The Empress’s Gigolo

From the Yun Nation, Luoxia Village spanned over 100 mu of land and was located beside Lake Luoxia at the foot of Mount Luoxia.

Liu Rufeng, the chief of the village, was generous to the needy and helped the distressed. He was also friends with everyone. With his Earth Wheel level strength, he was quite famous in the Yun Nation.

At night, a storm hit, and the entire mountain village was shrouded in the storm. The village was dark, and the sound of the whistling wind could be heard from the outside. From time to time, trees uprooted from the ground and crashed into the village.

A few swords flashed through the night sky, and the trees that were crashing into the village were cut into more than a dozen sections before falling outside the village.

Several disciples sheathed their swords and moved back behind the walls of the courtyard as they braved the violent gale.

The wind was slightly weaker here.

Without shelter, this wind could blow people away.

“It has been many years since we have seen such strong winds,” one of the disciples muttered.

Another disciple was full of resentment and declared, “Those barbarians have angered the gods! They will not have a good ending!”

The disciple who spoke earlier stayed silent. There was no telling what this wind would do to the barbarians, but at present, their own farm crops had probably been destroyed. Plus, he had no idea how many people would be displaced this year.

Three men sat around a table in one of the houses in the village. As the wind whistled outside, the candle in the room was dark. It was just like the current situation of the Yun Nation.

One of the men was in his forties and had a clean face with a full-grown beard. He was Liu Rufeng, and his face was full of sorrow.

Out of the other two, one of them was Xu Ping. He was a tall man in his forties.

The other man was Gao Yishan. He was in his sixties and had outstanding vigor.

“Xu Hu and his group of cowards. His speech sounded better than anyone else’s at first, but he ended up getting scared stiff by the barbarians and ran away.” Xu Ping slammed the table.

Liu Rufeng sighed and shook his head before saying, “These barbarians are too strong. Even the weakest one of them is at the Man Wheel level, which is considered the core strength of an ordinary sect. Only one out of 100 ordinary people can attain such a level. However, Man Wheel level soldiers are the most commonly seen in the army of the barbarians. Why is God so unfair in loving them so much? There are only 500 of their soldiers in each of the four cities of Shanyin, Zebeii, Songyang, and Xuguan City. Yet, the volunteer army got suppressed the moment they were detected. Tens of thousands of people have died at their hands, and the number of civilians implicated is uncountable. Now that the Yun Nation is in turmoil, I’m not sure that we can make a comeback!”

Xu Ping looked extremely sad and asked, “Does the Yun Nation still exist? Hundreds of cities have fallen and perished. Jin Shang has been captured and Zheng Chengmian burned himself to death. Many of the sects that assassinated the warlords that had already surrendered were eliminated as well! Some of the wealthy merchants, who have refused to submit to the barbarians, have all packed their belongings and left for Great Xia. We are the only mice left that are trying to survive in the gutters.”

Liu Rufeng kept quiet. They knew that the Yun Nation had already fallen.

They simply didn’t dare and didn’t wish to think about it.

“It’s impossible to fight those barbarians head-on. Our strength is far weaker than theirs,” Gao Yishan said.

“Do you want to end up like those warlords who have surrendered? Let those barbarians tyrannically abuse us?” Xu Ping glared at Gao Yishan.

“Don’t worry. Listen to me.” Gao Yishan didn’t care about his attitude and pondered as he said, “There are now 100,000 barbarian soldiers in the Yun Nation. That Zi Donglai has divided the nation into five regions with garrisons of 15,000 troops in each region. Among these, 500 soldiers are stationed in each city. There are also 10,000 soldiers that were divided into four groups and are responsible for annihilating the volunteer army and the sects with rebellious intentions.

In each of the barracks, there are about 100 Earth Wheel experts. The rest are all at the Man Wheel level, but they are much stronger than ordinary Man Wheel experts.

Back when I was fighting these barbarians in the Yun Nation, we needed to outnumber them by at least ten times in order to be able to contend against them. Nowadays, these volunteer soldiers are ordinary people who haven’t been through much training. There are only a few experts among them. Under such circumstances, we have no chance of defeating any of the barbarian groups. No matter where the revolt occurs, it will be extinguished in an instant.

Needless to say, there are still soldiers of the warlords being held captive by the barbarians, and we have spies among them.”

“There are indeed spies!” When it came to spies, Xu Ping was full of anger. “It was the spies sent by those warlords that helped the barbarians discover the people of Shanyin City and other cities. That bunch of traitors. If it weren’t for them, how could the Yun Nation fall?”

Gao Yishan shook his head. In fact, he had noticed something. Not only were the spies of the warlords still active, there seemed to be another group of people in the Yun Nation who were leaking news to the barbarians.

However, there were many highly-skilled experts among them. There were a few occasions where he lost them when scouting them out and almost got killed.

“So it’s impossible to fight them head-on. Back when general Zhu Wuchang was still alive, his troops suffered defeat after defeat against the barbarians, let alone us.”

“It’s only because that traitor Zheng Chengmian held them back in all aspects! He had it easy by burning himself to death. He should have been dismembered!” Xu Ping shouted again.

Liu Rufeng looked at Xu Ping helplessly. He was good in many aspects, but he was simply too violent and impulsive. “First, let Brother Gao finish his words.”

Liu Rufeng then looked at Gao Yishan and asked, “What is your opinion, Brother Gao?”

Gao Yishan caressed his beard and replied, “If we can’t fight them head-on, then we have to use other means.”

“Please explain yourself!” Liu Rufeng said.

“There is an antique in my sect that was left behind by a high official from Great Chen, the previous dynasty before Great Xia. There was a priest who gave it to the emperor of Great Chen, claiming that it could stabilize the fate of the nation for a long time. After that, Great Chen was faced with calamities such as floods, droughts, and earthquakes for three years in a row. Its people had no way of getting by.”

“People started revolting everywhere, and the Great Chen dynasty fell after two years. When Great Xia was established, the original palace was razed to the ground and the capital was relocated.” Liu Rufeng’s eyes lit up. “Although this is a legend and a huge part of it may be untrue, there must be something about it that we are unsure of since Brother Gao mentioned it.”

If he were to hear this story from other people, he would simply have regarded it as a joke. However, Gao Yishan was full of strange techniques. This was something that Liu Rufeng had seen many times. Since Gao Yishan mentioned this legend, there might be some truth to it.

“That priest is the founder of my sect!” Gao Yishan laughed.

Liu Rufeng and Xu Ping were both surprised because they didn’t expect this to be the case.

“Toward the end of the Great Chen dynasty, the officials were corrupt and the commoners had no food and no clothing. The founder of my sect became destitute and homeless due to this corruption and abuse. Later, when he incidentally obtained the antique, he came up with this idea and presented the antique to the emperor of Great Chen. The dynasty originally had more than ten years of prosperity, but after they received the antique, they fell after just a few years’ time.”

“Is the antique that powerful?” Xu Ping found it hard to believe.

“There is indeed some ambiguity. I’m not sure why, but the history of this antique was lost during ancient times. Many strange techniques were lost and weren’t passed on to future generations. This antique was handed down from ancient times and has incredible uses.” Gao Yishan paused for a while, before continuing, “After the Great Chen dynasty fell, the master of my sect got a chance to take back the artifact and hid it somewhere.”