Palace Maids, Destinies Bound to the Imperial Palace (4)
Moments earlier, when every head in the room had bowed beneath the majesty of the Yongle Emperor appearing at the door, Jin Myeong's senses had drawn taut to their absolute limit.
The ominous premonition he'd felt only a breath before had proven true.
That...?
The female physician whose eyes had met his was beginning to tremble. A woman who had been perfectly fine until that instant now shook from head to toe, as if seized by a malarial fever.
Fortunately every person in the hall was prostrate. Had they not been, anyone looking would have seen at once that something was terribly wrong.
And then—
What? All of a sudden?
The veins on Bang Huiyeon's bowed hand and along the side of her face bulged grotesquely, writhing like fat earthworms crawling just beneath the skin.
Abnormal. Unmistakably so.
She's going to explode? Mutual destruction!
Jin Myeong understood what her symptoms meant. When the entire body trembles and the veins stand rigid, it points to one thing among the many manifestations of qi deviation: the runaway concentration of true qi.
The causes vary, but the sequence does not. First the true qi of the entire body gathers, surging toward a single point. Then the meridians, unable to withstand the pressure of that over-concentrated energy, explode in an instant. Flesh, bone, and blood spray in every direction, laden with true qi that has not yet dispersed—and in that moment they become thousands upon tens of thousands of hidden weapons.
A Myriad Heavenly Flower Rain, fashioned from a human body. At this range, even a master of the Peak Realm's late stage could not guarantee survival. It was a technique of mutual destruction at its most extreme.
A blood storm is right in front of us.
There was nothing more to consider. The female physician was clearly the key figure in both the attempt on Noble Consort Wang's life and the massacre of the palace maids.
Lure the Yongle Emperor with the Consort's crisis. Then detonate at close range in a suicide strike. If they could only do something about the Consort's condition, the plan would have been all but perfect.
The physician may well have been under someone else's control, but among the three—Yeo, Eo, and the physician—it was the physician who was the linchpin. The period at the end of the sentence. The one who would complete the assassination of the Yongle Emperor.
This is because of me. Damn it all!
Had the Consort died as she had before the regression, the Yongle Emperor, upon hearing the news, would have collapsed in something close to a faint. He would never have come rushing here like this. This situation had arisen precisely because Noble Consort Wang had been brought back from the brink—unlike before the regression.
Which meant the responsibility for what was unfolding lay with him. Any further delay and it would be irreversible. He needed a move. A stroke of genius to break this deadlock.
"Grand Director! Something's happening. Divert His Majesty's gaze to the right—just for a moment!"
Jin Myeong sent the sound transmission to Zheng He on pure instinct. He needed someone who could fart beside the Yongle Emperor and still not be called to account for it. In this moment, the only person for whom no act would constitute an impropriety was one man: Zheng He, the Emperor's closest confidant.
A nod.
Zheng He turned at once, found Jin Myeong, and their eyes met. Both men inclined their heads at the same instant.
"I'll do it."
Zheng He had no idea what was going on, but he trusted Jin Myeong without a shred of doubt. That sharp-witted young man would never wreck the future of the eunuch clan—and even if he did make a mistake, Zheng He was prepared to shield him.
If a castrated master would not trust a castrated disciple, whom else was he supposed to trust? The eunuchs of the Great Ming were one body.
Footsteps. Slow, measured footsteps.
Noble Consort Wang lay at the far end of the spacious chamber. The Yongle Emperor and his retinue were walking toward the center. Palace maids and eunuchs knelt in rows along both sides. Bang Huiyeon was somewhere in the middle of the left-hand line; Jin Myeong was at the far end, close to the Consort.
And then the Yongle Emperor, still walking, drew level with Bang Huiyeon—the very instant before she would explode.
Zheng He stepped forward.
"Your Majesty, this lowly servant obtained an orchid in the Western Regions. What if we placed it there, beside the wan-patterned lattice? I would present it as a prayer for Her Ladyship's swift recovery."
