How Does Brother Namgung Know About Femboy Pregnancy…?
"So then, Hero Namgung… has your search for a method by which a man might become pregnant borne any fruit?"
A way for a man to get pregnant…? Is Lord Baek joking with Brother Namgung right now?
It was the sort of absurd remark that would have sent tea spraying from my mouth if I'd been drinking any.
"………."
Fortunately I wasn't, so nothing came out—but the look of pure bafflement on my face made me duck my head a little, terrified the attention might swing my way.
"Haha… my lord. This humble one is also striving with all his might to find such a method, yet…"
Right beside me, Brother Namgung's calm voice answered Lord Baek Sojin's question. To anyone else it might have sounded perfectly composed, but having traveled with him so long I could just barely catch the thread of bewilderment woven through it.
"………Is that so."
At Brother Namgung's reply, a deep note of disappointment colored Lord Baek Sojin's elegant, almost aristocratic tone.
"I am well aware I have set you an exceedingly difficult task. Still… I trust that Hero Namgung, who taught me the Femboy Divine Art, understands the desperate longing we feel to bear fruit with the son we love. Even the slightest clue will do—please, keep searching."
Son……?! A eunuch has a son?
While I was still turning Lord Baek Sojin's words over in my head, Brother Namgung—who had clearly been reluctant—finally steeled himself and spoke with difficulty.
"……I too have been gathering information at every opportunity. Yet every scrap of evidence I have managed to collect concerns only ghosts, legends, or supernatural phenomena…"
"What sort of legends?"
"…For example, there is a small island said to lie roughly ten thousand li east across the sea. On that island, a male god in the form of a woman is said to pair the most beautiful and the most robust of the male tribesmen, so that they may bear children."
Even to me, listening from the side, it sounded like nothing more than one of those ridiculous folk tales. Lord Baek Sojin would hardly feel otherwise.
"…There is a saying, is there not—that a gentleman does not speak of prodigies, feats of strength, disorder, or spirits. I could not bring myself to report such baseless rumors to Your Lordship."
Lord Baek Sojin listened, took a sip of tea, and set the cup down with a soft clink.
"I… we… will use any means whatsoever to truly bear fruit with His Majesty the Emperor. Whether it be prodigies and spirits or mere folk belief, it matters not. From now on, please bring me even the smallest clue."
The earnest plea in Lord Baek Sojin's voice carried an unmistakable heat.
Hmm……… His Majesty… fruit… pregnancy……?
"Yes, my lord."
As the two of them resumed their quiet conversation, I sat turning the words that had left Lord Baek Sojin's mouth over and over until a certain hypothesis took shape in my mind.
……Surely not……?
"Hero Namgung. This has been a truly delightful and meaningful time. We still have much time ahead of us; should you have occasion to visit Cheonju again, let us meet once more."
"Yes, my lord."
The moment the conversation ended and we stepped out of Lord Baek Sojin's residence, I put the conclusion I had wrung from my brain to Brother Namgung.
"Brother Namgung… surely the eunuchs and His Majesty the Emperor…"
"Quiet…! We'll talk once we're back at the inn."
I had kept my voice as low as I possibly could, yet Brother Namgung cut me off as cleanly as a blade.
"………."
Click, click—
We walked in complete silence for a full half-shichen before finally reaching the inn and entering Brother Namgung's room.
"Hoooooo—"
The instant we were inside, Brother Namgung dropped heavily onto the edge of the bed and let out a sigh so deep it seemed ready to sink into the earth. It was the first time I had ever seen him like this, and it felt thoroughly strange.
"Brother Namgung. Why do you look so worn out? She was a truly beautiful noble lady… wasn't she?"
At my question he shot me a sidelong glare. Irritation he made no effort to hide leaked from his eyes and the crease between his brows.
"Tsk. You were just as startled by that one's words. Ducking your head to hide your expression doesn't fool me."
"………."
When I fell silent, Brother Namgung sighed again, this time staring at the ceiling.
"Huuu— I quit smoking years ago, yet today of all days I miss that marble pipe I smashed the day I decided to quit."
He went on sighing—hoooo, haaaa—for nearly a full gak before he seemed to collect himself enough to look straight at me and begin.
