The Empress’s Gigolo

A Daoist nun, who was around 17 years old, ran into a Daoist temple screaming, “Sister! Sister, the emperor is dead…”

In a room in the temple, there was another spiritual looking girl who was dressed in Daoist clothes and looked like a fairy banished to Earth. She was practicing calligraphy, and her eyes froze the moment she heard the other nun scream.

“Such a great matter has unexpectedly occurred…” the girl in the room muttered softly to herself before lightly placing her brush to the side.

“Make a guess on how he died?” The young girl winked at her.

“Since you asked the question in this manner, something definitely must have happened. Tell me—I won’t be able to guess it.” When the spiritual girl smiled briefly, and the room was suddenly filled with warmth.

“You’re so boring!” The young girl pouted before shouting out an unimaginable answer, “He was suffocated to death by an odor!”

“Suffocated to death by an odor…” The spiritual girl was immediately startled when she heard that answer. Such a cause of death was considered rather universally shocking.

“Make a guess who did it?” the young girl mischievously asked again.

“I can’t guess it.” The spiritual girl smiled and shook her head again.

“You’ve seen this person before!”

The spiritual girl looked at her gently without speaking a word. After just a couple of minutes, the young girl couldn’t hold it in any longer, and looking decrepit, she said, “Forget it, I’ll tell you. It’s Qi Zixiao’s gigolo!”

“Ah!” The spiritual girl opened her small mouth slightly and put on a surprised look. Her train of thought immediately drifted to the occasion where she had run into that couple in the mountains some time last year. The time of day had been later compared to the present time.

Naturally, the spiritual girl was Li Yuanzhu, whereas the younger girl was Ning Qing.

Ning Qing had grown slightly taller over the last year, and the baby fat on her face had reduced significantly. She looked much more mature compared to a year ago.

“I knew that he wasn’t a good man when I saw him last year, but I’ve never expected him to actually do such an evil thing! He won’t have it easy the next time I see him.” Ning Qing got extremely angry the moment she thought about Ren Baqian. She looked down and felt that her chest had grown quite a bit over the past year.

Li Yuanzhu couldn’t help but laugh when she saw Ning Qing acting like that. However, that man… He really made Ning Qing feel speechless. No one had even spoken to her like that in her entire life…

Both of them had a vivid memory of Ren Baqian saying, “Her boobs are bigger than yours!” back then.

“What exactly happened?” Li Yuanzhu pondered and asked.

“I heard that the palace was suddenly shrouded in a stench and that the emperor subsequently died from the odor. I really have no idea what kind of odor could actually stink the old emperor to death…” Ning Qing looked curious.

Like what the empress said, Ren Baqian had indeed became famous.

Incredibly famous, in fact.

When hundreds of stink bombs exploded in the palace that day, almost the entire palace was covered by the smell. Immediately, the emperor of Great Xia was suffocated to death by the stench.

The palace became absolutely uninhabitable. Practically all of the imperial concubines moved out as if they were fleeing from calamity.

Only a few of the palace eunuchs and bodyguards continued to man their posts and clean up the palace, though they felt like they were going to die at any moment.

It wasn’t until seven days later that the odor in the palace finally began to subside.

The health of the emperor of Great Xia hadn’t been good over the last six months, and coupled with this odor, he passed away in less than two days.

It was naturally impossible to write in the obituary, which was distributed out, that the emperor of Great Xia had suffocated to death due to the odor. If that happened, it would practically make everyone in the world laugh their teeth off. The obituary couldn’t say that he had died from a serious illness either because this would be a big issue that was impossible for the palace to hide.

Eventually, all the commoners and officials in the court came to a consensus and announced that the emperor of Great Xia had been secretly poisoned to death.

At the same time, Great Xia was also preparing to use this chance to push aside its internal conflicts by diverting the people’s attention to the murderer who had poisoned the emperor of Great Xia. They wanted to take this opportunity to catch a breather.

The next morning, countless leaflets were posted throughout the imperial capital.

“Ren Baqian the murderer!”

Naturally, these big words were the doing of Su Qing.

“Ren Baqian who detonated the poison gas grenades” and “Ren Baqian who caused Great Xia’s death” all sounded very awkward. Su Qing mulled over it for quite a long time. He was also afraid that Ren Baqian would come and give him trouble.

After what had happened, Su Qing was afraid that Ren Baqian would find an opportunity to seek revenge against him.

Eventually, he decided to bluntly use the words: “Ren Baqian the murderer.”

At first, the commoners of Great Xia were puzzled about who Ren Baqian was. Then, they recalled that he was Qi Zixiao’s gigolo. After that, they suddenly realized that it was him who had poisoned thousands of people to death in the past. Adding on that the aboriginals had previously swaggered around within the borders of Great Xia, the feelings of all the people immediately surged violently.

