The Empress’s Gigolo

The Earth Yin Spring was located in a valley surrounded by mountains, and there was only one small road leading to it. There wasn’t even a blade of grass here, let alone animals. Various kinds of strange rocks and red mud were all around.

This made the already gloomy valley even more desolate.

The empress led her party into the valley. After inspecting the place for quite some time, Ren Baqian noticed a rotten smell.

It seemed to be the smell of corpses.

In this valley… there were no birds, no animals, no plants, and not even insects… It was simply lifeless.

Deep in the valley was a pool surrounded by red mud. It was tens of square meters in size, and the yellow water was muddy.

From the shore, it could be seen that the pool was darker in the middle. The water near the edges was light yellow, but it was almost black in the center.

Ren Baqian dismounted and stretched himself. They had finally arrived.

The empress dismounted, took two steps around the spring, and said with a frown, “This place is rather strange.”

“There’s something rather strange here.” Ren Baqian nodded in agreement. The village that they came across the day before and this lifeless valley were definitely not normal.

“I have no enmity with Librarian Lin—I don’t think she would harm me, right? She seems to know this Earth Yin Spring quite well based on what she told me.” Ren Baqian laughed.

Likewise, the empress also thought this way.

Although Librarian Lin looked somber, she had been in the palace for many years and her position confirmed that she wouldn’t do anything detrimental to the empress.

Since she wouldn’t harm the empress, she wouldn’t harm Ren Baqian either.

The empress stood at the side of the pool and looked at it. She seemed to see something and gazed at a certain spot in the water without moving. All of a sudden, she laughed grimly and said, “If I can kill you once, I can kill you a second time! What can you do by appearing here?”

Ren Baqian, who was beside her, was shocked and asked, “Your Majesty?”

The empress said calmly, “I’m fine. I saw someone who I killed. You better be careful since this Earth Yin Spring is rather strange.”

Ren Baqian was anxious and looked at the water attentively. He found the water muddy and was unable to see through to the bottom. He didn’t see any living things inside.

“Your Majesty, who did you see?” Ren Baqian asked as he gazed at the water.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I have killed many people—why would I remember a dead person? They looked sort of familiar—maybe someone I have seen before. They weren’t an aboriginal and may not have been killed by me, but were killed under my orders,” the empress said casually.

Ren Baqian didn’t know what to say. The empress took the blame and was still so confident and dignified. She was really outstanding.

As he was about to raise his head, he suddenly saw a black dot in the water.

That black dot gradually became bigger, and the contour of a face finally appeared.

“Yikes!” Ren Baqian exclaimed.

This face… He had some impression of it… It was Lian Baocheng.

That was from the first time he participated in the Great Hunt and killed the son of the Lian family. At this moment, his face was full of vicious hatred and he was yelling furiously at Ren Baqian.

However, there was no sound.

Is this… an illusion? This thought immediately came to Ren Baqian’s mind.

“Are these the illusionary attacks mentioned by Librarian Lin?” As he spoke, another face appeared in the water. This time, it was the chief commander of Lin Baocheng who had been tricked by Ren Baqian into catching a grenade with his hands.

The empress nodded, “This should be the case.”

“Is this an illusion or something else? Is there something wrong with this valley?” Ren Baqian pondered. If it was a hallucination, did it start when he arrived at the edge of the Earth Yin Spring? Or did it affect him once he entered the valley?

“Gong Zheng!” Ren Baqian ordered.

“When you look at the water, can you see anything?” Ren Baqian asked.

Gong Zheng looked attentively. A little while later, he drew out his saber and said, “Your Majesty, there’s something wrong here.”

“What do you see?”

“I see a few people who were killed by me,” Gong Zheng said.

Other people were asked to try it out, and as expected, they saw the people that they had killed personally.

Ren Baqian pondered and discovered a problem. Then, he said, “Your Majesty, everyone saw the people that they killed. What they saw was different from the others and couldn’t be seen by the others.”

“What do you mean?” The empress looked at him and felt that he wanted to explain something.

“It’s an illusion! Definitely an illusion!” Ren Baqian confirmed. “Is it possible for all the people killed by us to be here? Even if this connects to the world of the afterlife, it’s strange. Furthermore, everyone can only see the people that they have killed and not those that others have killed… Only a hallucination can explain this. Some substances have entered our brains and formed images on our retinas from our memories.

“What you have said makes sense.” The empress nodded.

If everyone could see the same things, then it would be more doubtful.

Since everyone could only see the people that they had killed, an explanation existed.

Hallucination was the most likely explanation.

Ren Baqian stood there for a moment, then turned and brought Lin Qiaole over.

“What are you doing?” Lin Qiaole didn’t struggle while being carried by the neck. She was nodding her head as if she couldn’t wake up and only muttered the question.

“Take a look. What do you see in the water?” Ren Baqian asked as he gave her some White Rabbit Creamy Candies.

With the candies, Lin Qiaole was more awake. She pried apart Ren Baqian’s hands that were holding her neck. She sat there holding her knees as she looked at the water.

“How dirty!” Lin Qiaole said.

The water of this spring were really quite dirty.

However, everyone was startled by Lin Qiaole’s next reaction.

They saw saliva starting to drip from her mouth.

“Oh dear, a mangshan!” Lin Qiaole quickly wiped a corner of her mouth and was pleasantly surprised.

Ren Baqian glared at her. What? Was she still thinking about eating it one more time?

The world of a glutton was different from that of a normal person!

Her eyes suddenly widened as if she saw something that angered her, and she shouted, “Don’t run! You aren’t allowed to leave!”

Then, she dove head first into the water at a very fast speed and disappeared before their eyes.

There was a splash!

Ren Baqian, the empress, and Gong Zheng were all dumbfounded.

Everyone saw her jump in.

Ren Baqian remarked thoughtfully, “I don’t think she knows how to swim.”

The empress’s eyebrows twitched as she commanded, “Drag her out.”

“Your Majesty, it’s too dangerous for others to try to save her,” Ren Baqian said. Whether it was a hallucination or something else, the effect was already so great from the shore that one could easily imagine what would happen after entering the water.

The spring was dangerous to anyone who entered it.

“We can’t just let her die here,” the empress replied.

At this moment, the water started roiling as if someone was generating waves underwater.

“I will go in,” Ren Baqian said. He was confident in his willpower.

“Sir Ren, let us go instead,” the winged cavalry warriors quickly suggested. How could they let Ren Baqian take this risk? It was too risky! If anything happened…

“Regardless, I have to take a trip to the spring…” Ren Baqian laughed.

The empress said seriously, “You should remember one thing.”

Ren Baqian looked at her with curiosity.

The empress continued faintly, “You can’t swim either.”

Everyone looked awkwardly at Ren Baqian.

Ren Baqian’s expression immediately froze. He had forgotten about this matter… even though he shouldn’t have. How dare he try to save someone when he couldn’t swim?

Was it because he had become too big-headed after the huge improvement to his skills?