The Empress's Gigolo

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

Other than being framed and made a scapegoat, everything else went smoothly.

The cement road from Lan City to the Yun Nation was almost complete. The last two sections were expected to be finished in four months. With this road, the travel time between Lan City and the Yun Nation could be shortened in half. A lot of manpower and material resources could be reduced when transporting goods.

At present, Ren Baqian had begun preparations for the construction of the second official road. It was originally envisioned to stretch from Lan City to Tiesuo Pass, the former border town of Great Xia, where the Protectorate of the North was currently located.

However, he now planned to build the second official road from Lan City to the Protectorate of the Southeast so that it could facilitate the transportation of large amounts of coal and rubber.

Currently, the transportation of large amounts of resources was the most important thing. Since Great Xia was currently busy with its internal affairs and was unable to pay attention to other concerns, building a road to the Protectorate of the North wasn’t that important.

A huge amount of manpower had been recruited to Lan City from the Zhang family of the Yun Nation, especially blacksmiths.

The blacksmiths from the Yun Nation had brought many new techniques to Dayao.

Although Ren Baqian had introduced the blast furnace and the hydraulic forging equipment, the traditional methods of these blacksmiths could prove very useful in many aspects and could greatly improve the standard of smelting in Lan City.

The effects of these techniques could be seen from the layers of beautiful weaves on the latest swords in the market.

Another important thing was that there was finally a successful prototype of the first diesel internal combustion engine after several explosions.

Although it was still a little rough, it would be improved and reduced in size after several revisions. These were things that could be anticipated.

The most important thing was that since Dayao had produced the first diesel internal combustion engine, it showed that the craftsmanship of the works and the materials had reached the basic requirements. This was what Ren Baqian cared about.

However, he discovered something bad… At present, the objectives of those b*stards in the first class of students at Black Bamboo Academy seemed to be a little off. They seemed to be more interested in studying how to make the internal combustion engine explode more…

This could be seen from the recent and frequent explosions in the Diesel Internal Combustion Engine Research Institute…

The principles behind the internal combustion engine were originally to generate power through explosions. However, when faced with a wall of the research institute that had been blown up, Ren Baqian had no choice but to pick up his gun and shoot at them for five minutes to serve as a warning.

However, these b*stards had now learned how to dodge…

Amid his busy schedule, two more weeks passed before he finally saw the return of Li Yuanzhu.

“Here’s the head you wanted!” Wearing a robe, she put a box on the table. “I have done what I promised you, but what happened to Luohua Sect?”

“They have been framed…” Ren Baqian smiled bitterly. “It really has nothing to do with me. If I wanted to, I wouldn’t have made a deal with you back then. Directly launching a nuclear bomb at them would serve as the greatest deterrence. Since I already promised you, there was no need for me to do more!”

Li Yuanzhu gently nodded and said, “I thought so too. You wouldn’t do something so unwise. Do you have any clues?”

“No, we got the news too late and no clues could be found at the scene. The culprit immediately retreated after the attack. All we can do now is wait for them to strike again.”

She thought about it and said, “Recently, the martial arts circle in Great Xia has been discussing this a lot. This time, it’s different from how Qi Zixiao exterminated the Nine Pavilions. The Nine Pavilions were notorious, and there were many people who resented them. Although some people had things to say after she exterminated them, there were also many who applauded her actions. It was more about how she was able to destroy the Nine Pavilions single-handedly.

However, it is a completely different scenario with Luohua Sect this time. There are huge reactions from the various sects. They probably feel sympathetic. If the aboriginals can come and exterminate Luohua Sect in Great Xia, it could be their turn tomorrow. They have to fear the aboriginals, even though they are in their own homeland. I’m not sure if Zhao Prince Consort understands this kind of feeling?”

“I understand. However, this matter is difficult to explain and nobody would listen. We can only wait for the culprit to appear again. As for you, Priestess Li, have you been affected?” Ren Baqian asked.

