The Eastern Depot, the Jinyiwei (4)
The Jinyiwei was in an uproar.
An interrogator who had come and gone on a regular schedule had been caught trying to assassinate a prisoner — and caught by a eunuch who had come to conduct the investigation himself. Worse still, it had happened now, of all times: in the middle of a power struggle with the eunuch brotherhood, at the most sensitive possible moment.
The interrogator had slipped into Gong Jun's cell and made his move before the agreement between Sa Hapji and Jin Myeong had even been relayed to the sentries guarding the prison. Had the man succeeded, Gong Jun and Gu Ryun would have been touring the Yellow Springs by nightfall — and the blame for both prisoners' deaths could have been pinned squarely on Jin Myeong and the Directorate of Ceremonial.
Instead, Jin Myeong had subdued the interrogator and even secured the Cadaveric Paralysis Powder as evidence, leaving Sa Hapji and the Jinyiwei on the back foot. When the report reached him, Sa Hapji's skull throbbed for a moment as if it might split.
"Someone's guts have crawled right out of their belly, it seems. To think they'd dare insult the Jinyiwei of all institutions — and Your Excellency the Commander along with it."
Jin Myeong opened the next round of talks under the pretense of saving Sa Hapji's face. Strictly speaking, it would be less a negotiation than a notification.
"Mm…!"
What, under the circumstances, could Sa Hapji possibly say? He had no argument — and no face left to save in front of a eunuch young enough to be his grandson. An interrogator with authorized access to the Jinyiwei had been caught in the act. The balance of power between them could only tilt toward Jin Myeong.
Whoever that bastard is, he won't die a natural death.
Sa Hapji ground his teeth. And yet the interrogator's attempt had made one thing certain: Gu Ryun and Gong Jun held the key to resolving the entire affair. Clearly. Unmistakably. What had been mere suspicion regarding the two men had now been confirmed beyond doubt, and if one thought it through, the situation was not entirely a disaster. It also meant that both prisoners — and the interrogator — had a backer, and given the circumstances, that backer was almost certainly Huang Yan or some other high-ranking eunuch. Confessions from two of the three would be enough to reverse the tide of the war.
Six hours. Six hours is all it is.
So long as they did not grant Jin Myeong the right to torture or any additional time, the contest with the eunuch brotherhood would end in a Jinyiwei victory.
"The eunuchs of the Directorate of Ceremonial will be arriving shortly. For the remaining six hours, the persons of Gong Jun, Gu Ryun, and the interrogator will be in the Directorate's custody."
Jin Myeong, for his part, could not afford to lose a single one of the three. The man most likely to confess the truth was Gu Ryun — a eunuch whose only possession worth carrying into his coffin was a jar of severed manhood. But Gu Ryun was a eunuch, and any pressure Jin Myeong applied could be construed as special influence, which meant he needed Gong Jun and the interrogator as well.
"Have the sentries withdrawn for a moment, Your Excellency."
To keep any information from reaching the Jinyiwei, the first order of business was peeling the guards away. If Sa Hapji and his men became convinced that Jin Myeong would crack the case within six hours, they would launch obstruction operations immediately.
"Gonggong Jang. Are you saying you doubt this Imperial Guard of mine?"
Sa Hapji's reaction was exactly as Jin Myeong had predicted. Not a hair off. He had eaten twenty-nine years of Eastern Depot rice before the regression and had held the Jinyiwei under his heel. This much was child's play. He might not know the art of war, but in a political fight, a general's thinking never strayed far from the well-worn path. A perfectly ordinary frontal assault.
"Doubt? How could this humble official dare? That's quite uncalled for. I simply mean that, as originally agreed, the Directorate of Ceremonial will have full charge for the remainder of today."
"Hrm."
A scandal had already occurred on Sa Hapji's watch. He had neither the means nor the justification to refuse Jin Myeong's request.
"This is not a matter of distrusting Your Excellency or the Jinyiwei. Who can say what other extraordinary stunt these traitors might pull? Since the Directorate will be handling the remaining six hours anyway, we will take full responsibility. And where there is responsibility, there must of course be corresponding authority."
Jin Myeong, seizing the initiative, was pressing Sa Hapji hard when a sentry arrived.
"Commander. Brush-Holding Grand Eunuch Huang Yan of the Directorate of Ceremonial has arrived."
"Grand Eunuch Huang?"
Huang Yan walked in before Sa Hapji had even given his consent.
"Hol-hol-hol! Your Excellency Sa, have you been well?"
