The Empress’s Gigolo

Even though there weren’t any major problems for the rest of the journey, minor hiccups were aplenty.

After all, to the aboriginals who had lived in the Sixty Thousand Mountains for generations, it had never been a comfortable and safe place to live in. There were countless strange bugs and creatures all over the place.

Ren Baqian saw a large group of bellyworms. They were a type of carnivorous bug whose belly gave off a dark green glow. They had translucent black wings and were about the size of half a palm.

These bugs were highly visible wherever they went. The entire peak of the mountain was covered in black and dark green as countless beasts frantically fled for their lives. Some of them had bellyworms creeping over them and had collapsed powerlessly without even getting far. The bugs then swarmed all over them, leaving behind only clean white bones afterward.

Such a sight was extremely terrifying.

A bellyworm was small and weak on its own and would easily be stomped to death. However, when thousands of them gathered together, all beasts would flee at the sight of them, no matter how strong they were.

Ren Baqian and his party waited exactly two days for this swarm of bugs to pass.

Another one of the more problematic animals was the unruly beast, the tyrant of the Sixty Thousand Mountains.

Its body was long and slender, it had a mouthful of fangs, and its fur was short and brown. It looked similar to a hamster.

However, its ferocity was nothing like that of an ordinary, timid hamster.

There was nothing that the unruly beast feared to offend and no foe that it was afraid to bite. It spent its entire life fighting or looking for fights.

Regardless of whether its opponent was a fearsome beast, a venomous snake, hundreds of winged cavalry warriors, or the omnipresent belly bugs, it showed no fear and never backed down.

There was nothing that it didn’t dare to attack.

How violent could this animal be?

Once it spotted you from another mountain, it would go through all the effort just to make its way over to either kill you or get killed by you.

More importantly, not only did these animals appear in large numbers, they were very vengeful as well. If you killed one of them, you would find yourself surrounded by many of them the next day.

Unruly beasts were tough and were able to withstand the winged cavalry’s attack without dying. They were very smart as well. They were able to detect and target their enemy’s weaknesses within a short period of time.

For instance, a man’s testicles…

There were two unlucky men who each had one of their testicles bitten off by unruly beasts…

Or the crow general’s anus…

Adding together its various characteristics, this seemingly adorable, yet vile and terrifying, animal had become the tyrant of the Sixty Thousand Mountains. They would also become the most problematic animals that Ren Baqian and his party were going to face in the time to come.

Even the empress’s aura was unable to intimidate them. Every morning, when she opened her eyes, she would find herself surrounded by thousands of unruly beasts that appeared out of nowhere. It was simply impossible to get rid of all of them, and they posed a huge problem for everyone.

Eventually, the solution to the unruly beasts was the weak thunder emperor, whose only ability was its voice.

Unruly beasts were tough, highly resistant to attacks, and very agile. However, they didn’t have any resistance against the thunderous roars of the thunder emperor.

They would pass out for a moment when it roared.

Even if they didn’t pass out, their sense of balance was still greatly affected, which caused them to successively die under the winged cavalry’s blades.

The price for this was that most of the winged cavalry warriors had lost almost all of their hearing for three days.

They had to shout at one another even when conversing face to face.

Through this ordeal, the aboriginals learned how to understand and use sign language.

Ren Baqian collected some of the rare herbs that he saw along the way as well as the leftover limbs of the beasts that they had been eating and brought them back to the laboratory on Earth.

It had been 21 days since they left the Ya Family village. Now, everyone arrived at a piece of barren land.

The forest was gloomy, the ground was blood red, and the rocks were strange and craggy. There were also gusts of chilly wind that blew by.

Ren Baqian felt that the sky here was rather gloomy, unlike other areas where it was bright and sunny.

The number of fearsome beasts in the surroundings had begun to decrease..

All of these were indicators that they were nearing the Earth Yin Spring.

“Your Majesty, there’s a village ahead by the mountain.” Gong Zheng sent a messenger back to report the situation.

“There are still villages here?” Ren Baqian felt a little astonished.

Not to mention other things, even wildlife was scarce here. Why would there be a village established here?

“Your Majesty, if possible, it’s best that we take a detour,” Ya Sheng said as he rode back on his mount. “When I came to this area previously, I passed by that village and discovered that the people there were really strange.”

After hearing this, Ren Baqian and the empress were baffled.

Since there were many fearsome beasts in the Sixty Thousand Mountains, it was extremely dangerous to live here. The aboriginals relied on one another for survival. If there wasn’t any hatred between them, they normally wouldn’t walk past a village without entering. After all, it was much safer to spend the night in a village than to sleep in the wilderness.

“What do you think, Your Majesty?” Ren Baqian turned to her and asked.

“The indigenous people of the Sixty Thousand Mountains are also my people. Why would I take a detour? In fact, I have to find out why they are acting strange,” the empress replied.

After hearing her response, Ya Sheng had no choice but to lead the way.

Soon after, everyone arrived at the village. Ren Baqian and the empress started to find that something was amiss.

In such a desolate place, the villagers would normally step out to see who the visitors were. Moreover, they were such a large group.

However, none of the villagers actually came out when they arrived at the village.

The gate of the village was wide open with none of the villagers in sight.

Everyone’s first response was that the villagers had left and abandoned the place. This was very common in the Sixty Thousand Mountains. Take, for instance, the village that a xiong yan had destroyed.

There were no signs of damage around this village and everyone started to feel strange.

“Gong Zheng, go check it out.” The empress frowned as she gave the order.

Gong Zheng led 10 winged cavalry warriors and entered the village. Soon after, they returned with two men and threw them to the ground.

“Your Majesty, there are people in the village. We have brought two of them over.”

Ren Baqian glanced over and saw that one of them was an old man while the other was a middle-aged lady. Both of them shared one similarity. They were both not wearing any clothes and were fully naked.

However, this wasn’t the thing that caught his attention.

They looked inarticulate, apathetic, lifeless, and had no glint in their eyes. It was as if they were dead people. Even after the winged cavalry warriors threw them to the ground in front of so many people, they didn’t seem to have any change in expression.

Another thing was their skin color.

Most of the aboriginals had bronze skin. Only a few who rarely stepped out into the sun had a slightly fairer skin tone.

These people’s skin looked deathly pale.

Even a fool could tell that there was something wrong with these two.

“Who are you?” the empress asked as she sat in her carriage. “Don’t you know how to pay your respects after seeing me?”

Both of them still remained inarticulate, and it was as if they didn’t hear what she said.

The empress knitted her brows.

She felt that they weren’t disregarding her, but that they were truly acting very strange.

“Are you deaf?” Gong Zheng shouted, “You actually dare to act indifferent in front of Her Majesty?! I’ll kill you!”

Ya Sheng voiced out and said, “Sir, it’s useless.”

“What do you know about this?”

“I mentioned that the people in this village are very strange. All of them are like this during the day, and nobody will react to anything you say. However, they become entirely different at night,” Ya Sheng explained. After some thought, the most accurate description he could give was that they would only come back to life at nightfall.