What was the one interest Noble Consort Wang and the Yongle Emperor shared? Orchids. Orchids. The subject was perfectly timed, perfectly chosen, and every head in the room—the Emperor's, the eunuchs', the palace maids'—turned as one.
One man below, ten thousand above. Every word from Zheng He's mouth carried enormous weight, and people turned before they even knew they were doing it.
Now!
The opening was his—a span of time no longer than a blink.
Jin Myeong moved at once.
The finest movement art under heaven. In a single instant, his form slid across the floor without ever rising from its prostrate crouch, and he was at Bang Huiyeon's side.
Zheng He's voice was still echoing through the chamber, and Jin Myeong's already vanishingly faint presence was swallowed by it. The only ones who even noticed were the eunuch and the palace maid kneeling immediately beside him and Bang Huiyeon.
A rapid drumming of fingers. Light, precise taps.
He struck her acupoints at once.
But—
The sealing—!
It didn't take. The true qi had already left her dantian and passed through the paralysis meridians.
Damn it all!
The acupoints would not seal, and somewhere inside Bang Huiyeon's body the true qi was still gathering. In that life-or-death instant, Jin Myeong played his last card.
All or nothing.
The secret art that had never once failed him. The technique with which, long ago, he had drawn a full jiazi of true qi from the Color-Flame Dual Masters, and only recently another half-jiazi from Cheongjin.
Harmony Qi Absorption.
His left palm, from where he knelt at her left side, clamped onto the center of her belly.
Like lightning splitting a rain-dark sky, the technique flooded through Bang Huiyeon's entire body in a single heartbeat, devouring every meridian it touched.
What's a eunuch's life without a wager?
This was a gamble, and the stakes were everything or nothing. He was betting it all on the art's power to paralyze a target before it even began to drink their qi.
Kh—!
The abnormally concentrated true qi poured into him in a single torrent, and the pain was much like what he had felt when he drained the Color-Flame Dual Masters. The difference was that this time the Yongle Emperor was in the room. If he lost consciousness, everything was finished.
He had to hold. Somehow, he had to hold.
And so the struggle between Bang Huiyeon's true qi and the Harmony Qi Absorption began.
The Yongle Emperor and his retinue passed the line where Bang Huiyeon and Jin Myeong knelt, their attention on the window.
"I will hear it."
The Emperor, having glanced at the flowerpot, turned back toward Noble Consort Wang and spoke. The timing was so precise it could only be called miraculous.
"Your Majesty, Jo Sik, Vice Director of the Imperial Academy of Medicine, reports."
The imperial physician, who had been watching Jin Myeong already, stepped forward the instant the Emperor opened his mouth. In this situation, he was the only one who could speak.
The Yongle Emperor was acknowledged by every minister great and small as a master of coded speech—a man who truncated beginnings and endings, who spoke in metaphor as if it were his native tongue. When he said I will hear it, he meant: report the full course of events, omitting nothing.
"Consort Wang is unharmed. An unexplained paralysis of the heart was resolved through acupuncture and medicinal compounds. Furthermore, the condition did not originate from any external cause."
Jo Sik led with the conclusion, putting the Emperor at ease, then deliberately launched into a lengthy explanation. He was buying Jin Myeong time, and he was cutting off any suspicion of attempted murder before it could take root.
"Paralysis of the heart... The imperial physician was swift. Who was it that summoned you?"
When the explanation at last wound down, the Emperor asked the question, his expression considerably milder than before.
"Deok Heum, the Consort's attending eunuch, came to find me, Your Majesty."
The same tactic again. Jo Sik dragged the moment out, terrified that the Emperor might turn toward where Jin Myeong was. He would rather the Emperor work backward through the chain of events himself than name Jin Myeong outright.
This is the last thing this old man can do for you. Hurry!
From where Jo Sik stood, Jin Myeong was still glued to the female physician's side, and what on earth he was doing remained a mystery.
"Deok Heum?"
"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty!"
At the sound of his name, Deok Heum answered, trembling. Jangan Palace was his post, so it was not as though he never saw the Emperor—and yet every time he did, his knees went weak.
