Palace Maidens, Destinies Bound to the Imperial Palace (5)
Thuck.
Jo Sik began setting needles into Fang Huiyan's upper body, which Jin Myeong was holding upright. Golden long-needles sank into flesh as white as snow.
"There… if we do it like this… the thing won't be able to run."
It was a treatment to seal certain points along the Conception and Governing Vessels, meant to keep the Burst Gu from traveling the blood channels down past the neck. The needles piercing the meridians would bar its path.
"Next, moxibustion. Hold this under the girl's nose, and… the thing will come out soon enough."
Jo Sik pinched off a scrap of Thousand-Year Jade Nectar no larger than half a finger-joint and set it on a small moxa burner. Heat rose; the nectar melted, and a thick, cloyingly sweet fragrance bloomed through the air.
"The Burst Gu comes out when it smells Thousand-Year Jade Nectar?"
"Of course. The Tianshan Great Bee that makes Thousand-Year Jade Nectar preys on the Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm — and once that silkworm matures into a Golden Thread Luminous Moth, it turns around and preys on the bee. The Jade Nectar is a delicacy both the silkworm and the moth crave."
The Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm, the representative of Burst Gu, and the Tianshan Great Bee that produced Thousand-Year Jade Nectar were, in other words, natural enemies locked in a cycle of eating and being eaten.
"Like chickens and centipedes."
"Exactly. A living chicken eats centipedes, and centipedes feed on a dead chicken's carcass. A peculiar little arrangement of mutual predation."
The venom of the Tianshan Great Bee contained in the Thousand-Year Jade Nectar neutralized on contact with the Composite Fragrance Poison, while the honey that gave it its sweetness became a favorite treat of its natural enemy. The principles of the great natural world were, as ever, profound.
Jo Sik held the burner. Jin Myeong supported Fang Huiyan from behind, bracing her waist and her head, and the conversation rolled on.
"Still, looking at her like this, she's no ordinary beauty. Is that why you want to save her? Has she caught your eye?"
"Hardly. This humble one regards women as stones."
"Are you certain…?"
Jo Sik craned his neck sideways and stared, eyes narrowed to slits. Then he chuckled, soft and dry.
"Puh-huh-huh! I'm teasing you. Eunuchs have always had an extraordinary fondness for women and children. It's a peculiar psychology, when you think about it. This world runs on the law of the jungle, yet eunuchs dote on the weak. Different parents, different stories, different upbringings — the moment they become eunuchs, they invariably cherish children and women."
"Our creed is to play weak before the strong, and to be truly weak before the weak. So long as no one insults the defects of our kind."
"Aigoo, who would dare? Ten thousand eunuchs would hunt you into the next life. There's even a saying that the reason the Demonic Cult hasn't fallen yet is because they never insulted eunuchs. Puh-huh-huh!"
A striking beauty had her upper body laid bare in a display that would have made most men dizzy, yet the two of them carried on without the slightest concern. Had Jin Myeong and Jo Sik switched places it might have been a different matter — but as it was, Jin Myeong was looking at Fang Huiyan's back, and his expression remained relatively composed.
Look closely and you would see that he was supporting her shoulder and her neck with only two fingers of each hand raised. Scrupulously well-mannered fingers, one might call them. At any rate, the sight was rather poignant.
"In any case, this girl is lucky. The Burst Gu erupted in the presence of the great Jeonbu Jang himself. Then again, how many people had a stroke of extraordinary fortune in that situation just now?"
Jin Myeong nodded instead of answering.
If Fang Huiyan had detonated as planned — if the Yongle Emperor had gone down with her — that would, in its way, have been the better outcome. Crown Prince Zhu Gaochi, who would have succeeded him, was a man of benevolent character. Conversely, if the Yongle Emperor had survived, his enraged iron fist would have wiped the imperial palace's women from the earth. Paradoxical, but that was the realistic assumption.
"What do you intend to do now?"
"I plan to take her out of here."
"Where to? Ah — to your residence?"
