The Empress’s Gigolo

Dayao. July of Year 72.

The empress’s imperial carriage left Lan City once again.

There were almost 1,000 people and more than ten large carriages in the convoy. The cargo consisted of mainly condiments, daily necessities, and some other things, but there wasn’t much food.

Ren Baqian sat in front of the empress’s carriage. He held a bamboo stick in his hand with a summer radish attached to the front end of it. He held it about a meter in front of Qi Shui, the kirin that was pulling the carriage.

“Aren’t you tired?” the empress asked in a dull tone as she sat in the carriage.

Ren Baqian had already been toying with Qi Shui for two days. He started by using meat and fruits, but had now progressed to a summer radish that the cooks had brought along from the imperial kitchen!

Even a docile beast like Qi Shui was starting to lift its hooves as it walked. It seemed like Ren Baqian was almost close to getting kicked by it.

“I noticed that it doesn’t really like meat, so I thought that it would prefer vegetables or something else.” Ren Baqian laughed and attached the bamboo stick to the side of the carriage, keeping the summer radish suspended in front of Qi Shui.

Setting out on a journey this time, the empress finally managed to get Qi Shui, which had been lying at the bottom of a lake for a year, to come out with them. Ren Baqian was finally able to satisfy his curiosity.

He somehow felt that the kirin probably had gills; otherwise, it couldn’t possibly have stayed at the bottom of a lake for so long. Even whales had to come up to the surface of the water to breathe.

Qi Shui had been underwater for so long!

Shortly after, Ren Baqian went back inside the carriage and began studying the second volume of [The Ancient Scroll of Methods].

He had taken a look at it once when he first received it, but he got so exhausted from just reading the first page that he had almost passed out.

It was much easier now that he had broken through.

Even though it was still taxing on him, it was considered pretty manageable for him now.

There were two parts that were written inside the second volume of [The Ancient Scroll of Methods], namely the [Recuperation Technique] and the [Mind Strengthening Technique]. One should start practicing the [Recuperation Technique] at the Earth Wheel level, and its main purpose was to cultivate and strengthen the spirit.

The [Mind Strengthening Technique] was meant for those who were at or above the Spirit Wheel level. Ren Baqian wasn’t able to see the details that were written in the book.

The writings seemed to have some sort of magic power. If the reader wasn’t strong enough, he completely wouldn’t be able to read the more advanced parts. Even if he flipped to that page, he would feel as if all of his energy had been sucked out.

He would only be able to break free of such situations when his spiritual level had reached a certain value.

After reading the contents at the beginning of the second volume, Ren Baqian felt that it was indeed like what he expected. This set of techniques focused mainly on training the spiritual level.

This also meant that his future endeavors might very possibly be that of a wizard.

That would only be on the condition that he was able to find the third volume of [The Ancient Scroll of Methods].

The [Recuperation Technique] made use of the perception of the five elemental attributes that was practiced during [Ruyi Visualization] to visualize and create a realm of the five elements.

Afterward, this realm and the practitioner’s own mind would be strengthened bit by bit through daily visualization.

It sounded relatively easy, like playing Minecraft.

However, it was actually a very difficult thing to do.

Over a few days, Ren Baqian had repeatedly tried many times to visualize the giant trees of the wood element, the lake of the water element, and the land of the earth element. However, every time he relaxed his concentration, the entire realm would crumble, and it became impossible to achieve the solidity and realism that was mentioned in the ancient scroll.

This left him with no choice but to give up on the visualization and be more down-to-earth as he attentively studied and analyzed the hidden meaning behind every word in the scroll.

…

The convoy travelled for seven days consecutively before stopping at a small city, Xuyang City, to rest and reorganize.

When Ren Baqian broke through to the Man Wheel level, the time limit of his power to travel between worlds switched from a fixed period of three days to around two to five days.

This time, after breaking through to the Earth Wheel level, the duration of his time limit indeed changed again.

Currently, he could choose to travel within a range of two to seven days.

Compared to before, this time extension allowed him to plan his schedule much easier.

Ren Baqian finally felt that he had more freedom and ease to plan his time. He didn’t have to calculate when he needed to return to Earth all the time and didn’t feel as pressured anymore.

He then returned to Earth with the empress. He had to make some arrangements for the martial arts center, while she wanted to download more television shows. Almost half a year had passed on Earth, and the progress of the two martial arts centers, which were overseen by the winged cavalry warriors, was much better than he had expected.

Even though there wasn’t any advertising, after the videos that people took secretly got around, there had been an endless stream of applicants over the past few months.

Over a period of around six months, the number of disciples in these two martial arts centers grew to over 400 people.

Most of them were youths who came from well to do families.

What surprised Ren Baqian was that there were actually people who contacted him through the martial arts centers that were looking to hire bodyguards.

