Shadows of the Imperial Palace: The Eunuchs (4)

A sharp rustle of cloth cut the air.

Yang Gwang closed the distance with a driving step and, in the space of a blink, was right in front of Jin Myeong's face. He twisted his hips and snapped his right leg out.

The speed was impossible to credit to a fifteen-year-old boy.

Simple as the motion looked, it had begun with no preparatory tell at all. What he was using was the counterfeit Sunflower Manual.

That, however, was only how it looked to everyone else. To Jin Myeong, who had mastered the genuine art, it was the flailing of a child at play.

A dry clap of contact.

The hand that stopped the kick Yang Gwang had put his whole body into slid at once, smooth as oil, and locked around the boy's ankle.

Figures, a Fujian brat. Crazy little bastard. He put internal energy into that?

It was just as well Jin Myeong was a martial artist. Had an ordinary new eunuch taken that kick, several ribs would have gone at a minimum.

Not every man from Fujian was built that way, but it was a region infamous for short tempers. Piracy was a family trade for more than a few of them. Beyond the sea there was little worth harvesting, and the inland country was too poor to live on. All that grew there were sighs and a vicious, scrap-dog will to survive. Poverty was one of the reasons Fujian had, from ancient times, been called the greatest producer of eunuchs under heaven.

"Hhk—!"

For an instant Yang Gwang froze in the posture he'd been caught in, his whole frame shuddering. It was not Jin Myeong's movement alone that had done it.

This—this bastard?

That an insolent new eunuch had learned martial arts at all was the first shock. That a technique, simple as it was, had been stopped so easily was the second. And then there was one thing more.

What was that just now? My body…

In that sliver of a moment his entire body had gone electric, as if it had been numbed. The surprise of it left his legs hollow, as though the strength had simply run out of them.

"Y-you? You know martial arts?"

Yang Gwang stared at the leg that would not move no matter how he strained, and at the skill of the man holding it. The question stood for everyone else in the room.

Jin Myeong gave a short, dry laugh, his grip still locked on the ankle, and finally opened his mouth.

"Can you even call this martial arts? Child's play—ah. This humble servant misspoke. Call a child a child, and of course the child gets angry."

A sharp crack split the air.

Jin Myeong let the ankle go and, in the same motion, slapped the sole of Yang Gwang's foot with an open palm.

"Ghhk—!"

Yang Gwang flailed backward on a burst of wind pressure. Zhao Gou and the Cheongsa of the Directorate of Ceremonial barely managed to catch him. Zhao Gou's eyes were a mess of shock and fear.

"Y-you dare! Hiding that you've learned martial arts—!"

"Hiding it? Eunuch Zhao. When you entered the palace, did a single person ask?"

Of course they hadn't. The Ministry of Rites officials who oversaw selection had not asked. The eunuchs of the Directorate of Ceremonial had not asked either. Not asking was the ordinary thing. A martial artist of Second-Rate or higher castrating himself and walking into the palace was vanishingly rare—rare enough that one could treat it as if it never happened. Rarer, even, than a scholar turning his back on Confucius's words in the Classic of Filial Piety to become a eunuch. Far rarer than that.

The reason was simple. Castration meant abandoning the martial path. How was a man supposed to become a master once the very root of his yang energy had been cut away? The overwhelming majority of the world's arts were hard-yang methods, built on the supremacy of yang qi. And martial artists were creatures whose obsession with their art beggared the imagination. People who lived on pride in the martial way, throwing that way away? The idea was nonsense. It was not worth arguing. It ran against the grain of the animal itself.

In roughly twenty-seven hundred years of eunuch history since the Yin dynasty, could one even find a case of a martial artist becoming a eunuch of his own free will? And since Bodhidharma, there had been exactly one art a castrated man could cultivate all the way to the Peak Realm: the Sun Moon Sect's version of the Sunflower Manual. In the present age, then, every castrated martial artist in the world was a eunuch. Before Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang seized the Sunflower Manual from the White Lotus Sect, the eunuchs of earlier dynasties had practiced Second-Rate methods barely fit for keeping themselves alive.

"No one is curious. No one asks. Why would I volunteer it? Wouldn't you agree, Eunuch Wang?"

"Where did a thing like you pick up that pathetic—!"

"Are you going to stand there shouting? It's time to go clean. We don't have time, so either all of you come in. Or else—"

Jin Myeong let the sentence hang.