"…As you already guessed, the hundreds of eunuchs headed by the Chief Eunuch are… not normal. The feelings they hold for His Majesty the Emperor go far beyond mere reverence and affection."
Brother Namgung lightly parted his index and middle fingers and pressed them to his lips—exactly as if he were holding a pipe.
"…So their loyalty has reached the extreme, then…?"
He shook his head at my perfectly ordinary question.
"If only it were that simple. …The first time I taught the Chief Eunuch the Femboy Divine Art, within three months he had already taken on a form much like the one you saw today."
He drew in a long breath as though actually smoking, then looked down at his own hand, flinched, and lowered it.
"Even if the scrotum is left intact, it no longer functions and secretes no yang energy at all, so in the end one ends up with a body like the Chief Eunuch's you just saw. He claims that for years now they have deliberately left the testicles functional so they can match the Emperor's 'omnivorous' tastes… but anyway. Do you know what he said to me once he looked like that? 'I have received the Emperor's grace as a son.'"
"Grace as a son…? I heard the same thing at Lord Baek's villa earlier, but I still don't understand…"
"…You know that the current Emperor's birth mother, a consort, died the moment he was born. …You don't? Well. In any case, because of that birth he was hated and neglected by the previous emperor. The one who raised him from infancy and played the role of wet nurse was none other than the present Chief Eunuch, Baek Sojin. There have long been palace rumors that 'His Majesty regards the Chief Eunuch as a father'… but after mastering the Femboy Divine Art, Baek Sojin himself told me he now thinks of His Majesty as his son and of himself as the mother."
"…………."
It was a story that left me truly speechless.
"You can probably guess what 'receiving the Emperor's grace' means. …But the even more astonishing part comes next. Only after visiting Baek Sojin's residence did I learn that every other eunuch had become… exactly the same as him."
"The same as Baek Sojin…?"
"They have become a femboy collective that harbors a mad, obsessive love and worship for the Emperor deep in their hearts."
It sounded like pure nonsense, yet Brother Namgung's face was not the face of a man joking.
"The funny thing is that after the eunuchs turned out like that, His Majesty has shut himself away completely—yet the nation that was teetering under the previous reign has overcome its crises and grows stronger by the day. At this point one could say the entire corps of eunuchs has become hundreds of lovely concubines, a personal guard, and highly capable spies who love His Majesty with fanatical devotion."
According to Brother Namgung that should have meant the country was doomed, but the thought was immediately contradicted.
"In truth… by now I can't even tell whether His Majesty is secluding himself of his own free will. Haa… In any case, Baek Sojin is not normal. Yet he is one of the most capable men in the Central Plains, so an ordinary person like me can hardly handle him. The real problem is that this very man is the one backing my business."
Does Brother Namgung actually think of himself as ordinary…?
"You wouldn't know, but anyone with a certain amount of wealth has no choice but to work hand-in-glove with those in power. …And when that powerful person starts demanding every time we meet that I find a way for a man to get pregnant, how am I supposed to keep from exhausting my spirit?"
"I see…"
Having vented a little, Brother Namgung's expression eased somewhat.
"Huuu… I had hoped to live a little more peacefully for a while."
Hearing his story, my first thought was pure relief that it wasn't my problem—yet the utterly exhausted look on Brother Namgung's face, something I had never seen before, made me feel a little sorry for him.
"Um, Brother Namgung…. You look tired. Shall I give you a massage?"
I offered it purely as comfort, thinking of his mental health. At the words, Brother Namgung's eyes lit up.
"……A massage…… a massage, is it…… Yes. Good. I don't need a massage from you—so you will receive one instead."
"Wh-what—?"
"Honestly. You never train your gluteus maximus or thighs, yet what is this springy backside of yours? Every time I see and touch it I feel jealous."
Through the skin-tight clothes I had changed into for the massage, I felt the touch of Brother Namgung's long, pale fingers.
"Huu, huu… Is that so…?"
As I had noticed before, the pressure of those fingers kneading my thighs was exquisite. In an instant my body temperature rose; heat bloomed through me, and beads of sweat began to form on my skin as I lay face-down on the bed receiving the massage.