The Empress’s Gigolo

Gao Yishan turned to look at the broken city behind him. It was Qingtang Pass, which was originally at the border of the Yun Nation and Dayao.

One would enter the land of Dayao after crossing this pass.

Of course, Qingtang Pass no longer played a role in guarding the border at this time. The entire Yun Nation had fallen under Dayao’s shiny metal blade.

Gao Yishan took a few glances and slowly collected his gaze before focusing his attention on the caravan.

This was a group of thousands of people from all over the hundreds of cities in the Yun Nation, and they were laden with gifts for Qi Zixiao, the empress of Dayao.

Some of them were warlords, but some of them had just been put in that position by Zi Donglai

In place of them were aristocratic families from different cities.

These families switched their allegiances faster than ordinary people. After the fall of the Yun Nation, most of them surrendered to Dayao.

Blending into this crowd and heading toward Dayao was far easier than they had expected.

Zi Donglai, who had killed countless people, only requested to see a name list before releasing them into Dayao. People originally thought that he would carefully check everyone’s identity, but he didn’t.

It seemed that he didn’t expect the crowd heading for Dayao to have unexpected people blended within them.

Perhaps it wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about it, but that he simply didn’t care.

No one dared to do anything funny under the gaze of dozens of Spirit Wheel experts, not to mention Qi Zixiao, the fourth most powerful expert in the world.

With the release of the latest list of the world’s top experts, news that the fourth most powerful expert in the world, Teng Yue, had died at the hands of Qi Zixiao was exposed.

Today, the world’s first and second ranked experts still remained hidden, whereas the third and fourth, who were still active, were actually women. This was really amazing.

Right now, countless people were speculating who would win if Li Yuanzhu, the world’s third ranked expert, and Qi Zixiao, the world’s fourth ranked expert, were to fight.

In just a few years, Qi Zixiao rose from the seventh ranked to the fourth ranked expert in the world. Those whom she overtook had all died at her hands, and her talent was truly frightening.

She was merely 26 years old now.

Gao Yishan touched his chest where he had placed the objective of this mission. As long as Qi Zixiao placed this thing in the palace hall, the Yun Nation would still stand a chance.

…

After three days of travel, the surrounding scenery changed, and they would occasionally see some people taking measurements along the road.

Those people were aboriginals.

This made the onlookers very curious as they didn’t know what these aboriginals were doing in the wilderness.

The next day, Gao Yishan saw the prisoners that had been captured by Dayao. This horde of captives put layers of stones on the ground and paved the way with a mud-like substance. Some of them pushed huge concrete screeds along the path, flattening the mud on the road.

Although they didn’t know what that mud was, Gao Yishan immediately understood that they were building a road.

A road that linked Dayao to the Yun Nation.

This made Gao Yishan feel anxious.

He knew what a smooth road meant.

If this road was constructed, it would be faster to travel to the Yun Nation from Dayao. The upcoming days of the volunteer army would become difficult, and it would be harder to overthrow Dayao.

This wasn’t something that the barbarians would do. It was definitely someone else’s idea.

Gao Yishan heard that Qi Zixiao’s husband wasn’t an aboriginal, so this might be his idea.

As the convoy progressed, he saw more captives.

All of them would stop and look at the convoy as it passed. It was as if they were trying to spot familiar faces, but all they saw were unfamiliar ones.

However, what surprised everyone in the convoy was that these soldiers who had been captured by Dayao seemed a little odd.

In their imagination, captives were like laborers in the mines who worked endlessly and would be greeted with the whips and fists of the aboriginals whenever they stopped toiling. They should look frail and apathetic with no glow in their eyes, should be wearing rags, and would only get to take a shower once a month.

However, the captives that they saw didn’t look like that.

Their clothes were really worn out and dirty, but when they stopped to look at the convoy, no one lashed them with a whip. After looking at the convoy for a while, they lowered their heads and got back to work.

Their bodies weren’t frail either, and in fact, they looked pretty strong. It wasn’t just a few exceptions either—most of them looked like that.

The most important thing was their gaze. They didn’t look apathetic nor did they lack the glow in their eyes.

They looked similar to ordinary people, but with a slightly more fervent gaze.

After all, they were looking at visitors who came from the Yun Nation, fellow people from their homeland. This gaze was easily comprehensible..

However, this made the people in the convoy feel a little odd. It seemed that these captives were different from what they had expected.