A chorus of throats worked. Here and there among the new eunuchs, a boy startled at the sound of his own swallow. Sweat ran in both their hands. They stood trembling, eyes fixed on the disaster unfolding in front of them, waiting for Jin Myeong's next words with a feeling split evenly between dread and a shameful, secret hope.

"Get lost."

He even folded his arms as he said it, as if the whole business bored him. The new eunuchs let go of the last scrap of composure they had been clutching.

"He's insane—"

"What's he doing? Someone stop him!"

"This is a nightmare. What's he thinking?"

"This is going to blow up. It has to."

"Shouldn't somebody grab him?"

The whispering started on its own. They had even forgotten the fear of being overheard and beaten for it. And then, at last—

"You—you crazy castrated son of a bitch!"

Wang Zhen and his men lost the last thread of reason and came at him in a rush.

Wang Zhen had guessed that the new eunuch's martial arts would not amount to much, and it was not a bad guess. The boy was nineteen at most. Anyone who had truly mastered a formidable art would have had no reason to become a eunuch. Unless he practiced the eunuchs' own Sunflower Manual, castration would have wrecked his cultivation.

"Where'd you crawl out of, you fucking bastard?"

He would have sworn it on his severed manhood: this was some back-alley punk who had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠farted around in the gutters and come in here putting on a cheap show of nerve. Back-alley types fought with swagger and a mouth, not with their hands. Put his sworn brothers in with him and they would beat the boy into paste. He was sure of it.

A thin, tearing whistle cut the air.

The first thing to reach Jin Myeong, who stood there as if he had all the time in the world, was Wang Zhen's two hands, nails grown long and wicked.

That was the name: because the nails left a thread of blood-light wherever they passed. Three hundred years ago the Mad Demon had created it out of longing for the swiftness and dazzle of the Bright Sky Hand.

"Hyaaah—!"

With Wang Zhen in the lead, the rest of his men spread through the wide floor of the dormitory and launched a concerted assault, their throats tearing out those shrill, ugly cries. To Jin Myeong, who was no longer a castrate, the sound of them was enough to turn the stomach.

Tch. And I can't even kill them.

He had thought, for a moment, of ending it in a single exchange. Then he decided otherwise. A larger nuisance might grow out of that. Better to swallow a small one now.

The thought was finished. He moved.

Nails ripped the air into silver threads. In the middle of that web Jin Myeong turned, dropped, spun—his body drawing a single fluid line through the gaps. No more and no less than the thickness of a sheet of paper. He slipped every streak by a single breath, and with every miss the faces of Wang Zhen's men—and of the watching new eunuchs—twisted into disbelief.

And then, among those silver lines that swam through empty air, close enough to graze, close enough to kiss, Jin Myeong's hands and feet began to dance.

The speed of light. The speed of a ghost. He did not even need to spend internal energy. What he used was five years of cultivation, at most. In front of the Bright Sky Hand that had given it birth, the Sun Moon Blood Light Claw Technique the Mad Demon had invented three centuries ago had no force left in it at all.

Thud. Thud-thud. Thud.

"Guh—hack!"

Jin Myeong folded them inward one by one, stacking the blows so that Wang Zhen's men would not crash into the new eunuchs. All ten Cheongsa of the Directorate of Ceremonial, Wang Zhen among them, took an impartial fist in the solar plexus and went rolling across the floor.

A short while later, Wang Zhen and his men—who had been out cold—were kneeling in the middle of the dormitory. Zhao Gou had come around first and gone to his knees; the rest had followed without being told.

"Eunuch Wang. That's enough. Get up. You have cleaning to do."

Jin Myeong crouched by the still-dazed Wang Zhen's head and tapped him lightly on the brow.

"Nnh… hah! Kh— you—!"

Wang Zhen came to himself and tried to lunge up, then folded again at the thick, grinding ache in his solar plexus.

"Does it hurt? Then perhaps you might stop tormenting the new eunuchs. It's upsetting, you know."

"You little shit! You think you'll walk away from—"

A crisp, satisfying smack.

Jin Myeong's palm arrived at Wang Zhen's forehead before the sentence could finish. Wang Zhen, who had been kneeling, went over on his back with a thud.

"Ack!"

"This humble servant misheard, I hope. 'Little shit,' was it? Get up."

"You really think you can—"

Smack.

This time the blow landed in the same instant Wang Zhen opened his mouth.

"Ack!"

"'You'? I'd heard you were a clever one, but looking at you now… shall I just kill you while I'm at it?"

"Hhk—!"

Wang Zhen swallowed a sound of pure dismay. This unknown new eunuch—this raving new eunuch—looked entirely capable of doing exactly that. A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠madman of this order: what wouldn't he do?

