The Family She Never Had

Zheng He returned to his seat and leaned back in his chair. All that remained was to send her on her way. There was no cause to linger — and no shortage of other business waiting.

"From now on, you will live only as Yong Hui-yeon, using the Yong of the hibiscus. Do not squander the chance this office and the Jeonbu have gone to such lengths to give you."

"…Thank you, Gonggong."

"The Fang bloodline will remain in your heart. Under His current Majesty's reign it is out of the question — but after that, you may yet hope for a pardon and the restoration of your name."

Yong Hui-yeon was genuinely grateful for the care and the consideration Zheng He and Jin Myeong had shown her. The fury that had filled her face had largely receded. She had not committed the error of wrapping an entire nation in the net of her revenge; she had drawn a clean line between her enemies and everyone else.

"With or without your help, the Great Ming and our people are more than capable of handling a pack of traitors. Whether you aid your former kin or not is your own affair."

Zheng He had already confirmed, through the recent cases of Yi Yugyeong and Nam Woo-jeong, that Sucheon-gye was operating in the shadows. He intended to accelerate the founding of the Eastern Depot.

"Your rank, your name, and your place on the register will be maintained — but we cannot keep you in the palace. Discuss the rest with the Jeonbu."

The register would not hold for long, given Sucheon-gye's capabilities. Even so, a stretch of confusion and disruption was worth the ink.

"Yes, Gonggong!"

"There will be a conferral of honors at noon tomorrow. Know that, and you may go. You have done well."

"Yes! This one takes her leave."

At dusk, Yuwol Pavilion.

Jin Myeong had gone to Crown Princess Zhang, secured leave for the night, and led Yong Hui-yeon out through Xi'an Gate. A wash of yellow sunset lit the two of them as they turned toward Yuwol Pavilion, and Jin Myeong's steps looked lighter than they had in a long time — the walk of a man going home.

People coming and going along the avenue stared. A eunuch and a palace physician walking together was a combination rare enough to turn heads on its own. Jin Myeong, though a eunuch, was striking enough that beautiful was not too strong a word; Yong Hui-yeon carried a clear, aristocratic loveliness that refused to be overlooked. Together they were a sight no one could simply pass by. For a moment the onlookers even forgot he was a eunuch, and thought the two of them looked as though they had stepped out of a painting.

"Stay or leave — that's for you to decide, miss. Just don't go back to Sucheon-gye. If all the effort it took to keep you alive turns into a waste of time, we'll both be tired of it."

"I heard you're nineteen this year, though. I'm twenty-one."

Her heart was not entirely settled, but she had done what could be done and pushed the rest aside, and she looked easier for it. The informal speech came out of her naturally. She had already learned that Jin Myeong was not a man who would take offense at a thing like that.

"…Ahem. And that matters because? Don't you know that in this world, rank is what counts?"

"I was just saying. Where's your house? Is your fa— ah, sorry."

She had been about to ask whether his father was living. Her face colored with embarrassment as she let the words die. A great many of the eunuchs castrated in childhood were orphans abandoned by their parents, or boys sold or shoved into the palace for money. Those men, without exception, hated the fathers who had consigned them to that wretched fate. To ask a eunuch about his parents was a breach of courtesy.

Yong Hui-yeon glanced at him, gauging the damage. Jin Myeong did not appear to mind in the slightest. She decided he was, for a eunuch, an unusually generous soul.

"At home there's Grandmother, Mother. Eleven aunts. Sisters — including the very little ones — about fifty."

"What? Fifty? Sisters?"

Surprise was only half of it. She could not make the numbers fit. Eleven aunts and fifty sisters — even granting a sprawling clan, fifty was… and even if one counted cousins, no son of a house that large would ever have been made a eunuch. Add to that the fact that the entire household was women, and that those women had made a eunuch of the only man in the family. What on earth was this?

Why would the women castrate their only eldest son…?

Unpredictable conduct she could chalk up to his being a eunuch. But his background, now that she was hearing it, was no ordinary thing either. The whole of him was a catalog of impossibilities.

"Where is the house, then? Some great manor, I take it?"