Jin Myeong nodded once more. He meant to take Fang Huiyan to Yuwol Pavilion. Of course, if she proved to be a member of Suchengye, he would decide based on how she answered. He could not bring a Suchengye informant into his home — and if vengeance had soaked into her marrow past any hope of recovery, still less so. For now, the only certainty was that she would be put out of the palace.
"Well, they're all women there. They'll know how to take in a girl with a story. I'll handle the Imperial Academy of Medicine."
"It's not decided yet. I'll hear her story first. If I do decide to take her out, I'll ask for your help then, Imperial Physician."
"To have a Burst Gu put in her at such a flower-like age — it won't be an ordinary story. Whether she knew and did it, or was subjected to it without knowing."
"We'll find out when she wakes."
The two of them fell into thought, their gazes resting on Fang Huiyan's pale, slender neck. At a glance, their pupils seemed to be working rather hard not to sink any lower.
Then—
"That's it! Here it comes. Got you, you little thing."
"It's out?"
At the news that the Burst Gu had emerged, Jin Myeong craned his neck to the side. On the moxa burner in Jo Sik's hand, a golden silkworm the size of half a pinky joint was writhing. To think a creature of that size had been hiding inside a person's skull. It was astonishing Fang Huiyan had even been alive.
"I should take a good look. You called it a Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm earlier?"
"That's right. This is the Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm. See how the whole body is gold? Even as an adult it keeps distinct golden stripes across its belly. At any rate, this old man has struck it rich. It's been a long time since I laid hands on such a precious ingredient."
Pop.
Jo Sik opened the lid of his medicine bottle and dropped the Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm inside.
"Now, I need to pull the needles, so start with the back. Come over here and hold her."
"Very well. Hah…"
Having handed over the shoulder and neck he had been supporting, Jin Myeong drew a breath so small it was barely there.
Hold on. You can do this.
Steeling a heart that wavered like a candle in the wind, he spread two fingers of each hand once more and braced her beneath those ripe peach-colored lips and at one shoulder.
Does she have to be this pretty for no damn reason. If she stood next to Sister Yeong Hwa, the two of them side by side would be enough to kill a man.
A rounded forehead. Brows that arched, clear and soft. Long eyelashes. The high-bridged nose beneath them and those modest peach-blossom lips left no word but beauty. Then his gaze, having descended as far as her mouth, began to travel further down…
"At any rate, it looks like I'll have to start addressing you with more respect soon."
"Pardon?"
Jo Sik's voice yanked Jin Myeong's mind back just as it was being drawn, as if bewitched, further downward.
"Don't 'pardon' me. The palace is about to be in an uproar, isn't it? You saved Her Highness the Noble Consort, of all people… I don't know for certain, but at minimum a Supervisor's cap? You might even wear a Junior Supervisor's hat."
The Vice Director of the Imperial Academy of Medicine was Rank 5b. A Supervisor was Rank 5a; a Junior Supervisor, Rank 4b. In other words, if Jin Myeong merely donned a Supervisor's cap, he would outrank Jo Sik.
"How could this humble one receive formal address from the benefactor who healed my younger brother's dantian? In private, please treat me as you do now."
"Hahaha! Is that all right? This old man will soon have a Gonggong of illustrious reputation as a personal acquaintance!"
Along with Hyundo, Jo Sik was someone Jin Myeong regarded as a benefactor. The debts of gratitude and grievance of a castrated man were, by nature, things that traveled with him his entire life.
"If you ever have a difficult matter, please tell this humble one. I'll take care of everyth—!"
At that very moment, the eyes of the face Jin Myeong had been inwardly admiring fluttered open, and a pair of dark pupils locked onto his own.
"Hm? What's the matter? Ah — oh dear! Look at this old man's wits. I should have pulled the front needles first. Young lady, are you with us?"
Fang Huiyan, having opened her eyes, was bewildered for a heartbeat. The handsome eunuch in front of her seemed to be the man whose gaze she had met only a short while ago… but she had no memory of anything after that, as if time itself had skipped.
That bastard I was going to tear apart — where is he?
It had been his turn to come in, the one she was about to rip apart. The moment to complete her vengeance had finally arrived.