This one is genuinely insane. He's not in his right mind. Is it some kind of mania? What is he?

Only then did the fear start to take. Outstanding as Wang Zhen was among his peers, the venom in him could not match the men who had become eunuchs out of poverty, or for revenge. Uncommon talent, too, had a habit of collapsing in the face of absolute force.

"I-if the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Grand Eunuchs find out—"

"Today's escort is being handled by you eunuchs, isn't it? The gonggong on night duty won't be here for another two shichen. Which makes this a rather convenient day for Eunuch Wang to pass on."

"The m-moment I walk out of here I'll r-report this. Zhao-gong, Yang-gong—isn't that right?"

Wang Zhen looked to Zhao Gou and Yang Gwang. Both of them kept their heads down and said nothing. Zhao Gou and Yang Gwang were, if anything, more vicious by nature than Wang Zhen. They had not sat quietly after waking. They had already walked the same road he had, and been beaten just as thoroughly.

"You'll report it? That you tried to put a little fear into the new eunuchs and got your hide tanned by this humble servant? The other eunuchs were begging me to believe they wouldn't do any such thing. Hmm. In that case, Eunuch Wang really will have to depart this world today. Come along. I know a rather scenic spot."

"I—I understand! Today's matter never happened. I know nothing about it! Jang, you new—! No. Eunuch Jang!"

His sworn brothers were cowed. No one was taking his side. And the mad new eunuch looked fully prepared to put him in the ground if it came to that.

First I get out of here. I can think after that. What to do with this bastard is a problem for later.

In the end, Wang Zhen understood that he had no other move.

Jin Myeong heard the answer and let out a quiet snort of laughter.

"Good. I won't even ask you to speak up to me—wouldn't want us getting confused. But from now on, if I hear 'bastard,' or 'you' in that tone…"

"Never! I will never say it!"

"For the record, I don't trust people easily. You three in particular, Eunuch Wang, Eunuch Zhao, Eunuch Yang. If today's events leak—whoever the one who talks may be…"

He pointed to the three of them in turn, then let his gaze travel over the rest of their men and the new eunuchs filling the dormitory, and laid the warning down where no one could mistake it.

All one hundred and nine of them, everyone in the room but Jin Myeong, shuddered from head to foot.

Two shichen later.

The new eunuchs and I scattered to sweep the halls of the Twenty-Four Directorates and came ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠back again. I had made a point of promising that anyone who tried to talk the new eunuchs into a faction, or to threaten them, would be killed without fail. Nothing of the sort, apparently, had occurred.

A night-duty eunuch had come by just before, taken roll, and gone. With every task of the day finished, the dormitory had sunk into a dead hush. It was quiet enough to hear a single insect crawling.

I had told them several times they did not need to be that frightened. It had done no good at all. Fair enough. To ordinary people, a martial artist was a butcher who happened to walk on two legs. Devils who would make a mortal enemy over some scrap of honor and carve a man up like a side of meat. That was a martial artist, as far as ordinary people were concerned.

On top of that, none of them could have dreamed that a new eunuch on his second day in the palace would beat his superiors half to death. They would be wondering how I meant to handle the aftermath, too. Their heads would be a mess, one way or another.

I had no intention of explaining it at length. Too much trouble. I was just thinking I might as well go over the plan instead when—

Footsteps. Someone came up to the head of my bed and stopped.

"Thank you for helping us. I am Go of the Jeong family, from Fujian."

A grave, steady voice. It was him.

The first time I heard it, I had wondered how a boy with a voice like that had ended up a eunuch. The owner of that voice had been sold to pirates, then pulled out of their hands by the Hainan Sect, then expelled a few years later. Abandoned by his parents and by his school. Before the regression, he had followed me more faithfully than anyone. A deep-hearted man of Fujian. Jeong Go.

I sat up from my bedding with a gladness I did not bother to hide.

"I was told you are nineteen. I am seventeen. May I call you Elder Brother?"

Why wouldn't he? I had wanted exactly that.

Your face. How long has it been? That's right. It wasn't only the secret treasury waiting in the Forbidden City. You were there too.

The Jeong Go of my previous life had died on the day I died, trying to get me away from Wang Zhen and his men.

"Jin Myeong of the Jang family, from Yingtianfu. Good to meet you."

"During the sweeping I overheard what Zhao Gou was saying. You ought to be careful."

Jeong Go glanced around and dropped his voice, as if he had something that was not for other ears.