"Manor? Hardly. Ever heard of Yuwol Pavilion?"

Jin Myeong, a step ahead of her, stopped in front of the great gate. Beyond it the place was already loud with guests who had come early for the evening, and through the press of voices the sound of several instruments came small but clear.

"Yuwol Pavilion? That's — this is it. This is a famous brothel."

She had walked into his shoulder when he stopped so suddenly, and her eyes went wide.

Surely not…? That's why the whole family is women…!

He had named Yuwol Pavilion in the middle of talking about his home, and now he had stopped in front of it. Which meant—

"If you live in Yingtianfu and don't know our house, you're a spy. And while you're at it, call it a wine house, not a brothel. We'd rather not be lumped in with those."

"This is really your home?"

Jin Myeong gave a dry little laugh, as if he had been waiting for exactly that reaction. It was no exaggeration to say that among eunuchs, his background was the strangest of all. People making the same face every time was only to be expected.

"That's what I said. Nurse! Aunts! Sisters!"

He smiled at her, then shoved the gate open and strode in. Every gaze on the first floor — guests and the women of Yuwol Pavilion alike — gathered on him at once.

The lovely mouths of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the most renowned beauties in Yingtianfu curved, soft and bright. The son of the Holy Mother Palace had come home.

A short while later, in Grand Matriarch Yeongyeon's chambers.

The evening's business had already begun, so the room held only four people: Yeongyeon, Civil Chancellor Zheng Hui, Jin Myeong, and Yong Hui-yeon.

Yeongyeon and Zheng Hui, who a moment before had been nothing but glad of Jin Myeong's return, started when they saw the young woman coming in behind him. Even though Yuwol Pavilion was a wine house where performing artists lived, the place was still understood as one where courtesans sold laughter and accomplishment — and a young woman of marriageable age almost never arrived alone.

They looked her over. The dress was typical of a palace physician: plain, expensive in its way, and not in the least suited to a high-class wine house. And yet her beauty lost nothing beside Yeong Hwa or Shanghua, who were of an age with her. Men's heads had turned as she passed. That such a woman and Jin Myeong should walk in talking like people who had known each other a long time was, in its way, a shock. Their grandson — their son — whom they had believed knew no women but his own family, had brought one home. And not just any woman. A peerless beauty who could stand among his sisters without shame.

"Make your greetings, miss. My grandmother. My mother."

Jin Myeong indicated Yeongyeon and Zheng Hui, who still looked thoroughly dazed.

"Hui-yeon of the Yong family of Ninghai County, Zhejiang, pays her respects to Honored Grandmother and Honored Mother."

Yong Hui-yeon offered the great salute with a bearing that belonged to a great house. Grace lived in the movement; beauty seemed to fall from her face.

"This old woman is Yeongyeon of Yuwol Pavilion, Miss Yong."

"I'm Zheng Hui. A pleasure, Miss Yong."

Yeongyeon and Zheng Hui bowed in return — and, in the same breath, traded a look.

Honored Grandmother. Honored Mother. The refined speech was one thing; the great salute itself had been utterly natural, as if they were watching the daughter of a great house.

Why are they looking at me like that…?

Yong Hui-yeon, for her part, felt as though Yeongyeon's and Zheng Hui's eyes were taking her apart. She had never lived it, but if she had to find a comparison from imagination alone — it was the look of future mothers-in-law examining a prospective daughter-in-law. Not open hostility. Something adjacent to it.

"Myeong-ah?"

Zheng Hui turned to Jin Myeong and flicked her eyes at him. Explain. From the beginning.

"Miss Yong is the descendant of a ruined house, and as for how that came to be…"

Jin Myeong laid out the story he had prepared, piece by careful piece. Family or not, he could not simply expose the painful secret of her life. It was no ordinary secret — it was the massacre of Fang Xiaoru and ten degrees of his kinship. And she had not yet decided whether she would stay. All the more reason not to speak for her. If the truth was to come out, it ought to come from her own mouth.

He had been explaining for some time when she spoke.

"I am the granddaughter of Grand Academician Fang Xiaoru."

