Those Who Protect, Those Who Seize (3)
In a single instant, the air around them boiled over.
"What did you say?"
The Yongle Emperor's retort sent the wind dying in its tracks. Zhu Gaochi and everyone assembled felt a dizzying lurch and clamped their mouths shut.
A silence descended that could have dried the blood in every vein. Jin Myeong was the one who broke it.
He did not hesitate.
"Your Majesty, the Prince of Han's heir most certainly proposed a wager just now. Did this humble servant mishear?"
"......"
The Yongle Emperor did not answer. He simply stared at Jin Myeong.
Like everyone else present, he found the young eunuch's response so unexpected, so utterly unforeseen, that curiosity overtook anger.
"A wager, as this servant understands it, requires both sides to put up a stake. If this side wins, there must be something gained, or it would hardly be fair, would it? Moreover — this humble servant has staked his neck."
This was a first.
A nineteen-year-old eunuch, standing there with astonishing composure. The kind of bearing the Emperor had only ever seen from his three Grand Councilors of the first rank, from his close confidant the monk Dao Yan, from the eunuch Zheng He — and from his late first wife.
A rebellious minister, or a treacherous one?
Was this mere youthful bravado? Was there some hidden card he was playing? Or was it conviction — pride of some kind? The Emperor was sorting it out.
Among the Six Treacherous Types of minister: the Rebellious — those who plot treason or prove disloyal in all things. The Treacherous — those who traffic in schemes and intrigue.
An upright minister, or a forthright one?
Had Jin Myeong trembled, fidgeted, shown any sign of nerves, the Emperor would have had him beheaded on the spot. But the young eunuch's composure was infuriatingly serene, and his logic was clean, uncluttered.
Among the Six Upright Types: the Upright — those of unbending integrity. The Forthright — those of unyielding character.
"Or is it that this humble servant, being a lowly castrate, is unworthy of the virtue of fairness Your Majesty has proclaimed throughout the realm? If that is so, then what is the point of a wager at all? Strike off this servant's head."
Jin Myeong finished speaking and prostrated himself at the Emperor's feet.
The meaning in those last words was razor-sharp. Wherever Jin Myeong's body touched the ground, the snow melted away.
Silence fell once more.
"Your Majesty! Command that this cunning eunuch's head be struck off! A mere inner attendant is using his three-inch tongue to insult Your Majesty!"
"Your Majesty! This is entirely this son's failing. This son failed to properly discipline an inner attendant of the Eastern Palace. Punish this son! This son will hold him strictly to account."
Prince of Han Zhu Gaoxu and Crown Prince Zhu Gaochi stepped forward in turn.
One called for blood. The other took the blame upon himself. The two brothers, of utterly different temperaments, approached the matter in utterly different ways.
Zhu Zhanji and the rest dared not speak a word — the atmosphere was far too grave. At any moment, red blood might spray across the white snowfield.
Mouths went dry. And then, at last, the silent Emperor opened his.
The fury everyone had expected never came. The reversals kept coming.
"This servant is overwhelmed, Your Majesty."
"I see now why Zheng He took you under his Name. Not bad. You, too, are a subject of Ours. We shall yield a step."
The assembled company started in shock.
The iron-blooded Yongle Emperor, yielding? And not to anyone else — to him? To a mere inner attendant?
This was the kind of incident one might witness once in a lifetime. If you told anyone else this had happened, you'd get a slap for spinning such a preposterous tale and be thrown out on your ear.
"You would have Us yield?"
"This servant would not dare accept such a thing. This humble one merely sought Your Majesty's gracious leave."
"The inner attendant is correct. A wager requires stakes. Heir of the Prince of Han."
The Emperor turned to Zhu Zhanhe, who had been wearing a smug smile and now looked suddenly flustered.
"Yes? Yes, Your Majesty."
"The inner attendant has staked his neck. What will you stake?"
"Yes? Ah... This grandson..."
A short while later.
It is not proper for those who are not archers to chatter on the shooting line. The Yongle Emperor and the rest withdrew to the spectator stands. Zhu Zhanhe and Jin Myeong remained on the line.
"You won't even be able to string the bow. Shall I do it for you?"
Zhu Zhanhe watched Jin Myeong and snorted with contempt.
When a composite bow is not in use, the string is removed to preserve its tension and prevent warping. Stringing it means overcoming the bow's contracted elasticity and forcing it open — a feat that demands tremendous strength. Especially with a Joseon horn bow, whose tension is particularly fierce.
He needs to learn that knowing and doing are two different things. Anyone can talk.
A bow that powerful? A castrate who'd lost his manhood would never be able to string it. A eunuch's strength was barely a notch above an ordinary woman's. He'd surely grunt and strain and fail to string it at all.
