The Empress’s Gigolo

One month later, a coachman with grizzled hair and beard drove a carriage pulled by a bald and ugly old horse into Lan City.

Ning Caichen pulled open the curtains of the carriage and peered out the window. Lan City looked pretty much the same to him. Simple and unadorned aboriginals that gave a fierce look whenever they saw a foreigner were everywhere.

Lying beside Ning Caichen was Zhu Chengjun. The injuries on his body weren’t overtly obvious. Both of his legs were tightly wrapped with a piece of white cloth. Occasionally, when the carriage jerked too violently, some blood would stain through the white cloth.

It usually took less than a day for the wounds of an Earth Wheel expert to heal. After all, their body constitution was completely different from an ordinary individuals’.

In the past, Zhu Chengjun’s legs had suffered a severe injury, and it had only taken a week for his injury to heal.

However, it had been a month and the wounds on his legs had yet to heal. It might have something to do with Ning Caichen.

Every day, Ning Caichen would make Zhu Chengjun drink a type of wine and eat some kind of shrimp with a transparent body.

Zhu Chengjun never refused Ning Caichen or expressed doubt over the wine or the shrimp. Instead, he would calmly drink the wine and eat the shrimp.

And the main thing was, he couldn’t exert much strength. He wondered whether or not it had something to do with the wine and the shrimp.

“Do you still have anything to say?” Ning Caichen put down the curtain and shifted his gaze to Zhu Chengjun.

“Last words? Are you able to help me fulfil my last wishes?” At this point in time, Zhu Chengjun’s body was much thinner than before. His face had become deathly white and his eyes were lackluster.

“Tell me about it, you are entitled to having your last wishes too,” Ning Caichen said softly.

Ning Caichen had no animosity towards Zhu Chengjun. He even saved his life. The reason why he did not let Zhu Chengjun’s injuries heal was that he wasn’t confident about his ability to keep watch over an Earth Wheel expert for 24 hours straight every day.

Since Zhe Chengjun was severely injured, it made Ning Caichen’s job much easier.

“My parents are dead, and I don’t really have anyone to care about. I heard that Dayao people like to bury dead bodies under the plaza and pile them up. Can you bury me in another place? I want a peaceful death. And dig my pit deeper so that my body won’t get dug up by a dog,” Zhu Chengjun plainly said.

“I will try my best.” Ning Caichen felt that he could fulfil Zhu Chengjun’s last wishes. He brought Qi Zixiao such an important piece of information with a live witness. He reckoned that she would fulfil this little request of his.

To Ning Caichen, Qi Zixiao was easy to deal with. Other than her pre-eminent martial arts, she was cold, arrogant, bad-tempered, vicious, and ruthless. At the end of the day, she was still a better person than those hostile people in the Nine Pavilions.

At this moment, the carriage suddenly stopped.

Ning Caichen pulled open the curtain and realized their carriage had stopped by the side of the road. The sound of horses galloping sounded through their carriage. When Ning Caichen saw that it was Dayao cavalry, he closed the curtain.

He wouldn’t be so stupid as to block the aboriginal cavalry’s road. It did not matter to him whether he reached earlier or not. His top priority was to not create any trouble.

Safety comes first… Safety comes first…

Very soon, Ning Caichen looked through the window again and saw a unit of soldiers mounted on cows passing by his carriage. There was a total of thirty men, seemingly guarding someone important.

After a while, through a gap in the file of mounted soldiers, he saw who they were guarding.

Even though Ning Caichen merely saw the back view of that person, he could easily tell who it was.

“It seems that Qi Zixiao treats him pretty good huh,” Ning Caichen rubbed his chin and mumbled to himself.

He couldn’t believe Ren Baqian was protected by an entourage of thirty Earth Wheel experts. Even the princes in Great Xia had never received this kind of treatment before.

“Hmm, it’s really important to find a good wife after all.” Ning Caichen began to think about which princess in Great Xia was still single. He did not mind even if the other party was older than him.

This was his dream life.

When the entourage disappeared, Ning Caichen said to the old coachman, “Old Huang, turn right at the second junction to the Honglu Bureau.

…

Naturally, Ren Baqian did not notice his old friend on the side of the road. At this moment, he jumped down from the back of the fork-horned cow with a happy look on his face. Carrying a bundle in his hands, he ran into Yangxin Palace Hall with excitement.

“Your Majesty, it’s done, it’s finally done!” Ren Baqian smile and strode into the palace hall.

At this point in time, the empress was embedded in the sofa. Her sofa was made of sharp-toothed tiger skin. In front of her, there was a wooden coffee table that had a laptop on it.

