Chapter 6

After waiting for a long time, Ren Bāqiān heard footsteps coming from a distance.

He secretly turned his head and saw a group of people approaching from afar.

At the front was a woman dressed in a bright red robe embroidered with patterns in gold thread, her hair simply tied up.

It was the same woman he had seen that day.

"She really likes red," Ren Bāqiān muttered to himself. However, looking at the palace complex, he really suspected that this woman might be the emperor here.

While Ren Bāqiān was secretly observing the woman, she also glanced over coldly, the chill in her eyes making Ren Bāqiān feel as if he had been pricked by a needle, and he quickly lowered his head.

The woman, upon seeing Ren Bāqiān standing there in his underwear, clearly paused, the coldness in her eyes intensifying.

The others couldn't help but suppress their laughter, all of them glancing at his lower half as they passed by.

There was no way around it; Ren Bāqiān's red underwear was too eye-catching. He had changed into it specifically to ward off bad luck.

After everyone entered the palace, he was also carried in.

As soon as he went in, he was pushed to the ground, with a bedroll beside him.

Under him was a long carpet, at the end of which were nine steps leading up to a couch.

"What's going on here?" the woman asked, lying on the couch at the front, propping her head up with one hand.

"Your Majesty, when we went to fetch him, he was like this. The jailer said no one had entered his cell for days, and he doesn't know how it happened. Moreover, there was an extra bedroll!" a soldier who had brought him in knelt on one knee and reported.

"Oh? Come, tell me more," the woman said indifferently, lying on the couch.

While Ren Bāqiān was still wondering who she was talking to, the people holding him down pushed him harder. "His Majesty is asking you a question, why aren't you answering?"

Ren Bāqiān had been thinking about this issue since he left the prison. He had originally planned to say that he had a strange habit of eating fabric in his sleep, and that he had eaten his clothes. But if the other party brought out a piece of fabric and asked him to eat it, he would really have no place to cry.

"The clothes decomposed," Ren Bāqiān lied, keeping his head down. "In our country, to protect the environment, most things are designed to decompose naturally after a certain period. I had been wearing those clothes for a while, and they decomposed naturally in the prison these past few days."

The woman frowned as she listened, but she didn't understand a word of what he said.

But she still coldly said, "Nonsense."

"Your Majesty, please understand!" Ren Bāqiān said, bracing himself.

"Then where did this come from?"

Ren Bāqiān knew without looking that she was referring to his bedroll.

There was no way to explain this.

But he had to try, so he gritted his teeth and said, "It fell from the sky. Just like how I appeared, it just fell out. I thought someone didn't want me to freeze to death."

"Is that so?" the woman said coldly.

Ren Bāqiān let out a long breath, relieved that she didn't press the issue. Otherwise, he would have had to stick to his story and claim ignorance about everything else.

"Take him out and execute him," the woman said with a mocking tone.

Ren Bāqiān's mind buzzed. Why execution again?

Terrified, Ren Bāqiān struggled against the soldiers trying to lift him up and shouted, "Your Majesty, spare my life! I am a talent, a great talent. I know where there is grain that can yield ten thousand pounds per acre!"

His strength was no match for the tall and strong soldiers, and he was getting closer to the door.

But even as he shouted about the grain yield, the woman remained unmoved.

Seeing that he was about to be dragged out of the palace, Ren Bāqiān desperately shouted, "Your Majesty, spare my life! Just give me a chance, and I can do anything."

To save his life, Ren Bāqiān was willing to say anything.

"Hmm?" the woman said softly, "Bring him back!"

Ren Bāqiān was dragged back into the palace, drenched in sweat from head to toe.

How long had it been? He had been in prison, and now he was about to be executed. He felt he was the most unfortunate person to have been transported to this world.

"You said you want a chance?" the woman asked coldly from above.

"Yes, Your Majesty, give me a chance, and I can do anything," Ren Bāqiān panted, truly scared to death just now.

"Then I'll give you a chance. Do well, and you live. Fail, and you know the consequences," the woman said coldly.

Ren Bāqiān's mind screamed, "I know, of course I know. It's definitely execution, execution, and more execution. Can't it be something else?"

But on the surface, he humbly said, "I will do my best to handle everything properly."

"Xin Zhe!" the woman called softly.

"Here!" the female general, whom Ren Bāqiān had seen before, knelt on one knee in front of the steps.

"Take him to the animal garden. The new little one isn't eating or sleeping well. Let him take a look. If he can handle it, spare his life. If not, execute him."

"Yes!" the female general responded, then stood up and said to the two soldiers behind Ren Bāqiān, "Take him with me."

On the way, Ren Bāqiān thought about what she had said: "Animal garden? New little one?" It seemed he was going to see some animals.

He had never claimed to be a veterinarian.

He decided to take a look first. If it didn't work, he would stall for a few days, go back, find a veterinarian, get some medicine, and come back. There should be a way, right?

The palace they had just left was slightly off-center. As they walked, they moved further away, passing through a forest before finally reaching the so-called "animal garden." A burly, rough-looking man who seemed more like a butcher than a zookeeper greeted them. His voice was as loud as if he was about to start a fight. After asking a few questions, he led them inside.

The animal garden was essentially a zoo. However, the animals here had better living conditions than those in a typical zoo, not confined to small cages.

Here, there were many open spaces, surrounded by walls, with various animals roaming freely inside.

Only a few animals and birds were kept in cages.

As Ren Bāqiān walked through, he saw a rabbit as big as a wolf dog with red eyes and a mouth full of fangs, a hippopotamus-like creature, and two tigers with long tusks protruding from their mouths, somewhat resembling saber-toothed tigers, though their tusks were not as long.

As he walked, Ren Bāqiān confirmed one thing: the animals in this world were very different from those on Earth.

For example, the rabbit with a mouth full of fangs looked fierce and pounced at them, only to collide with the iron cage.

Ren Bāqiān wouldn't believe it if someone said it wouldn't bite.

"Here we are," the person in front stopped, and they faced a one-meter-high wall.

Ren Bāqiān looked around and saw everyone watching him. He took a few steps forward and leaned over the wall to look inside.

Inside was a circular area about 50 meters in diameter, about three meters lower than the outside, making the total height of the wall four meters. A small stream ran along the edge, with iron bars at both ends.

At that moment, a snow-white bear over two and a half meters tall was lying in the stream, with the water barely covering half of its massive body.

"Sure enough, it's a little one!" Ren Bāqiān commented. When the woman said "little one," he had a premonition. He knew a woman like her wouldn't keep a cat or a dog.