The Empress’s Gigolo

“Dear seniors, my master and teacher put their lives at stake just to enter Jiangbei City for information. As we speak, my master’s corpse is hanging on display in Jiangbei City. I beg you, my seniors, to help me retrieve his body.”

A young man no older than 16 stood on a small hill, pitifully asking those around for help.

The faces of those around him lost their color upon hearing his words.

After a while, someone lamented, “Stop thinking about it already. The aboriginals are powerful, and Jiangbei City has hundreds of winged cavalry warriors. Furthermore, Qi Zixiao, Xi Wanya, and many other experts are keeping watch there. No matter how many people we send, they will slaughter us all.”

“Are we really going to leave my master’s corpse there for the beasts to feed on?” The young man’s face turned pale when he recalled the scene from Jiangbei City.

“What about the other people’s bodies? Are we leaving them there as well?”

Two people lowered their heads. Some of their sect members were among the corpses that were put on display.

“I’m sure they wouldn’t want us to throw our lives away like that,” a man answered solemnly. “They are more powerful to begin with. If we were to lose even more people attempting to retrieve their bodies, then this war might as well be over.”

The crowd nodded. The young man’s intentions were admirable, but simply not practical at this point in time.

“Tsk, tsk. Young fellow, why don’t you go beg the aboriginals yourself! You might even come back in one piece if you’re lucky!” An eerie cackling could be heard throughout the forest.

“Stop with your tricks!” someone shouted in disdain.

“You might as well be feeding him to the wolves,” someone else said. “Even though this young man’s strength and status aren’t worth mentioning, his master has indeed sacrificed a lot for the greater good. Nobody here wants him to have died for nothing.”

“Tsk, tsk… And the lot of you here aren’t just waiting to die?” The voice slowly faded away.

The young man looked at the crowd one last time before making his way down the hill.

…

“Why are you all here?” Ren Baqian asked the crowd in front of him. Du Laoliu, the little lolita Tong Lan, and all the other students were present.

Previously, only Shi Gan’s group had followed Xi Wanya over. Ren Baqian didn’t bother them much, letting them move about the city as they pleased.

He didn’t expect the others to come as well.

Having not met each other in almost two months, the group of them started to catch up.

The noise gave Ren Baqian a sense of familiarity.

Yes, it was just like a food market!

Shi Gan and friends were animatedly recounting stories as if they themselves had seen the empress battle Tianjing Basin’s experts. They only showed some restraint when Ren Baqian walked over.

“I heard that Her Majesty battled the enemy here. How could we have been relegated to the back seat!” Du Laoliu looked up and declared heroically.

“Traveling from miles away just to gift your heads?” Ren Baqian laughed.

“It’s not like we have anything better to do in Gu City. Surely we can’t just be waiting there forever? Since Her Majesty, teacher, General Xi, and the winged cavalry are all here, isn’t it much safer for us to be here?” another student spontaneously asked. This student was a girl with above average looks. Aboriginal females were usually good looking, and Ren Baqian hadn’t yet seen an ugly one.

The girl’s name was Shi Yu, and she had no relation to Shi Gan. Shi was merely the most common surname in Dayao.

Shi Yu was born in an ordinary family. She had started off fairly average, but now looked much stronger than before.

“This way we can follow teacher around and attend lessons. It’s been a while since we had your lessons!” another student exclaimed.

Ren Baqian smiled. He liked good children who were always eager to learn.

“Alright then. We’ll find some accommodations tonight so that all of you can prepare for an examination in three days! Let’s see if you guys still remember what I have taught!”

“Ahhh!” The students were dumbfounded when they heard the word “examination.”

“Rest for now. I’ll bring some review exercises tonight!” Ren Baqian continued.

The students were even more dazed.

All they wanted was to tour the front lines. They were expecting Ren Baqian to be too busy to attend to them, not give them examinations and exercises!

The entire group stared angrily at the student who had just spoken. All of them wanted to give him a good beating!

“We heard that teacher has a lot of important things to handle to here in Tianjing Basin. We think you should attend to the larger matters at hand instead of wasting your precious time on us. We’ll be fine just sitting around.”