"Please do not trouble yourself."
Jin Myeong hooked the string onto one nock of the unstrung composite bow and applied force. Tendons stood out on the back of his hand. Muscle tautened from his arm all the way down his spine.
A deep groan of stressed horn. Then a sharp crack.
The contracted bow sprang open with a flourish, and Jin Myeong immediately hooked the string onto the opposite nock. He finished it as easily as a seasoned archer — as if it were nothing at all.
"Well strung."
Twang. Twang. Jin Myeong drew the strung bow a few times, as if to ask what the fuss was about.
Everyone watching was stunned, but none more so than Zhu Zhanhe.
This bastard! That's no ordinary skill!
His grandfather and father had both loved archery, and he'd handled bows since childhood. He knew better than anyone how remarkable what Jin Myeong had just done truly was. Absolutely, categorically — that was not the technique of someone who'd handled a bow once or twice.
"Hmph. So you're not a complete washout."
"This servant practiced occasionally before entering the palace."
"Occasionally? Now I'm curious about your origins."
"This humble servant is merely the child of a courtesan. A courtesan's child who happened to become a lowly castrate, nothing more. Please shoot first."
"...I'll be generous. You go first."
"As you wish. Then this servant shall begin."
From the stands, Gang Su and Chae Yong exchanged a secret telepathic message.
"Gang Su, let's put our differences aside. Right now, we're of one heart and one mind, yes?"
"Need you even ask? Even if His Majesty himself stepped in, we'd still be cheering for Gonggong. Isn't that so?"
"Damn right. We're eunuchs — one body! Lately I've heard Gonggong has been restoring our people's dignity."
Chae Yong and Gang Su had just watched Jin Myeong refuse to yield even to the Yongle Emperor, and they were in awe. Regardless of age, they acknowledged him as their superior. From the depths of their hearts.
"You mean this? Thanks to Gonggong Zhang, we wretched castrates can walk with our heads held high. Sometimes it brings tears to my eyes. How does someone so young... You just saw it yourself."
"When Gonggong becomes Grand Director of the Directorate of Ceremonial one day — when that day comes — no one will dare look down on our people."
"You hang in there a little longer, Attendant Chae. You've already made his acquaintance. He'll summon you to the Imperial Palace soon enough."
"If that happens, I'll have no more wishes left."
Meanwhile, Jin Myeong picked up three wooden arrows and nocked all three on his fingers. The wooden arrows were crimson-shafted with gold-lacquered willow-leaf heads — red arrows.
But three of them? Not one. Three.
"What are you doing...!"
Zhu Zhanhe asked, baffled — and suddenly Jin Myeong raised the bow and aimed it at the sky far above. Then, with the hand gripping three red arrows, he drew the string with all his strength.
A deep, grinding groan.
The string was drawn to its limit. The composite bow snarled as if to say it was ready.
That was the moment.
A sharp crack. The Yongle Emperor, so startled he crushed the armrest of his chair. Zhu Gaochi and Zhu Gaoxu's eyes flew wide. The three of them — father and sons — nearly leapt to their feet before barely restraining themselves.
Surely not...? Was that...?
The others were no different. The target was right there in front of them. Where on earth was he aiming?
Everyone was questioning Jin Myeong's actions — and in that very instant!
Twang. Twang. Twang.
Jin Myeong opened his closed eyes, and three red arrows left the shooting line. A split second. An instant.
The first arrow soared high into the sky. The second, a little lower. The third, lower still.
A tearing whistle split the freezing midwinter air, and Jin Myeong turned away as if he had no further interest.
Thunk.
The sound of red arrows striking the target echoed. There had been three arrows. The sound of them hitting the target came only once.
Then, regardless of the assembled company's shock, Jin Myeong turned toward the stands and clasped his hands in a respectful salute.
"Your Highness the Imperial Grandson! This humble servant would offer a word. The principle of archery and of martial study is simply this: strike precisely where you aim, with only as much force as is needed. What difference is there between the role of a blade and the role of an arrow?"
A calm voice flowed out and reached the stands. And it continued.
"Nothing in all creation escapes the principle that excess is as bad as deficiency. Is strength any exception? Excessive force will only harm Your Highness's precious body."
"H-hit! S-simultaneous hits!"
From far off, a soldier who'd checked the target cried out in astonishment. Three red arrows, loosed at different times, had struck at precisely the same instant.
"Pray take this to heart."
An extraordinary feat.
Arrows loosed in succession had struck simultaneously — and dead in the center of the target. Everyone had heard it. That single thunk. And it had been not one arrow but three striking home.
The shock was total.