He had reason to. Huang Yan's insides were a knot of raw anxiety. Damn it all — he had given the job two hours ago, and still not a whisper of news.
What the hell are those idiots doing?
There had been no word that Gu Ryun and Gong Jun were dead, and none of the guards he had bought off in the usual way had sent so much as a scrap of information. Huang Yan, a man whose backside had never been known to stay in one place, could not endure the suffocating impatience. He had come in person, risk and all.
"What brings the Grand Eunuch here?"
"What brings me? Your Excellency, my brethren have been making a nuisance of themselves for you. Was Supervisor Jang here as well? And what are you doing in a place like this?"
"Gonggong."
Jin Myeong met Huang Yan's eyes and offered a cupped-hand salute.
Bullshit. What is this, some cheap opera?
Huang Yan was performing as if he had not the faintest idea that Jin Myeong had come as an investigator. Jin Myeong snorted inwardly.
"This humble official was appointed to represent the Directorate of Ceremonial in the investigation of Clerk Gu and Vice Envoy Gong, through today. By order of the Seal-Holding Grand Eunuch."
"Is that so. Attending Yeongan Palace, getting summoned here and there — you are a very busy man. Hol-hol!"
"You flatter me."
"Through today, you said? And how is the investigation coming along?"
Huang Yan's eyes glittered as he asked whether it was going well. Jin Myeong, who had suspected him from the start, did not miss that gleam.
It's you. You, the one who threw the money around. The backer.
That suspicion hardened into certainty the moment Huang Yan showed up at the Jinyiwei in person. A man with something to hide always appeared at the scene. The only questions left were how to prove that Huang Yan was the backer of Gu Ryun and Gong Jun — whether he was connected to Suchengye — and, if he was, how to prove that too. The Suchengye connection could wait. Proving Huang Yan was the two men's backer was only a matter of time.
"It's nearly done, Gonggong. It will be finished shortly."
"…Is that so? And how can you be so sure?"
"Well, this official had only just arrived when an interrogator tried to kill Gong Jun, didn't he?"
"…Good heavens. So that's what happened. And then?"
It did not show on his face, but Huang Yan flinched. He did not need to hear the rest. The interrogator had failed. That much was certain from the tone alone.
That useless bastard! That's what he does with the money I stuffed in his mouth?
Realizing the plan had gone sideways, Huang Yan grew another degree more frantic. The mouths he had to worry about had just gone from two to three.
"This humble official subdued him. That interrogator is going to play a rather large role."
"The interrogator…?"
Huang Yan echoed it with a puzzled look. The interrogator would actually be a help? His mind could not quite make the leap.
"Vice Envoy Gong and Clerk Gu both now know that the interrogator tried to kill them. They'll talk out of sheer spite, if nothing else. From this official's position, it's a stroke of luck."
"…Will it really be that simple? You're not thinking of torturing one of our own, I trust?"
Jin Myeong's reasoning sounded plausible enough that Huang Yan's nerve suddenly failed him, and he immediately laid the groundwork to obstruct the investigation. Then as now, the easiest and fastest ways to extract a confession were torture and threats, with bribery coming in third. Mix the three well and the recipe was perfect. So Huang Yan, like Sa Hapji, meant to block the use of torture.
Torture, however, had already been taken off the table.
"Of course not. Torture is no part of this official's plan. His Excellency Sa is aware of that as well."
Sa Hapji, finding both men's attention on him, nodded in agreement. Jin Myeong continued.
"Vice Envoy Gong will not talk easily — his wife and children are surely being held by the man who put him up to this. But Clerk Gu will speak, if he's handled properly. If he confesses, this official will petition the Seal-Holding Grand Eunuch and His Excellency Sa to have him spared."
"I see."
The situation was not so dire as to be called a cliff's edge. There was still a chance. Gong Jun and the interrogator had been caught with their weaknesses exposed, so they would not talk readily, and Gu Ryun's confession alone would not pose a serious threat. Huang Yan could simply buy off another interrogator — or, this time, go further and buy a Jinyiwei guardsman to finish the job.
Good thing I came. Hol-hol!
Had he not, he would have wasted hours without even knowing the interrogator had been taken. Huang Yan ran through a mental list of additional men to bribe, finished revising his plan, and decided it was time to wrap up one last matter and leave the Jinyiwei.
"I see. I should look in on Gu Ryun for a moment."