They had even thought that these captives would throw themselves over and ask the convoy to save them. When all hope was lost, such situations would happen easily when people saw others from their homeland. This made the folks in the convoy raise their guards as they drew close to the captives. If such situations were to happen, it would be best for them to act as if they hadn’t seen anything.

In the end, none of that happened.

It was unexpectedly calm.

Perhaps these captives were stronger because most of them were from the army?

Well, it would be a joke to say that the Yun Nation’s army was strong. Even its commoners didn’t believe that.

Apart from the West City Army, the other soldiers could be considered a bunch of bandits.

Perhaps those people were from the West City Army? It was possible.

At the thought of this, everyone saw some changes in the captives’ eyes. Even though the Yun Nation had fallen, the West City Army still held a considerable position in the minds of the people.

After all, it was a real army.

During a break, the people from the convoy realized that the aboriginal guards didn’t mind them interacting with the captives and both sides naturally chatted.

What surprised the people from the convoy was that these prisoners weren’t part of the West City Army.

Most of them were city guards, and some of them were ordinary people.

This surprised everyone.

After they chatted further, the convoy learned even more surprising things.

The first was food. The captives were given unexpectedly good food… They were eating meat or broth at almost every meal.

“Do you have vegetables? On account of the fact that we are from the same homeland, can you give me some? Just a little will do. I’m eating so much broth that I feel like throwing up… Although there are pumpkins and potatoes, stewing them with meat always produces the same taste…”

This made everyone’s faces turn black. In their experience, many of them hadn’t had meat in every meal before.

It would already be considered pretty good for a commoner to eat meat once a year.

Some of the lower-ranked officials could only afford to eat meat once a week or once a month.

These captives actually felt like throwing up from eating too much meat? The civilians and lower-ranked officials of the Yun Nation weren’t even eating better than these prisoners?

Afterward, the captives revealed some of the occurrences that had happened in the prison camp.

For instance, 10 captives formed a small team led by a person from the Yun Nation, while 100 captives formed a squadron led by an aboriginal. The deputy squadron leader was from the Yun Nation as well. This was as good as being managed by their own people as there wasn’t much supervision.

For instance, if they completed their work, they could rest for a while without getting punished. Of course, they could also take a break if they had not finished their work, but if they didn’t finish it by the evening, the whole team would get punished.

For instance, they actually received a small wage every month. Even though it wasn’t much, they could either buy two sets of clothes and a piece of the cheapest soap or spend it on some grain to improve their meals. They could even afford to buy two bottles of alcohol.

For instance, they would only be kept as captives for 10 years. From the third year onward, their wages would gradually increase, and they would be freed after 10 years. Many people in the convoy had heard of this news, but hearing it in person from these captives and seeing their anticipation truly gave the people from the convoy a very different feeling.

Gao Yishan calmly listened and frowned when he returned to his carriage.

What these captives said had made him understand one thing: the aboriginals had changed.

Although he was aware of it when he was still in the Yun Nation, it wasn’t as clear to him as it was now.

The aboriginals had changed from their previous style of operating and no longer only knew how to kill and plunder. Instead, they began trying to use softer means to conciliate.

The conditions of these captives was even better than that of many poor people in the Yun Nation.

It was a lot better than those who worked in the mines.

Apart from Gao Yishan, many of the people in the convoy felt the same as well.

However, these people reacted entirely different from him because they were all rejoicing. This change in the aboriginals was a good thing for them.

…

Half a day later, the convoy finally saw the road that had been completed by these captives. It was a straight and hard-surfaced road that was gray in color. It was as if it had been made with a large slab of rock.

After the carriages arrived on the solid road, their speed increased by more than double.

Everyone could feel this increase in speed, and they were astonished by this road.

It was difficult for even the Yun Nation to build such a road, but the aboriginals actually did it.

The journey ahead involved traveling in the mud at times, but they occasionally proceeded on the completed road. According to the captives, this was called a cement road.

The aboriginals divided the road into several sections and worked on all of these sections at the same time.

The closer the convoy got to Lan City, they more apprehensive they felt.

According to their calculations, more than 500 kilometers of the road had already been finished… The entire length of this road would be more than 1,200 kilometers.

What made them even more apprehensive was the kind of material used to build it. In less than two years, the aboriginals managed to build more than 500 kilometers of road. The official road of the Yun Nation was actually built over several hundred years.

The quality of Great Xia’s roads couldn’t even be compared to how smooth the aboriginal’s road was.