Zhu Zhanhe went to check for himself, as if he couldn't believe it, and came back. The arrows were clustered neatly in the exact center of the target.
"You? You... h-how...?"
The stunned Zhu Zhanhe could barely string his words together. This wasn't a level you reached with a day or two of practice — not even a year or two. This was enough to be called a master archer. A level no one would dare try to imitate.
"All paths lead to the same destination, as they say. The principles of countless martial studies ultimately converge as one, do they not? After shooting a few times, this servant grasped the principle of archery."
Jin Myeong answered with an air of refined composure. Inside, he was delighted. He was savoring every second.
Before the regression, the eunuchs must have gone to pick up tens of thousands of arrows Zhu Zhanji shot, all because of you.
Jin Myeong had been nothing but an idle commoner before entering the palace. When would he have ever handled a bow? This was all skill acquired before the regression.
Whether because of this day's defeat or the New Year's Day loss, from the winter of Yongle's eighteenth year onward, Zhu Zhanji never let a bow out of his hands. What began as eunuchs merely retrieving arrows and taking them for repair eventually progressed to making arrows themselves and repairing bows.
Later on, Zhu Zhanji would stand Wang Zhen and me there and deliver entire lectures on archery.
In other words, the reason Jin Myeong possessed such high-level archery was entirely thanks to Zhu Zhanhe and Zhu Zhanji. Thanks to them, when it came to the bow, Jin Myeong was a master equal to anyone present.
"This servant shall show you one more thing."
Before the shock had even faded, Jin Myeong turned back toward the stands and drew from his robes a bundle of needles, each no longer than a palm. Five-cun needles, with red thread through their heads. Long needles.
"Long needles? Those are sewing needles, aren't they?"
Zhu Zhanhe recognized them and cocked his head. What was he going to demonstrate with needles?
"Indeed. You will know that the martial art of inner attendants is the Sunflower Manual. These are a reconstruction of the needles that Dongfang Guihua, master of the Original Sunflower Manual, was fond of using."
"I've heard that story too. So?"
Their conversation carried clearly all the way to the stands behind them.
"This servant will throw these needles and pin them to the target."
"H-horseshit! I know now that your martial skill is not low. But that claim is truly a joke, is it not?!"
While everyone else was dumbfounded, Zhu Zhanhe exploded. They were far longer and heavier than ordinary needles, but they were still needles. To throw them and hit a target eighty paces away. If this wasn't mockery, what was it?
"His Majesty is present. This servant harbors no such insolent intent, nor the audacity for it."
"If you truly...! Fine! Let's see! If you've spoken in jest, you'd better be prepared to—"
Before Zhu Zhanhe could finish, light flashed in Jin Myeong's pupils. Cyan light in the left. Crimson light in the right.
Zhu Zhanhe flinched and stepped back.
Power stirring in his dantian flooded every meridian in his body. An aura colder than midwinter's cutting wind, hotter than raging flame, shimmered into heat haze.
Jin Myeong was a man who had been granted leave not only to wear a blade in the innermost palace, but to use martial arts as well. There was nothing to hold him back.
"Your Highness the Imperial Grandson, pray do not forget this servant's request. An arrow and a needle are no different, are they? You must never forget this principle."
"......?"
Jin Myeong stood with his back to the target, facing the stands. The Yongle Emperor and the assembled company watched, transfixed by the bizarre spectacle.
Jin Myeong flicked his right hand, imbued with the profound principle of the Bright Sky Hand, and the Dual-Body True Qi coiled like a spring unfurled its wings.
In that instant, Jin Myeong twisted toward the target, and the needles in his hand — ten long needles — vanished without a trace.
Then.
A rapid, piercing whistle — ten notes in a single breath.
A soldier who'd been bored, thinking when's the next shot, can we wrap this up already, cocked his head at the sudden sound.
"What's that noise? Wait—!"
He looked at the target and nearly jumped out of his skin. He was startled — and then a voice came from the shooting line.
"Can you see the needles? They should have red thread on them."
The soldier nearly fainted. He shot those? From the shooting line? Who? How? By what means?
Before he could think, he had to report the result.
"Th-the long needles have s-split the arrows and s-struck in a cr-cross pattern!"
The soldier's voice carried clearly through the dense midwinter air, and everyone on the shooting line heard it distinctly. Then, as everyone struggled to process what the soldier had said — Jin Myeong opened his mouth.
"Your Highness the Heir."
"......?"
Zhu Zhanhe, lost in chaos, couldn't even answer. He had no idea what to say. Jin Myeong, by contrast, was as unhesitating as ever, overflowing with ease.
"Then today's wager has been won by this humble servant, has it not?"
At those words, Zhu Zhanhe squeezed his eyes shut.