"Well done."
"Y-Your servant is overwhelmed by such imperial grace. But it was not this lowly one who discovered it..."
"Then who."
"Jang Jinmyeong, Jeonbu of the Directorate of Ceremonial, discovered it and sent this servant to the Imperial Academy of Medicine. Until the imperial physician arrived, it was Jang Jinmyeong who held Her Ladyship's life in his hands."
As he spoke, Deok Heum looked across at Jin Myeong—and squeezed his eyes shut.
What the hell is he doing right now? Has that lunatic lost his mind?
Deok Heum's thought was shared by every attending eunuch and palace maid who had belatedly grasped the situation. What a mortifying spectacle. In the Yongle Emperor's presence, a hand slipped beneath a female physician's jacket—
What kind of grotesque—!
Stranger still was that the physician herself did not move. She simply lay there, yielding her body entirely.
If you're going to go mad, at least go mad with some dignity. Are the two of them actually enjoying this?
A few of them, half in jest and half in earnest, even wondered whether Jin Myeong and Bang Huiyeon were carrying on some brazen affair, and swallowed a hollow laugh. Either way, the insides of every eunuch and palace maid pressed to the floor were burning up.
"Jang Jinmyeong...?"
"Your Majesty, he is the one who saved the Crown Prince and defeated the young Daoist of Wudang. Jang Jinmyeong, Jeonbu of the Directorate of Ceremonial!"
Zheng He spoke the name, and the Emperor's entire retinue turned as one.
I don't know anything!
The eunuchs and palace maids squeezed their eyes shut, certain the worst had arrived.
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
Instead, Jin Myeong's answer rang out—bold, unhurried, utterly composed. He had just taken his hand from Bang Huiyeon, and he let out a breath of relief.
He had even brought a teapot of tea, ready to stage a scene in which Bang Huiyeon, unaccustomed to palace life, had wet herself at her first encounter with the Yongle Emperor's majesty. But it had not come to that, and he was profoundly grateful.
Even so, a woman's dignity has to be preserved.
The Emperor turned toward the voice.
"Raise your head."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
The Yongle Emperor studied Jin Myeong's face with those fierce, hawklike eyes of his. Anyone watching would have thought a beheading was about to be ordered.
"You attend the Consort?"
"This humble servant attends the Crown Princess."
"What happened."
Decoded: what was a man who served the Crown Princess doing in Yeongan Palace, and how had Noble Consort Wang fallen ill?
Would it kill him to speak in complete sentences. Tch.
Jin Myeong clicked his tongue inwardly and cleared his throat.
"The Consort came to Yeongan Palace, Your Majesty. Upon seeing this servant, she said she had something to ask and requested a private audience."
"What did she ask."
"After mentioning that the Prince of Han had visited the day before, she suddenly complained of a headache and dizziness, and this servant heard no more."
"The Prince of Han? The Prince of Han visited...? Grand Director."
The Emperor seized on the mention of Zhu Gaoxu's visit—exactly as Jin Myeong had intended. A scheme to peel that tiresome man away from Noble Consort Wang. Tell a naturally suspicious emperor that his ambitious second son had called on his beloved concubine the day before she collapsed, and he would suspect Zhu Gaoxu without fail.
It was also a warning, delivered through the Emperor himself. A warning to the Prince of Han: do not touch what is ours.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Summon the Prince of Han at once."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
Just as expected. In matters concerning Noble Consort Wang, the Yongle Emperor did not compromise, and he called Zhu Gaoxu in.
Why should this public servant dirty his own hands? Send him to his father and the man will take him apart just fine.
With the plan unfolding exactly as designed, Jin Myeong roared with laughter on the inside.
"Grand Director, identify those who rendered meritorious service in this matter and report their names. When the Consort wakes, rewards will be bestowed."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
That afternoon, at the Imperial Academy of Medicine.