"I regret to say that will not be possible, Gonggong. It is the Seal-Holding Grand Eunuch's order, and it is also the agreement with His Excellency Sa. No inner-court official besides myself may see Clerk Gu or Vice Envoy Gong."
"What? You put on that paltry Supervisor's hat and now you—! Hah…! Gu Ryun served under me! I know better than anyone that he is not that kind of boy! I will tell him myself that if he holds out in this prison, the brotherhood will come to save him — and I will give him courage!"
Huang Yan roared, his temper at a full boil, but Jin Myeong's expression remained ice. He did not so much as flinch at the Grand Eunuch's shouting.
"It would have been better if you had stepped forward then the way you are stepping forward now. Back when Gu Ryun — the boy you trained with your own hands — was being dragged away under a false charge."
"What? You dare insult this official—"
Jin Myeong had no interest in hearing the rest, and cut him off.
"If Gonggong meets with Gu Ryun, the position of the Directorate of Ceremonial and of the brotherhood becomes extremely awkward. Wouldn't you agree, Your Excellency Sa?"
"Grand Eunuch. Supervisor Jang is correct. It is absolutely out of the question."
Jin Myeong glanced back, and Sa Hapji backed him. For this one moment, their interests aligned. Sa Hapji had Huang Yan on his own list of suspects. What possible good could come of letting the man see Gu Ryun?
"You— you—!"
With Jin Myeong and Sa Hapji both shaking their heads in unison, Huang Yan had no choice but to withdraw.
Just let me get through this, Jang Jinmyeong. Then we'll see.
The instant he was clear of the Jinyiwei, Huang Yan intended to start spreading money. This time his target was more reliable than any interrogator: the Jinyiwei's own guardsmen.
A short while later, with exactly four hours of Jin Myeong's allotted time remaining, he sat face to face with Gu Ryun in Gu Ryun's cell.
Gong Jun, whom he had seen first, had refused to talk, just as expected. Huang Yan clearly had him by the throat; the man had not opened his mouth at all. That left Gu Ryun and the interrogator. Of the two, Jin Myeong had chosen Gu Ryun, and he had a very clear reason.
"…Which is to say, Clerk Gu, that if it had not been for this official, your entire body would be under a coroner's blade right now, being carved to pieces."
"……"
"This official remembers it clearly. In Fengtian Hall, when the Jinyiwei were dragging you away, you looked at Grand Eunuch Huang. And Grand Eunuch Huang looked away."
For a full hour Jin Myeong laid out, in meticulous detail, how the interrogator had tried to murder Gong Jun, coaxing as he went. The more thoroughly he explained it, the more vividly he brought it to life, the more he could shake Gu Ryun's composure. When they had first sat down, Gu Ryun had still worn the look of a man who believed in Huang Yan without reservation. By the time Jin Myeong finished, that faith had been considerably diluted.
The explanation was over. The choice now belonged to Gu Ryun.
"Gonggong, I say again — this humble one has nothing to—"
Gu Ryun was shaking his head once more when Jin Myeong's temper detonated. The fury was, in part, calculated — anger designed to shake the man in front of him.
The shout Jin Myeong suddenly unleashed shook the entire underground prison. Dust that had settled in layers along the ceiling and walls billowed up in a pale cloud. They would have felt it even above ground.
"You eunuch who barely deserves to be buried with your own manhood. How dare you!"
The more he spoke, the angrier he became; the angrier he became, the angrier he grew. Gu Ryun's continued stonewalling had ignited a genuine rage in him as well.
"Is that what Huang Yan taught you? To use the lives of your brethren as chips on a gambling table?"
"Gonggong! The Grand Eunuch is, strictly speaking, Gonggong's superior—"
"Shut your mouth! You little—! At this very moment the Sweepers of the Directorate of Palace Attendants and the Zhidiangan are breaking their limbs on hard labor."
The eunuchs of the Directorate of Palace Attendants spent their days repairing the roads inside and outside the imperial palace, standing on the great avenues in rain or snow, waiting for members of the imperial family. Waiting without end. Every midwinter, eunuchs from that office turned up in the Eastern Depot in droves. The eunuchs of the Zhidiangan fared no better. They swept and polished the principal halls of the palace from dawn to dusk. A eunuch who entered the Zhidiangan almost invariably saw his back and knees collapse with age, and spent his final years groaning in pain. Of the twenty-four eunuch yamen, the Directorate of Palace Attendants and the Zhidiangan were the hardest-worked and the lowest-ranked. They were the ones at the very bottom of the imperial palace.