The Imperial Academy of Medicine?
She could not understand why she was in the Imperial Academy of Medicine, thick with the smell of medicinal herbs. Her mind a complete scatter, Fang Huiyan suddenly felt cold and unthinkingly lowered her head.
In that instant, thought stopped.
What did I just see…?
Never mind that flesh she had not once carelessly exposed in twenty-one years was laid out in plain view. Right in front of her, that eunuch was wearing an awkward smile. What was that embarrassed, uncomfortable expression supposed to mean? Moreover, just a moment ago, the eunuch's gaze had been directed downward…!
Then—
"O-oh my…! This official is a eunuch, so I wouldn't really know, but it is a rarely beautiful—"
The instant the mortified Jin Myeong opened his mouth intending to say anything at all, focus snapped back into Fang Huiyan's eyes, and her flustered heart transformed at once into rage.
"You filthy—! Mmph!"
The two of them moved at the same time. Fang Huiyan screamed on reflex, and Jin Myeong's palm clapped over that scream.
"Now, now! This official is a eunuch, I tell you!"
A short while later, having had no choice but to seal Fang Huiyan's mute point, Jin Myeong and Jo Sik explained the situation. Shame and fury filled her eyes — but the fury, at least, was soon put to rest.
"…And that is how it happened."
The first reason was that she had inherited a brilliant mind worthy of Fang Xiaoru's blood. The second was that she knew perfectly well what kind of man Jo Sik was — that he was not a man who would lie to a patient.
There was, however, exactly one thing she could not believe.
A Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm? A Burst Gu?
That was the existence of the Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm itself. According to Jo Sik's explanation it was a Soul-Seizing Gu as well as a Burst Gu — and she could not accept that such a hideous, crawling thing had been inside her own head.
"Jeonbu Jang, it rather looks as if she had no idea."
"It seems that way for now, but it could be an act. For assassins, acting is a requirement."
Watching Fang Huiyan's face, Jo Sik and Jin Myeong exchanged a look. To judge by her reaction, she seemed like someone who had not known in the slightest that a Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm had been in her skull.
"Listen. This official might lie — but this gentleman here will not. You were at the Imperial Academy of Medicine, so you should know that well enough. Do you think the Imperial Physician and this official have so little to do that we'd sit around fabricating stories? Try screaming like an idiot again the way you did a moment ago."
Tap. Tap.
Jin Myeong unsealed Fang Huiyan's mute point. Having roughly grasped how the situation stood, she did not scream again.
"Hah…!"
Fang Huiyan let out the breath that had been crushed in her chest. Jin Myeong gave her a moment to find her air, then opened the conversation.
"Not a complete fool, then. Shall we have a little talk? You're the one who brought agarwood into Jangan Palace, aren't you? Whether you were the one who gave Lady Yeo and Lady Eo the fragrance pouches and scented charms, or someone else was — there's a connection. Am I wrong?"
"……"
Fang Huiyan had recovered a calm complexion. She merely watched him, and did not answer. Outwardly, there was not a ripple of agitation.
"I'm getting an uncooperative feeling. I'd like you to understand that considering what you tried to do at Jangan Palace, even taking your head right now wouldn't be enough."
"Ahem. This old man will take his leave. What use is a withered physician's ears from here on?"
Jo Sik rose with a bitter look. From this point forward, the ground belonged to the Great Ming's Directorate of Ceremonial. Even a Rank 5b Vice Director of the Imperial Academy of Medicine had no business interfering. He had watched for a long time how terrifying the temper of eunuchs who had cultivated the Sunflower Manual became when they set to work, and he knew it better than anyone.
"Young lady — the inner attendant in front of you may be young, but he is no ordinary man. I would ask that you not let an old man's labor and precious medicines go to waste. Conduct yourself well, and take care with your recovery."
Jo Sik left her that word of caution, just in case, then turned with a faint hesitation in his step.
"I'll have you over to my home soon, Imperial Physician."
"Why wouldn't I come? I'll pay my respects to the Grand Madam and get a meal out of it besides. Now then — what shall I do with this little thing."