“I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me, Zhao Prince Consort,” Li Yuanzhu replied faintly.

He nodded and said, “If Genuine One Sect runs into trouble, you can move to the Yun Nation. Its roots and culture are similar to Great Xia.”

“You belittle Genuine One Sect. If we were to run in the face of trouble, we wouldn’t have been able to last almost 1,000 years.” She glanced at Ren Baqian.

He laughed. It was simply a suggestion.

If Genuine One Sect really were to move to the Yun Nation, he would gladly welcome them.

However, this was almost impossible. Li Yuanzhu seemed indifferent, but she was pretty stubborn as well.

“It has been tough on you, Priestess Li.” Ren Baqian opened the box. Inside, there was a human head preserved with saltpeter. He could still vaguely make out the face of the person.

However, he was surprised. “This is Su Xianxian?”

“It’s your poison, Zhao Prince Consort. Why would you be surprised?” Li Yuanzhu simply replied casually and didn’t sound unhappy.

“Poison?” Ren Baqian felt even more surprised. When did he poison Su Xianxian?

“He had been poisoned before I got to him. Seeing how surprised you are, could this not have been your doing?” She felt a little puzzled when she saw his response.

He frowned and shook his head before saying, “I didn’t poison him. It looks like the culprit has been targeting him for a while. Nevertheless, he was still the twenty-third most powerful expert in the world. How could he have been set up so easily? It seems like the culprit is unexpectedly strong.”

Li Yuanzhu gently closed her eyes, opened them shortly after, and said, “Regardless of who they are, they are bound to let the cat out of the bag.”

Ren Baqian didn’t know what Su Xianxian had gone through or that he had spent 10 days at the epicenter of the nuclear explosion. He had also carried away a large piece of glass, which was a byproduct of the explosion. A Spirit Wheel expert was already considered fairly strong to only have experienced hair loss and a few other problems after going through all of this.

If it were someone else, they would have been dead a long time ago.

However, since Su Xianxian assumed that Ren Baqian had poisoned him, he naturally wouldn’t talk about what he had done.

Since Li Yuanzhu thought that it was Ren Baqian who had poisoned Su Xianxian, she naturally didn’t ask much either.

Since Su Xianxian had been poisoned and Ren Baqian knew that he wasn’t the one who did it, he subconsciously assumed that it was someone else who did it. He didn’t know that Su Xianxian only became like this after being affected by radiation from spending too much time at the epicenter of the nuclear explosion.

Thus, an inexplicable misunderstanding occurred, and Ren Baqian overestimated the strength of the culprit.

“On that day, apart from Su Xianxian, there seemed to be two more people who appeared nearby, but didn’t show their faces.” He thought for a moment. If Su Xianxian had been targeted, the culprit would definitely be aware of what had happened at that time, which eventually led to this result.

Those two people were highly suspicious. Aside from them, the other experts who joined the public welfare organization could possibly be involved as well.

Ren Baqian felt that he should start investigating those two people while paying attention to the others at the same time.

“If there’s nothing else, I shall leave to take a look at the Sixty Thousand Mountains. Give me a radio if you have extras,” Li Yuanzhu said.

He naturally agreed to this.

After seeing her off the next day, Ren Baqian found out the identities of those two people from the experts who were heading into the mountains.

Fallen Phoenix Hairpin Miao Yulong and Dragon King Ruan San.

Coincidentally, these two people hated the aboriginals. The former had a good friend who was killed by Hong Wu while the latter had one ear cut off and eye cut out by Qi Ziting.

Following their orders, the Embroidered Uniform Guards started gathering intelligence on these two.

On the other hand, Ren Baqian had to return to Earth to fetch a group of 11 people. There were six physicists, two chemists, a zoologist, a botanist, and a mathematician.

These people were gathered by Ning Caichen during this period of time.

They would be the first batch of highly talented people brought to this world.

Apart from Ren Baqian, they would be the first group of foreign visitors!