“Look brother—I’m sure it’s him. He’s the one who wants to hire bodyguards from our martial arts centers!” Ren Wannian immediately went to look for Ren Baqian the moment he arrived on Earth. Taking out his phone, he showed Ren Baqian a webpage.

“They wanted to contact you directly, but unfortunately, you weren’t around,” Ren Wannian explained regretfully. However, he couldn’t hide the excitement in his eyes.

Those who were capable of hiring bodyguards definitely weren’t ordinary people. However, this person had a much higher status. He was one of the famous wealthy people in the country, someone that Ren Baqian could only hear about in the news. Yet now, that man actually came looking for him!

Their martial arts centers had only been established for less than a year, but there were already such people seeking them out.

How could this not excite Ren Wannian?

Ren Baqian muttered to himself for a while.

Occurrences like this were one of his objectives for setting up the martial arts centers. He originally thought it would take a long time to have such things happen when there were changes in the world. He didn’t expect it to happen so soon.

It could be said that Ren Baqian only needed to agree in order to be able to establish a certain relationship with the other party through such a method.

Also, after this happened for the first time, the reputation of his martial arts centers would spread very easily among certain networks and his business would be able to progress much more smoothly.

Even though Ren Baqian always had confidence in his martial arts centers, there was still a high potential for growth in the future.

He didn’t mind getting a better reputation as well.

If the bodyguards of all the wealthy people in the world hailed from his martial arts centers, one would be able to imagine the amount of influence he would have.

Putting it bluntly, with control over his disciples who progressed into this path, he would also indirectly gain access to information and have control over their lives.

Unfortunately, this opportunity came too early. If it had happened a few years later, the martial arts centers would probably have nurtured a bunch of Man Wheel experts. At present, all Ren Baqian could offer was a bunch of mountain kids.

Ren Baqian reckoned that if he really sent the winged cavalry warriors on this task, he would indeed be able to establish a connection with his clients. However, this connection would probably be an extreme hatred toward him!

Except for the empress, he was the only person who could barely direct the winged cavalry. If it were someone else, then they could only wait for bad luck to start!

Ren Baqian had great faith in the abilities of this group of sh*t-stirrers because there was nothing that they couldn’t mess up.

After giving this thought a minute of consideration, he eventually had no choice but to regretfully reject the other party’s request. It had come too soon.

“Brother, you are crazy! You are actually rejecting this?” Ren Wannian couldn’t conceive what he heard.

“They came looking for us because we naturally have this value. What kind of people are in our martial arts centers? How strong are they? Even after all this time, don’t you understand? We will have plenty of opportunities like this in the future, but just not now.” Ren Baqian shook his head.

You are looking at the top two most powerful people in Dayao! Aren’t we wealthy people with nationwide reputations as well? Aren’t we the big shots in tech who are ranked at the top of the nation’s Forbes list?

Compared to them, the two people in front of you have a much higher status!

Still, this piece of news was very unexpected to Ren Baqian.

What he was interested in was how the other party managed to hear of his small martial arts centers.

What he didn’t know was that others had already been eyeing him even without these martial arts centers.

After all, the conflict with the Wang family created quite a stir back then. Some people began noticing Ren Baqian when they came to know about his mysterious information.

Besides, even though the people that the nation gathered were rather secretive, many of those whom they attracted were martial arts experts from the outside world. Some were even experts who hailed from sects. They inevitably revealed some information over the years and started getting noticed by certain people.

They were indeed wealthy people that the ordinary folks looked up to. The Wang family had been similarly wealthy and influential, but they abruptly and inexplicably fell from power back then and didn’t even have the ability to fight back.

Other than the Chen family, another very powerful faction in the nation had also inexplicably fallen from power. These matters had certainly involved Ren Baqian as well.

With these two incidents coupled together, it became more frightening.

The ordinary people wouldn’t be able to sense it, but how many of those people were simple? Most of them were adept at trickery and toadying for personal gain. It would be inevitable for them to come across some information by means of some channels or secret networks and then learn about the existence of Ren Baqian.

It could be said that some people already had their eyes on him.

He didn’t have to worry about how to make connections with those people. Instead, many of those people wanted to make connections with him.

However, Ren Baqian appeared very rarely. He had some connections with the nation as well as the Chen family and had always somewhat acted as if he was in hiding. Those people didn’t have any opportunity to get in touch with him.

As such, the martial arts centers became the only channel in the outside world that they could use to reach him.

This was a trial or perhaps a signal to Ren Baqian.

After all, both parties weren’t ordinary people, so they couldn’t possibly come knocking and say, “Brothers, let’s be friends! Let’s go for some drinks and we’ll be well acquainted soon enough!”

It would simply be just a response from Ren Baqian if he merely sent a bunch of ordinary disciples over to them.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure what they wanted from him and hence rejected the signal that the other party had sent him.

They weren’t enraged when they came to know of his rejection. Instead, they became more sure of the things that they knew.

How could an ordinary person reject them?

Only with enough power could you have such confidence!