The Empress’s Gigolo

Ren Baqian pondered for a while and finally understood why he forgot the fact that he didn’t know how to swim.

The [Visualization of Water]!

He had drowned so many times while practicing the [Visualization of Water] that he actually grew very familiar with the different dog paddle styles such as the husky, golden retriever, labrador, and collie.

However, even after practicing the [Visualization of Water], he immediately panicked when the empress threw him into the sea and into the swimming pool. This was how she knew that he didn’t know how to swim.

Ever since then, he had never stepped into water again.

On the contrary, constantly practicing the [Visualization of Water] gave him the misperception that he knew how to swim.

“Your Majesty, why don’t you allow me to give it a shot?” Ren Baqian pondered for a while and thought that he would probably panic if the empress threw him into the water. There was a chance that he could really swim if he were to enter the water himself.

After all, the motions of swimming were already deeply anchored within him from when he was practicing the [Visualization of Water] back then.

She glanced over at him. At present, Lin Qiaole was flopping around at the bottom of the spring, and the surface of the water was turbulent as if she was in a boiling pot.

“Where’s the rope?” the empress asked. Gong Zheng immediately sent his men to fetch it over.

“It’s a good idea to tie it around my waist. Pull me up if I can’t make it.” Ren Baqian nodded as she had indeed got him covered.

“Wouldn’t she just die in the water then?” The empress pointed at the churning waters.

At a loss, Ren Baqian heaved a deep sigh and said, “I’ll do my best!”

“Even if a Spirit Wheel expert doesn’t know how to swim, holding her breath underwater for 15 minutes shouldn’t be a problem, right? She should probably be able to walk back to shore during this period of time,” Ren Baqian said.

“This water is strange.” The empress shook her head. Ordinarly, as he had mentioned, there should be no problem for a Spirit Wheel expert to hold her breath for 15 minutes. However, this place was strange, so there was no telling what the conditions underwater were like.

The winged cavalry warriors brought the rope over, but surprisingly, the empress didn’t tie the rope around Ren Baqian’s body. She got someone to secure a piece of fist-sized rock to one end. She held the rope and jumped off the shore, gliding toward Lin Qiaole. She then pushed her palm downward. Immediately, as if a meteorite had struck, the entire surface of the water caved inward as the empress rebounded upward.

At the moment when the surface of the water caved to its lowest point, the empress saw Lin Qiaole flopping around at the bottom and hastily threw the rock toward her.

Ren Baqian immediately realized what the empress was doing. As long as Lin Qiaole caught the rope, the empress would be able to pull her out of the water.

Under the circumstances that they were unclear about the underwater situation, this was a good plan.

Thump!

The empress glided toward the water, pushed her palm downward, and rebounded upward once again.

With an odd looking expression that was followed by a cold look, she subsequently tossed the rope over to Ren Baqian.

Ren Baqian hastily pulled the rope up and immediately felt that something was amiss. There was no weight to it.

This meant that there wasn’t anyone on the other end of the rope.

The splashes on the surface of the water were also reduced in number.

“Where’s Lin Qiaole?” Ren Baqian was surprised.

“I threw the rock on her head and she fainted!” The empress tried to stay calm.

Everyone was speechless.

Ren Baqian heaved a sigh before very quickly removing his clothes. He originally wanted to even remove his underpants, but after considering that he was surrounded by so many people, he decided to keep them on.

“Pull me up when I tug on the rope.” He tied the rope around his waist and tossed the other end to Gong Zheng.

He then put one leg into the water.

“So chilly.” Ren Baqian shivered.

The water was actually pretty cold.

It reminded him of when he used to play at a frozen river when he was young and fell into the water.

Now that Ren Baqian was already an Earth Wheel expert, he wouldn’t feel it much even if he were to fall into a frozen river again.

However, this spring water was bone-chilling to him.

What he felt wasn’t simply physical cold, but a chill that seemed to have frozen his soul.

Ren Baqian took a deep breath and leaped above where Lin Qiaole was. He held his breath as he plunged into the water.

The moment he entered the water, he felt the chill attacking his body from all directions, almost freezing him into a block of ice.

The chill continuously entered his body through his skin.

His limbs turned rigid almost instantaneously.

However, after Ren Baqian had broken through to the Earth Wheel level, the circulation of energy that had formed around his viscera acted like a layer of cover, protecting his organs from the cold.

This allowed his body to constantly produce heat to combat the chill that was entering his body.

A large amount of essence qi transformed into heat and fought against the chill for space within Ren Baqian’s body. This allowed him to experience what a heaven of ice and fire felt like.

He felt like a fried dish that was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside…

However, what he was experiencing on his outer body was frostiness and not fried crispiness…

Ren Baqian tried hard to ignore the chill of the spring water and focused on looking for Lin Qiaole.

Even though he couldn’t swim very well, he was still able to make himself sink to the bottom of the spring. Since he entered the water just above where Lin Qiaole was, it should be pretty easy for him to find her.

However, at this moment, he felt numerous people rushing toward him underwater and grabbing his limbs downward.

Hallucination! Ren Baqian thought to himself. Even though his muscles subconsciously tensed up, this allowed him to sink faster.

Warped faces started to float around him, snarling and shouting at him.

Any ordinary person would have been scared to death. However, since he had already experienced life and death thousands of times during his training, it didn’t affect him much, though he was slightly frightened.

He subconsciously dodged when the nearest floating head, which had eyeballs dangling out of the sockets, almost came into contact with his face. Even though he knew that it was just a hallucination, he wanted to avoid a romantic kiss with a dead-looking fellow.

Amitabha! Ren Baqian chanted in his mind. Even though it wasn’t really useful, it allowed him to calm down. Many times when he felt anguish while practicing the five visualizations, he continuously chanted “Amitabha” to tide through the ordeal.

He would feel peace in his mind every time he chanted, and it had become a physical and psychological instinct for him.

He seemed to have agitated the head when he dodged it, and it grew even more frantic.

Ren Baqian felt a twitch in his face, and his inner peace was disrupted. He wanted to ask it to scram as his face continued twitching.

He felt as if something was touching his balls…

He hastily reached his hands down and felt a cold and powerless hand…

He subconsciously felt like striking out with his knee. However, he immediately realized that he shouldn’t be able to feel a hallucination and that this could only be Lin Qiaole.

Ren Baqian quickly grabbed her arm and tugged the rope. After that, he could feel a pulling force almost immediately.

Next, he was pulled out of the water like a shooting arrow.

The instant he was pulled out of the water, he turned and looked to see that he was indeed holding onto Lin Qiaole. Her eyes were shut while her mouth was slightly open. On her head was a bump as big as a bowl…

Her belly made her look as if she was about six months pregnant… There was no telling how much of the spring water she had swallowed.

Ren Baqian shivered after throwing Lin Qiaole to the ground and said, “It’s very cold! I need a hug, Your Majesty!”

The empress’s eyebrows twitched. However, after seeing his pale skin and shivering appearance, she spoke coldly to the others and ordered, “Turn away.”

She then opened her arms and held him in her embrace with the tenderness of a lady. This immediately warmed Ren Baqian’s heart.

He then rubbed his face against hers.

How smooth!