The Empress’s Gigolo

Jing Street, a brand new area, was inhabited by the people of the Jing Tribe from Tianjing Basin

Except for a few who were sent by Ren Baqian to the glass factory or to the empress’s garden, everyone else was resettled here.

The one who attracted the most attention on Jing Street was Li Fu, the world’s number one expert.

Before they arrived, very few people knew of him, but once they were here, they couldn’t fail to notice him because senior officials were challenging him to fight every day.

However, these Jing Tribe people had the highest esteem for Qingyun Sword and not Li Fu.

After all, Li Fu was not from the Jing Tribe, so nationality and race were of no significance to him. He would only retaliate when someone disturbed him. If he was annoyed, he would accost Ren Baqian at the Black Bamboo Academy and find trouble with him.

As time went by, he grew accustomed to the peaceful environment there and would spend most of his free time sleeping near Black Bamboo Academy instead of staying at Jing Street. Otherwise, he would sit outside the classroom in a daze and listen to the lessons on topics that he could not understand.

On the other hand, Qingyun Sword was completely different from him.

He was purely a Jing Tribe member and was one of the experts from the insurrection army 70 years ago. Even though he lived in seclusion for many years, he didn’t give up.

Zuo Cheng stayed in Gu City as a commander, while Qingyun Sword, as one of the two Spirit Wheel experts in Tianjing Basin, became the guardian of all the Jing Tribe people here.

During this month in Lan City, everybody knew the name of Qingyun Sword and respected him from the bottom of their hearts.

“Today, three more people were injured outside the street by a barbarian commoner. As usual, the security forces were late,” said an elderly man with some dissatisfaction as he sat in front of Qingyun Sword.

“Did the Public Order Bureau catch the culprit?” Qingyun Sword wasn’t very surprised as this wasn’t the first time such an incident had happened this month.

“He was captured, given three cane strokes, and released,” the elderly man said.

Qingyun Sword nodded to acknowledge that the Public Order Bureau certainly favored the aboriginals. It had been like this before and would get slightly better after Ren Baqian’s personal intervention. However, it didn’t get much better as Ren Baqian couldn’t always be there.

The situation of the aboriginals favoring their own people was something that even Qingyun Sword could understand.

“Ren Baqian did fulfill some of his promises, but to really fulfill them will take some time,” Qingyun Sword consoled.

“I understand, but in just one month, hundreds have been beaten and injured, more than 10 were seriously injured, and one person even died. I am invariably angry every time an incident happens.”

“We need to tolerate them for the sake of the more than 10 million people in Tianjing Basin,” Qingyun Sword said. “Tell them not to clash with the aboriginals under any circumstances, whether abusive or provocative. The aboriginals are straightforward, impetuous, and do not think of the consequences.”

Qingyun Sword couldn’t do much in this situation as they were in aboriginal territory and his power as a Spirit Wheel expert wasn’t a big deal here. If there were problems, he could only seek the help of Ren Baqian.

Fortunately, Ren Baqian had severely punished some aboriginals for provoking and injuring people, so the provocations were less frequent recently.

The most important point was to avoid clashing with the aboriginals no matter what happened. If there were any clashes, these aboriginals, who spoke with their fists, wouldn’t care about rules and regulations. This was the case even with their own people. They would fight first and then be caught by the security forces and whipped.

In fact, many Jing Tribe people were beaten up in this type of situation.

In general, the aboriginals were Man Wheel experts or higher in strength and tough, whereas the Jing Tribe were ordinary and easily injured by them.

If it weren’t for the fact that the aboriginal commoners knew that the Jing Tribe people were bad fighters who would fall to the ground with one punch and become unable to get up, the number of seriously injured would have been more than 10 people.

In general, everything was changing for the better.

This was just the beginning, and as time passed by, Qingyun Sword believed that the Jing Tribe people would be able to live freely outside Tianjing Basin.

At this time, on the way back from the Great Hunt, Ren Baqian was sitting in the carriage playing a card game with the empress.

At this time last year, Ren Baqian was a participant in the Great Hunt and had personally killed a person for the very first time in his life. This time, when he revisited the place, the situation was totally different.

Except for a few who joined the army this year, the young people who participated in the hunting contest weren’t much different from those who had participated last year.

For example, there was Hong Xian, Du Changkong, and also Liu Ruoyao, who had clashed with Ren Baqian before.

However, Ren Baqian, as a Rank 4 official, was only accompanying the empress to the bountiful Great Hunt this time, and many people were secretly envious and jealous of him.

Ren Baqian, who was sitting across from the empress, said while drawing his card, “The number of people coming to the birthday celebration of the empress is much fewer this year.”

Last year, he was the Honglu Deputy. All the participants from the foreign countries were vetted by him, so he was very clear about this matter.

However, this year, half a month before her birthday, he paid some attention to it. Not only were there much fewer participants, there were practically none.

He actually wanted to see whether some gigolos would dare to woo the empress.

This proved that those fellows at least knew that the empress was taken, and it gave him a sense of achievement.

The empress said without raising her head, “This year, after attacking Great Xia, we attacked the Yun Nation and the Chen Nation. Who would dare to come?”

Anyway, her wish was to obtain many valuable gifts in order to exchange for weapons.

She didn’t care about those people at all.

“What present does Your Majesty want?” Ren Baqian asked with a laugh.

“Are you asking me?” The empress raised her head and gave him a sideways glance.

“Even if it’s the moon… Although it can’t be plucked, I can give Your Majesty a picture of it!” Ren Baqian was kicked out by the empress just when he had finished speaking.

A little while later, Ren Baqian was back in the carriage sitting in front of the empress with a serious look as they continued playing cards.

However, he still had to prepare for her birthday carefully.

Hong Wu gave the gift of a Jade Embryo last year. Ren Baqian couldn’t obtain such a treasure, but he needed a gift that would move the empress.

After the group returned to Lan City, Ren Baqian continued to teach about making the steam engine.

During this period, Li Fu was spending more and more time at the Black Bamboo Academy. Ren Baqian started pondering over how to make Li Fu the academy’s sweeping monk.

With his power, it was a waste not to make him the academy’s sweeping monk.

One had to know the three most legendary professions were the gatekeeper, the sweeping monk, and the librarian.

Ren Baqian aimed to make Black Bamboo Academy the best institution in the world. Having the world’s number one expert as a sweeper would give his academy a first class image.

Unfortunately, Li Fu wasn’t deceived by Ren Baqian. Although he had a good character, he wasn’t a fool.

He was watching Ren Baqian and trying to get him to make the hot-air balloon and rocket sooner.

Then, one week before the empress’s birthday, Zhang Junzheng came to look for Ren Baqian and informed him that the Zhang family was ready.