Ren Baqian pondered over these words. Were these rascals praising him or secretly dissing him? Where did they learn to say such sneaky things?

“Cut the crap! Where’s the previous assignment that I gave out? Turn it in and you can go take a rest. Shi Gan and your group, hand in all of yours as well. I’ll give all of you another assignment later in the afternoon. You guys have too little to do!” Ren Baqian said flatly.

The students wanted to faint.

Ren Baqian sat in the main hall and flipped through the students’ homework. All of them had done the assignment, but the standard of the contents within these exercise books varied greatly.

Their knowledge regarding Tianjing Basin was limited to the armed rebellion, the many different sects involved, and how these sects were organized.

Only a handful of the students mentioned the ordinary citizens and the day to day lives of the commoners.

Even fewer went in-depth in their discussion. Ren Baqian thought that these were the ones who had actually used their brains.

The best answer was Shi Gan’s. After all, he was Great Elder’s son and was probably more exposed to national matters. Shi Gan had analyzed the situation of the ordinary citizens and even provided suggestions as to how they could be better managed. He outlined a policy of suppression and segregation, using both force and softer incentives.

Shi Yu’s came next. She had also written quite a bit about the ordinary citizens.

A few others, who were also of common birth, wrote from the perspective of the ordinary citizens as well. However, their views weren’t as well elaborated as Shi Yu’s.

All the other students had submitted assignments that barely scratched the surface of the topic.

The worst script, unsurprisingly, was Tong Lan’s.

Her answer was filled with things like “kill,” “massacre,” and “slaughter them all.” Ren Baqian wondered just how distorted her worldview was.

Tong Lan belonged to an upper-class family and was a talented individual. She hadn’t encountered many setbacks throughout her life. Because of this, she split the world into three distinct categories. Talented individuals belonged to the top rung of society, while those who weren’t particularly gifted were somewhere in the middle. Anyone outside of the aboriginal tribes was banished to the bottom.

The upper class would govern the middle class, the middle would rule over the lower class, and those in the bottom rung of society deserved to die. Such partisan thinking wasn’t surprising considering her perspective.

The only reason why Ren Baqian wasn’t relegated to the bottom of her list was because Tong Zhenye respected him. Furthermore, he was the empress’s chosen husband.

Later in the afternoon, after the students had rested, Ren Baqian called them back.

“This piece! This is the best piece from the assignments.” Ren Baqian flung one of the exercise books out.

The students stared at the exercise book before staring at one another. Shi Gan was extremely pleased with himself, but held it in and adopted a look of false humility.

“These next few are passable! Shi Yu, Xu Jianshan, Ge Lie… You guys have passed.” Ren Baqian threw a few more books onto the table. Some of the students became visibly more relaxed.

“Everyone else failed!”

“Shi Gan wrote 813 words for his assignment, so we’ll use his as a reference. Shi Gan will write five copies, whereas those who passed will write ten. The rest of you who failed, write up 50 copies!” Ren Baqian announced. Shi Gan’s smug expression had melted into one of despair.

The rest of the students glared at him. Who the heck asked you to write so many words?

“As for Tong Lan…” Ren Baqian paused to look for her in the crowd. “100 times!”

“Why?!” Tong Lan snapped like a cat that had its tail stepped on. Why were the others only punished with 50 copies?

She had a fearsome scowl on her face as though she was ready to tear someone apart.

“Can you sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?” Ren Baqian asked.

“What’s that? Nope!”

“That’s why you need to copy it 100 times!”

…

Half an hour later, a fuming Tong Lan rushed into a house. She stared at the two students inside and asked, “Do the two of you know how to sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?”

“No…”

Thump!

“Ouch!”

Two large holes appeared in the wall.

In another house next door, Tong Lan grabbed two students and asked, “Do the two of you know how to sing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?”

“… Yes!” these students, who had heard the nasty sounds from next door, hurriedly replied.

“How does it go?”

“…”

“How dare you lie to me!”

Thump!

“Ouch!”