The Empress’s Gigolo

On the west side of the Wang Estuary, it was unknown when, but dozens of caves appeared on the side of the mountain. Each hole was four meters deep and four meters wide.

From Jiangbei City to the Wang Estuary, one had to bypass Shandong City. As a result, it was difficult for people to discover these caves.

Presently, the caves that were originally several meters deep had basically been filled up, and soldiers had been been climbing out incessantly.

Within these caves, there was a thick wooden pole erected every 10 meters to provide support. After walking forward a few hundred meters, what appeared in front of their eyes was a huge space that was illuminated by a torch. This place was over 10 meters tall, had a radius of several hundred meters, and had tall stone pillars that towered aloft. If anyone were to observe carefully, he or she would realize that there were also many tiny holes in these huge pillars that had countless tiny bugs climbing up and down while releasing a dense sound.

If a person with trypophobia ¹ witnessed this scene, he or she would perhaps suffer a heart attack.

Furthermore, in this space, there were countless shelves made of wood, soldiers coming and going, and many creatures that were covered with hard armored shells. These weird creatures also looked somewhat like a mouse and had very long tails.

Some of these creatures surrounded the pillars and licked them from time to time, consuming the bulk of the bugs into their stomachs. Additionally, some of these creatures were excavating outward from the edge of the cavern as well as from the shelves. Regardless of whether it was mud or rocks, under the menace of their sharp claws, everything seemed like tofu.

Next to the largest pillar in the middle of this area, there was a wooden platform. An elder wearing a brocade robe sat cross-legged on the platform as he watched all of this happen. Seated next to him was a man wearing a feathered crest on his head and a pinion cape.

“Mister Qiu, it should more or less be done, right?” The man wearing the brocade robe calculated the amount of space within the cavern and asked this question to the man beside him, who was wearing a feathered crest on his head.

“That’s right.” The man wearing a feathered crest on his head, known as Mister Qiu, made several weird tones from his mouth. At the same time, a dozen people who were dressed exactly like him started shouting and hitting the gongs in their hands.

With each sound made by the gongs, those unusual creatures stopped in their tracks, began to gather near the stone pillars in the open space, and licked the bugs that were on the pillars.

“This world is really intriguing.” The man wearing the brocade robe sighed while looking at the unusual creatures and the huge pillars.

These creatures were called qiuyu and were experts at digging holes. They were one of the many different soldiers in the Six Doors. As for those bugs, they were able to consume mud and regurgitate rocks, forming these pillars. The combination of the two could be awesome in many cases.

However, the qiuyu could only live by feeding on this type of bug.

As such, it made him feel intrigued.

Upon hearing the other man exclaim in admiration, Mister Qiu felt content and smiled.

It was indeed worthy for him to be proud since a Spirit Wheel expert actually admired him. Over the past few centuries, his family had raised and trained countless qiuyu in the Six Doors. It could be said that these qiuyu were also part of his family. As such, praising qiuyu was equivalent to praising him.

“When the time comes for us to break the pillars, we are going to start from the six pillars in the north and then work toward the east and west, right?” the man in the brocade robe asked.

“That’s right. As long as you follow the sequence and break the center pillar as well as the 12 northern pillars, the northern part of the cavern will gradually collapse. At the same time, this will initiate the collapse of the cliff above and sever their escape route. After that, proceed to break the Heavenly Pillar in the middle, and the entire cave will crumble. Even part of the highest peak will collapse, and those people will naturally have no means of escape,” Mister Qiu explained.

“This Heavenly Pillar is the most important. It doesn’t matter if they break the pillars in the northern area, but the sacrificial warriors must only destroy this Heavenly Pillar after everyone leaves. Otherwise, all of you will be buried here.”

“Understood.” The man wearing a brocade robe kept this in mind. After all, this was a matter regarding his own life, so he couldn’t neglect it.

He raised his head and looked over, only to see the peak of the pillar in the middle. Countless numbers of bugs crawled along this path to the top of the holes, gathered stones at the top, and piled them into a “stone net” that connected all of the pillars together. At the same time, it strengthened the structural integrity of the cave.

“My job is done. We should head back.” Mister Qiu stood up from the wooden platform as he finished speaking. He then shouted a couple of times.

Immediately, his sect members opened some boxes one by one and hand-cranked the bells.

The bugs on the stone pillars climbed down and made their way into the boxes.

Yet, only half of those bugs entered the boxes before the boxes were already full.

During these days, the number of those bugs had doubled.

The qiuyu took this opportunity to eat heartily. As their extremely long tongues rolled on the ground, those bugs immediately entered their mouths.

…

At this time on the mountainside, not only were the empress, Ren Baqian, and Li Fu present, even Xi Wanya, Zong Shen, Qing Ping, Gong Zheng, Qingyun Sword, Zuo Cheng, some winged cavalry warriors, and some experts from the Rearguard Commandery were gathered there as well.

Nobody wanted to miss the opportunity to see the world’s most powerful expert display his skills.

At this moment, Li Fu spoke sternly and explained, “I came from a background of forging iron. I’m really not good at fighting, but I do have something to talk about.”

When everyone heard what the other party said, they suddenly became more and more aware. Even the empress wouldn’t disregard the advice of the world’s most powerful expert.

“All things in the world are spiritual. People have spirits, swords have spirits, mountains and rivers have spirits. Since there are spirits, there will be life and death. Just as human beings have hearts and brains as vital organs, all things have vital points. Finding these vital points can cut off one’s opportunity to leave. I call it the fatal point.

Although the vital points of people and animals are known to everyone, it’s difficult to discover the vital points of other living things.

Like what I said before, the mountains and rivers are also spiritual. This mountain has a spirit, so it naturally has a fatal point.”

Just as Li Fu finished his sentence, his vigor began to increase. Even though there wasn’t much improvement compared to before, it still made people feel like he was someone different.

His body pretty much seemed to straighten up. The vigor of an expert was radiating from his body as well.

Previously, he was just a normal-looking elderly man. However, everyone could feel it now—that the person standing in front of them was the world’s most powerful expert.

“As long as we find it’s weakness, we can cause more damage and reduce the amount of effort needed to destroy it.” After Li Fu finished this sentence, he rapidly struck with the turtle head on the tip of his staff and impacted the ground.

Following this strike, everyone became more alert. Thereafter, a muffled rumbling noise could be heard from the mountainside.

Everyone felt the ground start to shake as enormous fissures branched out on the surface of the mountainside!

However, they weren’t taken aback by this. Li Fu was indeed worthy of being called the number one expert in the world. This strike could actually shake up the mountains in this area, which was practically an impossible feat for any other person.

Everyone looked at Li Fu with a look of admiration.

Suddenly, the ground swayed even more vigorously, and everyone felt as if they were falling down.

Their admiration toward Li Fu increased.