"And what is a Sweeper's dream? This seat — the one you and I occupy. The Directorate of Ceremonial."
The eunuchs who spent their entire lives at that labor were called Sweepers, because they were the ones who polished the palace clean.
"You hold the rank of eighth-grade Clerk in the Directorate of Ceremonial, and still it isn't enough for you!"
Enraged, Jin Myeong had drawn the Cheonyang Biyeon.
Yin and yang within the Isin True Qi began to collide. Lightning poured from the blade in snapping, searing bursts.
"In a eunuch's life, where everything has already been taken, the one thing still permitted to him is his brethren! And you would betray the names he carries into his coffin on the day he dies?!"
Sparks of fury dropped from Jin Myeong's eyes as he stared at Gu Ryun. Gu Ryun's pupils trembled like a candle-flame in the wind — and the trembling of those eyes was the trembling of his heart.
A short while later, with only two hours of Jin Myeong's time remaining, Sa Hapji sat with the two Rank-Two Vice Commanders immediately beneath him.
"Commander. Two hours left. The Supervisor has done nothing but shout. He will have nothing to show for it."
One of the Vice Commanders spoke with a meaningful look. Sa Hapji met his eyes and nodded.
"He won't. If he had gotten a confession out of either Gong Jun or the interrogator, he would have made his move already."
"He never even entered the interrogator's cell, they say. And he came out of Gong Jun's cell two hours ago."
"Which means he still has nothing. Good. When the time comes, don't bother assigning a separate interrogator — the two of you will handle it yourselves. I want to be able to go before His Majesty at first light. Understood?"
"Yes, Commander!"
Sa Hapji had stationed the sentries required for security at positions from which Gong Jun's, Gu Ryun's, and the interrogator's cells were visible, even if only from a distance. Through them he had received full reports of whose cell Jin Myeong occupied, how long he stayed, and — if any loud noise was heard — what that noise had been. Combining the reports with the circumstances, it was certain that Jin Myeong had obtained no clear result.
"The Seal-Holding Grand Eunuch's blade does not appear to be particularly sharp. Until now he has simply been lucky."
"Perhaps the Seal-Holding Grand Eunuch's judgment is beginning to cloud as well."
"Youth and inexperience cannot be disguised, can they. A man has to have done this kind of work before."
Believing victory in the power struggle with the Directorate of Ceremonial was within arm's reach, Sa Hapji and his two Vice Commanders wore pleasant smiles.
At that same hour, elsewhere, Jin Myeong met Gongsun Dajing in secret.
"Qianhu. I have a request."
"Speak, Gonggong."
"What this official has learned is…"
Jin Myeong explained to Gongsun Dajing everything he had gotten out of Gu Ryun. Gongsun Dajing was a man who could be trusted — a man who, unlike Jin Myeong himself, would not cling to the selfishness of his own organization.
Gu Ryun, who had spent the entire time tormented by the thought that he had become a traitor to the brotherhood, had finally confessed that Huang Yan had put him up to it. Huang Yan, who had been Gu Ryun's master, had exploited the temperament of a disciple whose loyalty to the imperial house and to his superiors ran deep. He had poured into the young man's ear the claim that Jin Myeong was insulting the imperial house for the sake of his own promotion. Gu Ryun had made his decision on that basis.
This time, he had made the opposite decision. Rather than a hollow loyalty, he would follow a true cause — and stand for the brotherhood and for countless other lives.
Only one task remained for Jin Myeong: putting Huang Yan in a prison cell. For that he needed a confession from Gong Jun or the interrogator, but there was no time. And so Jin Myeong had chosen an extreme method.
"As expected. To make a man confess with nothing but pressure, without any particular torture. That is Gonggong Jang for you. Very well. The man who nearly came to grief is Gonggong, and the man who uncovered all of this is Gonggong. It is only right that Gonggong should be the one to finish it."
Gongsun Dajing listened to the whole account, nodded, and accepted without hesitation. He agreed so readily to a matter of such gravity — one that could see him driven from office if it went wrong — that Jin Myeong was briefly stunned.
"You have my thanks, Qianhu. This official will repay this debt."
"A debt? The debt is mine to repay. Once you leave, you must be back within the hour. The dungeon watch changes in a quarter of an hour. I will see you then."
"I will, Qianhu."
The only way to take Huang Yan within the hour. The favor Jin Myeong had asked of Gongsun Dajing was this: to pull Gu Ryun out of his cell, just for a little while.