Yong Hui-yeon had been watching the other three with a look that gave nothing away. The moment the words left her, an untimely silence filled the room.

Yeongyeon and Zheng Hui froze exactly as they were, struck speechless, their pupils trembling with the shock of it. Jin Myeong, who had flinched for only a heartbeat, let a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠quiet smile spread across his face.

Whether it was impulse or feeling running away with her, I couldn't say — but she decides quickly.

That she had offered her true self — what else could that mean?

Good.

Not a severing from the past, but an attempt at reconciliation. The will to go forward. He liked that. As much as he liked her beautiful face.

"Hah…?"

"Ah…?"

While Yeongyeon and Zheng Hui, confronted with a name they had never expected, struggled to find anything to say, Yong Hui-yeon went on.

"I entered the palace to settle a blood debt. The affair went awry, and I was saved by ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Jeonbu here and the Grand Director."

She did not understand herself. Why, all of a sudden, she had wanted to speak her grandfather's name. Why she had wanted to lay everything out. She could not make sense of it even as she spoke. She had not been hoping for pity. She had simply liked what she saw, and envied it. He was a eunuch who was not eunuch-like at all — too bright for it — and the women he called grandmother and mother were the same. The pavilion's only man, and the women who had accepted that their only man had chosen a eunuch's life. She did not know what story bound them together, but she thought they were remarkable people.

And when had he even thought all of that story up? Jin Myeong explained without a hitch, hands and all, and Yeongyeon and Zheng Hui listened with their eyes on him — rims going red at one passage, a small smile at another. It was only a constructed tale, and they were living inside it. In a word, they were a family. Family. She was looking at a fence she had never once stood inside.

Perhaps, in that sight, she had glimpsed a version of herself that had stepped out of the old nightmare.

"The Jeonbu said it that way out of consideration for me, but the truth is…"

She found her courage. Being taken in by Song Jeon, who had been a later scholar of Fang Xiaoru's school, and raised in Sucheon-gye's hands. The plans she had carried in with her when she infiltrated as a palace physician, and everything that had happened today — she laid it all out, piece by piece. The more she spoke, the stronger the relief became. Twenty-one years of life, and the tangle that had sat knotted in a corner of her chest began to come loose, thread by thread. As the time passed her face was smiling and weeping at once, and it was hard to watch.

"And so I, at that time—! Ah…?"

Yeongyeon, who had been thinking exactly that, came forward and drew her in — gently, like someone who was sad and glad in the same breath — and held the girl who had been talking and talking.

"How you must have suffered…"

"Ah…?"

Until then Yong Hui-yeon's eyes had reddened without ever spilling. Now the tears stood in them at once. A small crack in a dike, and then the dike was gone, and everything that had been pooled behind it came over the top.

Zheng Hui and Jin Myeong stroked her shoulder and her hair. Zheng Hui's hand on her shoulder was the most natural thing in the world. Jin Myeong, two years her junior, earnestly stroking the crying sister's head, looked a little absurd.

That same night, at Yuntianyuan in Hefei.

Grand Preceptor Song Jeon, Yi Yugyeong, and Nam Woo-jeong sat facing one another after the evening meal.

"Have all the pigeons come in?"

"They have, Grand Preceptor."

Movements of the imperial house and of Yingtianfu, intelligence of every kind, the results of orders issued by the Covenant — reports were coming in from the agents planted in the capital and the palace. Fang Hui-yeon's — that is, Yong Hui-yeon's — report had arrived a little later than usual, but Yi Yugyeong judged it unimportant and left it out.

"Begin with the matter of Noble Consort Wang."

"She collapsed, and was revived at once. A eunuch found her and held her life in his hands until the Imperial Physician arrived to treat her."

"A eunuch recognized the Heart-Penetrating Incense Poison?"

A gleam went through Song Jeon's eyes as he lifted his teacup. This was not a thing to pass over. To identify that poison meant a mastery of toxins well beyond the ordinary. That such a person existed among the eunuchs was information of the first importance for gauging their capabilities and the currents inside their ranks.

"Yes. The eunuch who held the Consort's life in his hands demanded Thousand-Year Jade Clarity on the spot."