The springs made in this world weren’t really good quality. After some consideration, Ren Baqian chose a type of spring that wasn’t really tough. The sofa padding was made using a large amount of cotton from Earth, making one sink into the sofa when he or she sat on it.

However, the empress liked the sofa this way. It was very comfortable to sink into the sofa.

When Ren Baqian ran into the palace hall, the empress did not turn around and look at him. She was concentrating her attention on the screen of the laptop.

Standing behind the sofa, Qing Yuan and Hong Luan glared at Ren Baqian.

“Is worth it to sacrifice your ten-thousand-year-old cultivation to extend his life by ten years?”

“It is not a matter of worth, but rather, a matter of willingness!”

…

Ren Baqian was speechless. When he walked to side of the sofa, he realized the empress was still watching Chinese Paladin.

[Chinese Paladin is a 2005 Chinese television series adapted from the original version of the Chinese action role-playing game The Legend of Sword and Fairy by Softstar Entertainment.]

When Caiyi turned into a butterfly and the comatose Liu Jinyuan shed a drop of tears, the empress sighed deeply. Qing Yuan’s and Hong Luan’s eyes were reddened.

Ren Baqian was dumbstruck.

Is the show that touching?

“What? Has the matter been settled?” The empress looked as though she had just found out that Ren Baqian had arrived.

“Your Majesty… The affairs of the nation are important!” Ren Baqian groaned.

“I know!” The empress waved her hand casually.

“Sigh!” Ren Baqian sighed. Recently, the empress behaved as though she had opened the door to a whole new world. When she attended court sessions, she would lie on the sofa watching TV series on the laptop.

And like the empress, Qing Yuan and Hong Luan would be standing behind the sofa watching the TV series.

“Your Majesty, it has been made.” Looking pleased with himself, Ren Baqian opened up the bundle on the coffee table and revealed two wine glasses.

The empress picked up the glasses and asked, “Why do they look slightly greenish?” She had seen many types of drinking glasses before, and so she therefore wasn’t amazed by two wine glasses. However, these two wine glasses were made by the glass factory outside of Lan City. Therefore, they were significantly different from the usual drinking glasses.

Qing Yuan and Hong Luan weren’t amazed either. They had watched enough TV series to know what they were. Even though this type of wine glass was precious, it wasn’t precious enough to make them astounded.

Both of them were well-informed after all.

“It should be due to the metal composition in the base materials. It will be fine after we come up with a solution to get rid of the metal composition,” Ren Baqian said joyfully. Since the wine glasses had already been made, the following steps could be carried out easily.

However, the main problem now was the instability of the furnace fire. Hence the success rate was very low. Ren Baqian reckoned that the smiths of the glass factory would improve their skills as time passed.

They had finally built the glass factory this month, and they had successfully manufactured their first batch of wine glasses. However, there were only a few intact. The two wine glasses that Ren Baqian brought over were the best among all the intact ones.

“Can the solar furnace be made now?” The empress remembered Ren Baqian mentioning this term.

Actually, she had learned quite a few terms from Earth. She also learnt some Chinese characters. That’s right, she learned them from those TV series.

She conveniently learnt a bit of Russian and English too.

“Яхочу,чтобыэтот”

“I want this.”

[This was already in English.]

Both of these two lines meant “I want this” when translated.

She only used these words when she was conversing with Ren Baqian. On Earth, this was her favorite line when she communicated with other people.

“It can be made once the smiths are more familiar with the process,” Ren Baqian said as he nodded.

Since the glass had been made, they now had to make the solar furnace. After all, this wasn’t too difficult to make. Previously in Shencheng, he had already obtained the blueprint for the solar furnace and the mold for the concave mirrors.

Once the concave mirrors were produced, they could just apply a simple coat of silver paint on their backs and it would be done. Ren Baqian had also memorized the entire skill set required to operate it.

While making the concave mirrors, he could also make use of the opportunity to train the smiths. Subsequently, they could produce pure glass products to make money.

One had to know that the wealth in the imperial depository was depleting very quickly. More than half of the gold, silver, and gemstones had already disappeared.

All along, the imperial depository had never been abundant. Most of the valuables had been used by the empress to buy weapons. The remaining gold, silver, gemstones, and artifacts that Ren Baqian saw in the imperial depository when he visited there previously were actually the empress’s birthday gifts.

After buying Ren Baqian’s tonics and building the glass factory, the imperial depository was utterly depleted.

Ren Baqian only recently found out about this when he visited the imperial depository with the empress. The empress had never mentioned this to him before.

This made Ren Baqian feel slightly touched and helpless at the same time.

If you would have told me this earlier, I would have brought a bag of nail clippers back to make some money.

However, the empress had always been like this. She seldom spoke what was her mind.