The Empress’s Gigolo

“Earlier, those fellows were talking about the street lights in the palace again,” the empress said unhappily while sitting at her desk.

On the table between Ren Baqian and the empress was a hotpot exuding a nice aroma. Nearby, there was an ice box with a fan blowing cold air in their direction.

“Your Majesty is angry again?” Ren Baqian filled the wine cup for the empress and asked with a smile.

The empress grunted softly. Anyway, Dayao’s imperial court was filled with tough and thick-skinned officials, so giving them two kicks or a few slaps wasn’t a big deal.

The empress downed a cup of wine before grumbling, “I have explained it to them before, but they can’t understand and always think of me as being too extravagant. Anyway, it isn’t up to them to question what I do!”

In fact, the last sentence was she wanted to say.

Other people would answer any questions a few times and would be able to clear the doubts.

Given the character of the empress, how would it be possible for her to explain in a calm way so many times? It was hard for the senior officials of Dayao to understand that the street lights weren’t expensive.

In this world, a street light was actually a treasured object. It didn’t produce oily smoke and stayed bright for a long time. If it was sold outside, many people would rush to buy it.

Furthermore, Dayao had never been a rich nation. The palace’s small treasury was totally dependent on the gold mines to fund its expenditures, and everyone was used to it.

Now that the palace had suddenly become like this, they didn’t feel comfortable.

The empress was haughty by nature and not talkative. If others asked, she wasn’t inclined to explain, which led many people to misunderstand her actions.

“Maybe I can explain it to them,” Ren Baqian suggested. In fact, he had heard about this issue before, but the empress didn’t open her mouth and nobody had asked him. He couldn’t be expected to run around trying to explain that this thing wasn’t expensive.

“You don’t have to concern yourself with this problem,” the empress coldly said.

“Pour the wine for me!”

Ren Baqian filled her cup with wine before they toasted each other.

After drinking his wine, he changed the topic and asked, “How are the situations in the northeast and southeast regions?”

“There are 573 cities of various sizes in the Yun Nation. Zi Donglai has captured 33 cities near the border. As for the southeast region, the battles are small scale without much movement.” Speaking of this, the empress regained her spirit.

Attacking cities and capturing territories was always a major event for every monarch.

It was the same for the empress.

“Are there enough soldiers at the frontline?” Ren Baqian asked. 15,000 soldiers and 40,000 recruits from the Protectorate of the Northeast were deployed in batches, for a total of 55,000. Before the war with Great Xia started, the aboriginals had a total of less than 100,000 soldiers.

This 55,000 was already more than half of the original figure.

“I’m preparing to recruit 40,000 more recruits and will send out the conscription orders after this year,” the empress said.

“Has the food problem been resolved?”

“Your sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and peanuts have played a big role, and under Ge Yihong’s promotion efforts, the production volume is good. Prepare to introduce these crops to more areas next year. In addition, your cannery provides food to about 10,000 soldiers, but many people are scolding you!” The empress grinned after saying this and felt that Ren Baqian was unfairly blamed.

“I don’t deserve to be scolded! It’s possible to exchange the canned food for livestock in the cities and then send that to the soldiers.” Ren Baqian smiled. Not going hungry was already pretty good, yet they were still picky.

“For the time being, that won’t be necessary. The canned food can provide rations for 10,000 soldiers, and the main reason is that the distance is too far. Next year, after the conscription of the recruits, the canned food, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and peanuts will form the military rations and will not need to be transported to the Yun Nation,” the empress said casually.

Ren Baqian thought for a while and concluded that he needed to bear with the scolding for some time.

The two drank four bottles of sorghum wine and felt slightly drunk.

“Your wine is still nicer to drink. I’m not sure whether there’s still anymore.” The empress’s beautiful eyes rolled about.

“I have told the Zhang family that this type of wine takes ten years of brewing and distillation to become highly purified. The Zhang family still has one batch in the Yun Nation, but there is no way to bring it here at this time. We need to wait until half of the Yun Nation has been captured by General Zi.” Ren Baqian saw the empress rise up to walk out and followed behind her.

When they came out of the hall, the empress pulled Ren Baqian along and jumped up to the rooftop.

The whole palace was seen to be well illuminated.

The empress sat on the rooftop, supported her chin with her hand, and said joyously, “I like the palace this way.”

Then, her mood changed.

“It’s just that those people are so annoying.”

Ren Baqian gave a wry smile as the empress grumbled about those people being verbose and annoying, yet she was reluctant to explain the situation to them.

He stretched out his hands to hold the empress’s palm and caressed it gently. Her palm was delicate, soft, and full of warmth.

“What do you think the future Dayao will look like?” The empress let him hold her hand, looked straight ahead, and was suddenly lost in thought. The two of them had already discussed this topic many times before, but it needed a long time to achieve. She would occasionally use this as a way to visualize the future.

She was like a young girl who loved to dream.

“Standing together with the empress is the world I hope for,” Ren Baqian said softly.

The empress looked at him, turned her head, and said, “That’s an evasive answer. I want to know what Dayao will look like.”

“Flying cars will be everywhere… Robots will be doing most of the jobs. After embracing communism, the citizens will have nothing to do except look around on the street to have some fun. Then, two of them will face each other and one of them will ask, ‘What are you staring at?’ The other will reply, ‘Am I looking at you?’ Ultimately, they will get into a fight on the street, get caught, be put in jail by security personnel, and get whipped.”

Ren Baqian was kicked away by the empress after saying this.

This rascal’s words… were like throwing a wet blanket on the discussion.

Ren Baqian got up from the ground, vaulted on top of the wall, and jumped to the rooftop of the hall to sit beside the empress. He saw the empress preparing to kick him and hastily waved his hand.

“Although I was joking, it isn’t totally false. Such things happen when the speed of spiritual progress lags behind that of material progress. However, I don’t think I will have the chance to see this scene, but the empress may be able to see it.”

Even if Ren Baqian were of the same rank as the empress, his life expectancy was much lower than the empress’s. Furthermore, Ren Baqian had to shuttle between two worlds and used up a big portion of his life expectancy on Earth.

“I will not let you die too early, but you only move when compelled to. Tomorrow, I will prepare a whip. If you do not cultivate diligently, I will use the whip to force you!” said the empress as she looked at him sideways. Her tone was full of implications.

Ren Baqian instantly sobered up.