Chapter 750: Bound for Beijing (3)

There’s a saying in military strategy: if you want to deceive the enemy, start by deceiving your own side.

Back in Qing’s homeland, lots of people thought that line came from Mister Sun’s Art of War, but in truth it came from an anonymous old strategy manual called the Thirty-Six Stratagems.

And your biggest “own side,” no matter what anyone says, is yourself.

If you’re going to deceive the enemy, start by deceiving yourself.

So Qing kept muttering to herself inside.

I’m a patient. I’m very much a patient. I’m basically a pre-corpse about to die any second now, a breathing corpse. My whole body hurts, I feel like I’m going to die...

Then her shoulders gradually began to sag, her usually energetic expression wilting and going limp, a faint, pitiful melancholy settling over her.

Her skin had always been absurdly white to begin with, so with that gloom in her expression she somehow looked paler still, the marks of illness obvious on her face.

Honestly, for Qing’s people, this kind of over-immersion “fake sickness” wasn’t some amazing art.

Back in Qing’s homeland, there was a culture of honing this art of feigning illness from school days onward, to carve out a bit of personal freedom.

So the reason Qing’s “acting sick” was so uncanny was simply that this was a skill her body had been drilled in since childhood.

Besides, Qing felt no shame.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t even a lie.

She still had quite a bit of shrapnel left in her muscles.

All the big pieces had been taken out; what remained were countless grit-sized fragments, tiny crumbs like millet packed in there.

They were so small now that the pain was just as small.

You could call it tolerable, like that ache when you’ve overworked a muscle; it was concentrated in her abdomen and thighs, which made it even easier to bear.

From experience, she’d confirmed that if she left it alone, the shrapnel would gradually get pushed out by the muscle and come to rest just under the skin.

If she poked that spot and squeezed later, it would come out, so you could say the treatment was more or less finished.

Anyway, is she a patient? Yes.

Is it a serious injury? If she didn’t have that toxic-blood constitution of hers, her immune reaction would already have set off high fever and necrosis in her muscle tissue, so, yes.

So, does it hurt?

Mmm. Not enough to be “unbearable,” but yes.

So Qing made a point of playing up being sick with a clear conscience.

She had the right to act sick.

She really was a sick person.

And so, once she had finally finished preparing to sortie, Qing dragged herself along, moving sluggishly for no real reason.

She hadn’t even set foot inside the guest hall yet, but she already staggered once, pretending to be dizzy—a thoroughly meticulous fake illness, even though there was nobody there to watch.

At last she reached the guest hall and knock, knock, tapped at the door to the VIP room.

If you were from Qing’s homeland, you might well wonder what in the world eunuchs even are.

A power clique of castrated men? That’s weird, isn’t it.

If you borrow a concept familiar to Qing’s homeland, eunuchs are the imperial household’s butlers.

The eunuchs are organized into twenty-four departments, called the Twenty-Four Offices, and just looking at the specific duties of each makes things clear.

Palace maintenance and repair. Furniture manufacturing. Household goods manufacturing. Imperial clothing manufacture. A separate unit just for imperial undergarments. A unit for dyeing all these products. A unit for making imperial toilet paper(!). A pet-care squad. A meal-preparation squad. Palace cleaning (inner palace). Palace cleaning (outer palace). Heating and cooling management. A background-music performance troupe... and so on.

Given that, what are eunuchs to the imperial clan?

They’re servants you see every day, guardians who have looked after you since childhood, and the people you can be most at ease around.

So a eunuch’s power comes directly from the affection of the imperial family.

And here, Chief Brush-and-Seal Eunuch was one of the top posts at the very peak of that eunuch hierarchy, commanding about half a dozen people under Grand Eunuch Jeong Sabon to carry out and assist in his duties.

Because the eunuchs’ power comes from the imperial family’s favor, the higher a eunuch stands, the closer they must have served beside the royals.

Knock, knock, sounded at the door.

Wi Baseon lifted his head with a smile.

Smiling was a basic requirement for eunuchs.

But what he was thinking inside was this:

She certainly won’t meekly agree to come along. She’s bound to pretend to be sick. I’ll just see how far she takes that act.

After all, feigning illness was far too common a tactic.

No matter how much Sima Chunbong was praised as a woman of peerless talent, a walking sack of cosmic, invincible wisdom, it couldn’t compare to an old eunuch who had spent his entire life wading through political schemes.

A part of him was even slightly curious.

It would be nice if, instead of the usual standard tricks—fake illness, an ailing parent, a recent funeral, using the family business as an excuse—something new and fresh showed up.