"Heh heh! Taken another hit, have we. That eunuch really is a remarkably gifted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠eunuch. Which of the Grand Directors was it? I did not know there was a master of poison among the old ones."

"It was him, Grand Preceptor. The one who defeated Cheongjin."

"What? That boy? Not an old eunuch?"

"Yes, Grand Preceptor."

Yi Yugyeong's teeth came together. At the memory of Jin Myeong's face a tendon stood out along her snow-white cheek. Nam Woo-jeong, who had lost an arm along with his men, was no different; the fist he had closed shook.

"Heh heh…! Now this — is this a story that makes any sense? Every time, it is that one. That one's name was…?"

"Jang Jinmyeong."

"Jang… Jinmyeong. Jang Jinmyeong. What a monstrous fellow. I begin to suspect there is a hidden school training eunuchs in secret that this Covenant knows nothing of. Tch."

Song Jeon clicked his tongue, displeased to learn that the plan had gone sideways because of Jin Myeong yet again. He had not expected to find himself asking a second time for the name of a eunuch who was only nineteen. Song Jeon was a man who held eunuchs lower than insects.

"Yes, Grand Preceptor. For that age, the ability is far too exceptional."

"Martial arts enough to break Wudang's Seven Small Swords, and the mind and the learning to match. Without an education and a fortune in spirit medicines poured into him, it is simply—! Have you looked into his origins?"

"Yuwol Pavilion. The reports say it is an open fact."

"Yuwol Pavilion? Yuwol Pavilion is a place this Covenant already suspects. And beyond that — a eunuch out of a wine house of nothing but women? What is that supposed to mean? Heh heh… I do not understand it. I do not understand it at all. Have there been so many things of late that I do not understand?"

Sucheon-gye had not yet grasped that Yuwol Pavilion's true nature was the incarnation of the Holy Mother Palace of Mount Snow. Holy Mother Yeongyeon and everyone beneath the Thirteen Flowers, down to the training disciples, had hidden their true energy with absolute care — prepared, if it came to it, to die rather than be found out. For now the Covenant only suspected that Yuwol Pavilion might be a jianghu faction in the intelligence trade, something in the line of the Hao Clan. They had fixed their eyes so hard on the palace that they had not noticed the Holy Mother Palace was approaching the hour of its waking.

"One of Yuwol Pavilion's courtesans is said to have borne Jang Jinmyeong and died."

"And they made a eunuch of a child like that? A bizarre creature, and bizarre women. The world has gone mad. Then again, when a false Son of Heaven has gone mad, how can the realm do otherwise?"

"I will dig further into Yuwol Pavilion."

"Approach with care. There will be working hands there — plant both workers and guests. They must be very practiced people."

"I will select first-rate agents. Women on the workers' side, men among the guests."

If the place was an intelligence faction, the spies would have to be seasoned. Yi Yugyeong, sharp as she was, kept pace without being told.

"And the mood in the palace?"

Having settled the measures regarding Yuwol Pavilion, Song Jeon turned the subject.

"Quiet, Grand Preceptor. The Imperial Physician diagnosed Noble Consort Wang's symptoms as a temporary paralysis of the heart."

"Nonsense! Thousand-Year Jade Clarity for a paralysis of the heart? That will not hold. There was certainly some understanding between that young eunuch and them. Which means the Directorate of Ceremonial is involved."

"This girl's thoughts are the same. I intend to make use of that understanding."

Song Jeon and Yi Yugyeong had fitted the inner workings of the affair together correctly. Of course, both of them were still in the dark about Yong Hui-yeon's change of heart, and about the genuine rapport that existed between Noble Consort Wang and Jin Myeong.

"Good. Leak the information."

"It will be done."

"Once it reaches the sovereign's ear, that short-tempered bastard will go straight to Noble Consort Wang. If she so much as says she suffered the symptoms of the Heart-Penetrating Incense Poison, then even if Zheng He himself steps in, the eunuchs' line will be wiped out."

"And we deal with Jang Jinmyeong as well."

"Just so. This is a chance to break the Directorate of Ceremonial. The founding of the Eastern Depot will falter with it."