Having explained the full sequence of events to Zheng He alone, Jin Myeong brought the unconscious Bang Huiyeon with Jo Sik and relocated to the Imperial Academy of Medicine. In the palace at midday, eyes and ears were everywhere; the Academy was the best available option. Most of the physicians and physician-maids would be scattered across the palace grounds on their rounds.
"You were lucky. From the symptoms you described, it will be a Soul-Binding Gu—and of those, an Explosive Gu."
Jo Sik spoke after a long, careful reading of her pulse.
Soul-Binding Gu and Explosive Gu. The former was a worm possessing the occult power to dominate the mind; the latter, a worm that triggered an explosion of true qi.
"A suggestion is planted during the implantation. When the conditions matching that suggestion are met, it activates."
"And in this case?"
"Explosive Gu are typically implanted for mutual destruction or suicide, so the suggestion would be something like the target approaching to within a few paces."
This was precisely why Jin Myeong had sought Jo Sik out in the first place. He had learned it during his toxicology training as a guard of the Eastern Depot, before the regression: Jo Sik was an expert in poisons. Medicine and poison had always been two faces of the same art, but physicians who had studied as deeply as Jo Sik were vanishingly rare. Poisons were too various, and their variety made them too dangerous.
"I see. That explains why the symptoms began the moment she saw him."
"You're certain?"
"Her eyes met this servant's just before. After that, the first person she saw was him—and the symptoms started the instant she did."
The him Jin Myeong meant was the Yongle Emperor. Even here at the Academy, in a secluded corner where people rarely passed, one never knew who might be listening. He chose his words with care.
"I see. An extraordinary business. In any case, as I recall, the girl entered the Academy about a year ago. She is no ordinary young woman."
Jo Sik was right. Anyone carrying an Explosive Gu in her skull was not a normal person. On the surface, she was someone whose trade was killing. An assassin, in other words. A killer-for-hire.
"Is there a way to remove it?"
"Why? Do you mean to save her?"
"She's still young, is she not. If the Gu can be extracted, there may be other avenues. And there is a matter that gives me pause."
The matter that gave him pause was Suchengye. The organization to which Yi Yugyeong and Nam Woo-jeong belonged. A secret society bent on overthrowing the imperial house of the Great Ming. Judging by Bang Huiyeon's actions alone, the possibility that she too was a member of Suchengye was more than sufficient.
"Is that so? Well, she'd be twenty-two or twenty-three, I suppose. When even old men who've lived out their years deserve saving, one can hardly leave a young woman to die."
To both of them, Bang Huiyeon looked young. Of course, Jo Sik's physician's eye was more accurate than Jin Myeong's, and twenty-two or twenty-three would make her just about Shanghua's age.
"Is there a method?"
"There is, of course. We still have the Thousand-Year Jade Essence, do we not."
"The Thousand-Year Jade Essence can handle even an Explosive Gu?"
"The strongest and most famous of the Explosive Gu is the Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm."
"The Golden Thread... Luminous Silkworm?"
The Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm. The larva of the golden thread moth—a silkworm, in other words. Even to Jin Myeong, the name was unfamiliar.
"First, sit the girl up. We'll begin the procedure."
"Ah—yes."
Jin Myeong followed Jo Sik's sudden instruction and raised Bang Huiyeon into a sitting position.
"Remove her upper garments as well. I'll need to drive needles into her back and chest to herd the Explosive Gu. In times like these it's a blessing this old man is an aging physician and you are an inner-court official. A young woman who woke to find her chastity stolen wouldn't try to kill either of us. Hahaha!"
"Oho... Well, that's true enough. That's why we inner-court officials exist, is it not? There's hardly any difference between a palace maid and this humble servant."
"Indeed, indeed. No difference at all."
A pang.
Jin Myeong felt a faint sting, then laughed lightly as if in agreement and began, slowly, to unfasten Bang Huiyeon's jacket. The easy smile of a moment before was gone. The hands of a man who had been a virgin for forty-nine years before the regression were exceedingly careful.
A eunuch's first... Wait.
He swallowed, dry-throated, tenser than he had any right to be.
She's not going to suddenly open her eyes, is she?