyone had met Ren Baqian before. However, none of them knew that he was actually a Spirit Wheel expert or that he actually had a Heaven-grade weapon!

One had to know that he could deceive people with other things, but not with a Heaven-grade weapon!

“Die!” Gong Zheng was ecstatic. With his enormous body, he waved his arms and swept them at that person.

Completely appalled, that person dodged and escaped into the courtyard without demur before running outside.

In his unsettled and panicked state, Ren Baqian subconsciously shouted, “Kill him!”

After that, he shouted again and ordered, “Let him go.”

Just now, he had almost been swatted and nearly ended up destroyed. That caused his heart to practically stop beating for a moment. At the instant that the metal chain and spear appeared, his heart started beating again at an explosive rate.

After he shouted, “Kill him,” he suddenly realized that letting this person escape was a good opportunity.

There were killings every month and every day. How many times had other parties tried to assassinate him already? Did they all see him as an easy to bully target?

The Spirit Wheel level was practically the pinnacle of this world. Aside from a few of the world’s finest experts, it was almost impossible to kill a Spirit Wheel expert. If word spread out from this expert that Ren Baqian was at the Spirit Wheel level, who else would dare try to assassinate him again?

Others acted like a pig to kill a tiger ¹ . He couldn’t act like a pig because his strength proved that he actually was a pig…

As long as his strength hadn’t reached a certain level, there would always be all sorts of people who tried to harbor intentions toward him. There was no telling if there were any of their accomplices among the surrendered experts in the city! In order not to have such incidents occur, it would be better off to act like a tiger to kill a pig…

“Chase as if you are pursuing for real, but don’t catch up to him and let him escape.” After thinking for some time, Ren Baqian said this to Gong Zheng, who had just stopped in his tracks.

“Apart from that, send 300 winged cavalry warriors toward the Wang Estuary to conduct a search and see if any of our men were able to escape.”