Especially after the secretive urging of some people, the spearhead of the commoners’ hatred was entirely directed toward Dayao.

This was Great Xia’s emperor who had actually been poisoned to death! What kind of humiliation was this? If this wasn’t avenged, what face would the imperial family still have?

This led the imperial family of Great Xia to scratch their heads.

It was because they knew that this was the doing of Ren Baqian—even if Ren Baqian was in Dayao and even if the aboriginals didn’t have the ability to move so many things into the Great Xia palace.

The remnant tubes left behind in the palace had clearly revealed the identity of the mastermind, and it was undoubtedly Ren Baqian.

Even though these delicate devices looked different from those tiny muskmelons that exploded on the battlefield previously, they still had the same style.

In addition, Great Xia’s imperial court wanted time to recuperate even more so at this point. They didn’t want to immediately roll up their sleeves, fight it out with the aboriginals, and spill their brains out.

However, the focus of the commoners’ hatred was currently pressuring them. At the same time, this issue also truly made the imperial court extremely furious. Likewise, the military leaders had adopted an attitude quite similar to that of the common folk.

Another issue was Great Xia’s crown prince, who had a bunch of brothers watching him closely. If the first thing he did after ascending the throne wasn’t avenging Great Xia’s late emperor, then one could easily imagine what their reactions would be.

As such, after a brief period of disorder and due to various reasons, Great Xia adopted a unified attitude. Whether or not they were willing to, revenge was a requirement.

At the same time, the entirety of Great Xia began to ramp up their activities. Orders for army recruitment, tax increases, and ration stockpiling were rapidly passed down.

Since too many people knew about this matter, the real cause of the death of Great Xia’s emperor had been spread around, especially by those who were well-informed. After all, there were too many people in the palace and a population of nearly a million in the imperial capital.

Some of them had also given Ren Baqian a new nickname, the Stinky Emperor.

On one hand, it was because Ren Baqian had indeed killed an emperor with a stench. On the other hand, it referred to the intensity of the odor at the palace.

Su Qing had also very happily sent Ren Baqian a secret message that told him about his new nickname.

When Ren Baqian received the letter, his face was completely black. This stink bomb still couldn’t hold a candle to the Poison Warrior from before.

The empress had instead laughed freely and heartily for a long time. She felt that this matter was indeed funny. Besides, the fact was that Xia Baichong had suffocated to death from the odor. It was worthy of making her happy. At once, she passed down an order to inform all court officials to attend a banquet at the palace that night for a celebration.

After that, the news of Xia Baichong’s death was passed down and circulated. Countless people laughed until they couldn’t breathe.

The emperor of Great Xia dying due to the stench was indeed an enormous joke.

“Stinky Emperor, how did you actually do it?” During the banquet, Tong Zhenye moved close to Ren Baqian to gossip.

“You wish to know?” Ren Baqian’s face was black. Soon after, he looked over while harboring evil designs.

“I kind of want to know…” Tong Zhenye touched his beard, but still wasn’t able to drop that exuberant curiosity of his.

Ren Baqian saw that the others were giving him gossipy looks as well. He felt the urge to just throw a stink bomb here at the banquet. However, he would definitely be beaten to death by the empress if he did that.

After a while, Ren Baqian sinisterly replied, “Wait for me outside the city tomorrow. Other interested parties can also come along. I will demonstrate it to you!”

Tong Zhenye looked at Ren Baqian for a while before replying, “You’re thinking of tricking me!”

Ren Baqian cursed in his mind. This old fox totally didn’t resemble an aboriginal at all.

Tong Zhenye hesitated for a while before giving a firm reply, “Still, I can’t control my curiosity. I shall await the Stinky Emperor outside the city tomorrow.”

If he really wants to know more about the smell that killed the Great Xia emperor, I can simply just let him experience it right?

And I probably might just suffocate this egotistical guy to death as well?

It was just like a tin of canned herring. Everyone knew how smelly it was, but they still wanted to challenge themselves and take a whiff of it. Especially when this stench had already become a legend after the death of the Great Xia emperor, even more people wanted to know what it actually smelled like.

There were even people from the Great Xia imperial capital who intentionally went over to the palace for a walk. They ended up puking on their way back and lamenting that the reputation of the stink bomb was indeed well deserved.

Ren Baqian felt that Tong Zhenye deserved praise for his courage, so he couldn’t help it and exclaimed to himself, “Disasters that have been lowered by Heaven can still be escaped, but the sins caused by a person can never be escaped!”