And with that, Jo Sik vanished, medicine bottle and Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm in hand.
"Whether you live or die depends on you, not on this official. To the point. You…"
Jin Myeong, who had been watching Jo Sik's receding back, suddenly pushed his face in until it was a breath from Fang Huiyan's. Close enough that each could feel the other's breathing. Close enough that a breath sounded like thunder. And the face he wore was the face one turns on an enemy — a mouth that smiled, and eyes that did not.
"!!!!!!"
As if it were not already enough that he seemed to know the Composite Fragrance Poison down to its bones and was asking from that knowledge — now this Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm she had never heard of, never seen, had been piled on top of it. And then Fang Huiyan heard Jin Myeong's sound transmission, and felt her heart try to leap out of her throat.
What is this man…? How much does the Directorate of Ceremonial know?
In that moment her pupils shook like grass in a hard wind, and she could not stop them. He had not guessed at the Covenant's name. He had spoken it exactly — a name the overwhelming majority of its own members did not even know. This was an enormous problem. The Covenant had to be told at once.
Fang Huiyan decided, for now, to play ignorant.
"…I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I really don't know what you mean. And even if I did — would an assassin reveal her backers?"
In the present realm, the forces hostile to the Ming and to the Yongle Emperor numbered, broadly, three. The first was the Mongols of the Northern Yuan. The second was the Sacred Cult, the White Lotus that had changed its name after being abandoned by Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang. The last was Suchengye — the faction that followed the vanished Jianwen Emperor, Zhu Yunwen, from the Jingnan Campaign. Su, to follow; cheon, Heaven. Suchengye: those who follow the true Heaven.
Before Jin Myeong's return, that identity had come to light far later. He knew Suchengye through forty-nine years of a previous life, and recently he had seen Yi Yugyeong and Nam Woo-jeong with his own eyes. His suspicion that Fang Huiyan was one of theirs was not, therefore, a thing pulled from the air.
Jin Myeong let a thin sneer sit on his mouth at point-blank range, then drew back and drew inner energy to trim his nails. Scritch, scritch. A habit picked up interrogating criminals in the life before this one.
"…Would you stop talking nonsense? Just kill me."
"You don't know the first thing about interrogation. The Directorate of Ceremonial has gone to the dogs — handing a Jeonbu post to a greenhorn like this."
Fang Huiyan had judged that the very fact he had removed the Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm and was attempting this conversation proved her usefulness. In other words, he would not kill her easily — and could not kill her as he pleased. Or so she was certain.
And yet.
"Is that so?"
"……?"
Fang Huiyan, who had just snorted down her nose, felt something ominous in the smile slowly spreading across Jin Myeong's face. He dropped the sound transmission and came over to his natural voice.
"From the looks of it, you didn't even know the Burst Gu had been put in you. Betrayed — and pathetic on top of it. At any rate, you entered the imperial palace, so you must have had a guarantor."
Fang Huiyan's complexion darkened, visibly, at that. She had been shoving it to one side with all her strength, but it was a truth she could not deny. A Burst Gu, planted in her skull without her knowledge.
Song Jeon… Yi Yugyeong…!
The only people who could have put it there were the Grand Preceptor, Song Jeon, or Yi Yugyeong. Someone she had met in the course of infiltrating the palace? That was an inference with neither logic nor ground under it. However she tried to refuse it, she could not scrape the thought of betrayal out of her mind. The Golden Thread Luminous Silkworm Jo Sik had shown her moments ago was evidence far too clear.
"From this moment, this official intends to find your guarantor and work my way up. I'll drag them in one after another."
Jin Myeong's words kept coming.
"You'll die for the people who betrayed you, and countless others will die with you. Among them, many innocents."
He was certain, from the reaction Fang Huiyan had just given him.
"Someone who took that sort of thing lightly wouldn't have come in as a medical maid under the pretense of saving people, I wouldn't think."
Twenty-nine years of handling criminals told him, with perfect clarity, that the psychological wall she had thrown up had come down.
"Well? Is this official wrong?"
With the question, Jin Myeong's smiling face appeared once more before Fang Huiyan's eyes.