The Empress’s Gigolo

“Your Majesty, this is the route to fetch your groom. There will be people intercepting you at these three locations that you will have to defeat. Of course, this is all just for show!” Great Elder Shi Qing held a piece of paper and showed it to the empress.

Drawn on the paper was a big house. There were all kinds of crooked lines as well as various unknown squares.

Ren Baqian took a close look at it for some time before asking with a deep look on his face, “What is this drawing about? Some people may even mistake this for a talisman… Where’s the endpoint?”

“This is the palace, this is my residence, this is Jingyang Street, this is Minister Tu’s residence, this is Minister Qin’s… This is Minister Tong’s… And this is the destination!”

Ren Baqian drew back the corners of his mouth and wondered who drew such a fantastic drawing!

He would be shocked if anyone understood it!

“So, Sir Tong’s residence is the endpoint?” Ren Baqian raised his tone slightly.

The wedding was arranged by all the high officials. Now that the event was nearing, Ren Baqian came to see how everything was arranged so that he knew what was going on.

After all, it was his wedding—he ought to show some interest!

However, Shi Qing could have just directly said that the Tong Residence was the destination without sketching a drawing like this. It would still be easily understandable even without looking at the drawing!

Everything would be screwed up after looking at it!

It was like abstract art!

“Naturally, we can’t just let Her Majesty bring you from Pingle Park to the palace.” Shi Qing touched his beard with one hand and smiled at Ren Baqian.

Later, Shi Qing briefed the empress on the things that would be happening on her wedding day.

When it ended, Ren Baqian pondered for a bit and asked, “What do I do?”

Shi Qing looked at him and said, “Just wait there for Her Majesty to fetch you!”

Ren Baqian humphed, feeling like he wasn’t involved in his own wedding…

“If you wish to, you can doll yourself up… Most of the aboriginal ladies do so on their wedding day!” Shi Qing’s old and wrinkled face looked like a chrysanthemum when he smiled.

Ren Baqian stared at him for some time as the empress immediately started laughing. Her smile was truly beautiful, totally unlike Shi Qing’s!

The empress held her chin and looked happily at his eyes.

“I’ll be wearing men’s clothing on that day, right?” He suddenly thought of something and had an awkward look on his face.

He didn’t want to put on the bride’s clothes on that day… He still needed to preserve his reputation… Of course, if it was required of him, he would still do it!

Shi Qing looked at him eccentrically for a long time, wondering why this man was thinking about such matters? How absurd would he look like in women’s clothes?

“Of course you’ll be wearing men’s clothes!’

“Phew!” Ren Baqian heaved a sigh of relief.

As long as he would be wearing men’s wear, other things wouldn’t matter to him.

Shi Qing continued to brief the empress, including on how the sequence would be, setting up the stage before moving off, and how to head back. After all, it was her wedding and must not be sloppy. An aboriginal’s wedding was originally a very simple procedure. The groom would usually just fight his way to the bride’s house and fetch her, but now, they had made it very complicated.

When Shi Qing was talking about the people who would be intercepting the empress, Ren Baqian overheard Hong Wu’s name.

Hong Wu was supposed to be on the empress side.

How did he become one of the interceptors!

Ren Baqian originally thought that it would be Tong Zhenye and that there would only be two things that would happen. First, Tong Zhenye would display the image of an expert blocking the way. Then, he would get kicked into the wall by the empress.

He didn’t expect Hong Wu to be involved!

“Of course, Sir Hong will also just be putting on an act!” Shi Qing’s face continued looking like a chrysanthemum.

An hour later, after explaining everything, Shi Qing said, “Also, Sir Ren’s noble title has to be decided. We have to announce it in two days!”

After hearing this, the empress pondered for some time and asked with a weird expression on her face, “Why am I not getting one?”

“Your Majesty is the emperor of Dayao—why would you need another title? According to the history of Great Xia and the Hao Nation, one would only be conferred a posthumous title after death. However, we currently don’t even know where our two former emperors are or whether they are still alive, especially the first emperor. With his level of strength, he may still be alive somewhere. As such, they didn’t receive any posthumous titles!” Shi Qing explained.

“Oh!” The empress nodded. After pondering for some time, her eyes drifted from Ren Baqian’s face, to the roof of the palace, and then back to his face again. She was racking her brains to think of a title to give him.

The prince from Earth… The Earth Prince for short?

The prince from the other world… The World Prince for short?

Neither one sounded right…

“Given Sir Ren’s status, it’s best to give him the title of prince consort. In other words, we add a descriptor before the title of prince consort! I have a list of titles that the officials have prepared. You can pick one from the list, Your Majesty.” Shi Qing took out a paper from his coat.

“Why didn’t you say this earlier!” The empress sounded unhappy. She killed a lot of her brain cells just now, but to no avail.

“Glorious Prince Consort?” The empress read out the first line on the list.

“The word ‘glorious’ holds the meaning of magnificence and brilliance. Principal Ren introduced the street lights and expelled the darkness. It is quite appropriate to use this word,” Shi Qing explained.

“Honest… Jing… Peng Prince Consort.” The empress slid her finger down the list as Shi Qing explained.

There wasn’t much to explain about Honest Prince Consort, whereas Jing referred to Tianjing Basin and Peng referred to a region in the Yun Nation that used to be called Peng Prefecture.

The empress shook her head. Using names of places as a prefix usually meant that the person was the ruler of that place. The empress didn’t really care about these places, but she simply didn’t like these names.

Ren Baqian felt tired for them just from listening to their conversation. Given the educational levels of these elders, it was really difficult for them to come up with a list like this.

It was probably equivalent in difficulty to making a mediocre student write an 800 word composition about a husky.

“Zhao Prince Consort…”

“The character ‘zhao’ is comprised of the characters ‘ri’ and ‘shao.”Ri’ means light and ‘shao’ means guidance or summoning. So the character ‘zhao’ can be inferred as leading the light or summoning the light. This word suits Sir Ren…”

“This sounds pretty acceptable!” The empress pondered for some time. She liked this name a lot.

She wasn’t sure about how others felt, but for her, ever since Ren Baqian arrived, he had pulled her out of the cold palace.

“This it shall be!” The empress immediately decided.

“In that case, I shall proceed to arrange it.” Shi Qing put away the paper and asked to be excused.

Ren Baqian’s face went from cheerful to solemn and was now black…

Did Shi Qing really interpret it that way?

Why did Ren Baqian somehow find it weird?

“Your Majesty, I feel that it’s better to change the title.” Ren Baqian had an awkward look on his face.

“I feel that it’s pretty good. That word suits you… What do you find inappropriate about it?” The empress seemed quite happy.

Looking awkward, he eventually didn’t tell her the meaning of that word.

The aboriginals were simple-minded people. To them, the character “ri” simply meant the sun!

At the very least, the aboriginals didn’t have any connotations to these words.