And then, rrrattle, the door slid open.

A beauty’s face, lit by the lamp in the room.

Slightly furrowed brows, eyes gone limp and unfocused, a pale cast to her complexion.

For a woman she was tall and long-limbed, carrying a faintly masculine air, yet there was a drag to her gait that made her look completely drained.

Drained? More than drained.

She was coming toward him with the speed of a turtle stranded on land, slow enough to make you want to tear your hair out watching.

Her whole body, every movement, seemed to be crying out, I’m so sick, and finally, with white face and red lips standing out starkly, she spoke.

“Elder Wi, I’m sick.”

Wi Baseon pretended to flare up in anger.

“Oh dear, it seems you are quite unwell. Honestly, what is wrong with those Eastern Palace brats, that they allowed illness to invade such a noble body? I ought to have all those bastards’ clans wiped out and their heads hung in the marketplace.”

“Uh? No? You don’t really have to go that far. It’s just, cough, um, probably just a simple cold...”

“So the heating-attendant bastards didn’t stoke the fires last night, is that it? Or the cleaning-attendant bastards slacked on their work so that filth got in and made you sick?”

“No, it’s just, if you’re tired that can happen some—”

“I’ll just carve them all up. Your Highness, please remain here. Before your fever has time to cool I’ll bring back their severed heads, and then we’ll have a nice tealeaf soup and a nap.”

“Excuse me? Elder Wi? I’m talking here, where do you think you’re looking? Can you see me right now?”

The young woman lifted her palm and waved it in front of Wi Baseon’s eyes.

Wi Baseon ignored her.

Whenever she was supposed to go see the Son of Heaven she would always pull this fake-illness routine; even if only as a joke, he tried to lift her spirits a bit—

“Sir? Excuse me?”

“Yes, yes. This is Elder Wi you’re calling. But even so, there are things that simply cannot be...”

Wi Baseon abruptly broke off.

The pale hand that had been waving in front of his eyes withdrew, and the unfamiliar gaze of a stranger looking at him head-on struck home.

Wi Baseon’s pupils trembled faintly.

Once, there had been a princess loved by all the eunuchs.

Yeonsul. The imperial tomboy.

Aside from her body, which had grown too quickly too young, there hadn’t been a single part of her that was properly ladylike.

She laughed boldly and ran around the palace like a little boy, the imperial family’s constant headache.

But she never hated anyone, and she would easily open her heart and pour affection on people, clinging to them in childish dependence with a bright, shining smile.

So there had been no eunuch or palace maid who hadn’t cherished her like a daughter.

Of course, that Princess Yeonsul was still alive.

But a person didn’t have to die to be lost; even while alive, you could lose someone. You could say she had become a different person after a serious illness.

A princess that beautiful had been left with scars across her face, with a mind that no longer remained whole; it was no surprise if the person herself had changed.

And yet this woman... what in the world.

Like a fool, he’d let his mind slip and get tangled up in the past. If the princess whose body had grown too fast had never been struck by that fever, would she have become like this?

It wasn’t just that they looked alike.

The brows drawn together in pretend pain, the way she let her eyes go vague and unfocused for no reason, the corners of her mouth that curved in a faint, half-smile even while “suffering”—she was looking at him with the exact expression, the exact little habits he remembered all too well.

“Were you Elder Wi, sir?”

“‘Elder’ isn’t a name, ahem. Heavenly Flower Sword?”

“Yes. Even though this body is lacking, people have been calling me by that overly generous name. Cough.”

Even that affected little cough sounded familiar, and before he knew it, a rush of joy welled up inside him.

“Oh dear. Have you caught a cold? Now that I look closely, your complexion really isn’t good. The weather’s been foul lately; it’s quite a problem, isn’t it?”

“It’s not a cold... In my bout with Minor Water Witch I was struck by her cold poison—ah, you probably don’t know what Minor Water cold poison is, but it’s a really nasty—”

“I know what it is as well.”

Elder Wi cut her off with a stiff face.

He felt as if someone had dumped cold water over him.

Heavenly Flower Sword was Heavenly Flower Sword, an unmatched transcendent.

And transcendent-level martial artists are not something you can make in a day or a year of training. From childhood they have their bodies opened and refined with all manner of elixirs and supreme arts, and likewise from childhood they never put down their sword, grinding through brutal training without rest; only then can they reach transcendence at such a young age.

So it might just be coincidence that she resembled someone else so closely; maybe most lively, boisterous young women ended up with a similar look.

Once he cooled down and thought about it, Minor Water cold poison, was it?

“Minor Water cold poison; that really is serious business, isn’t it.”

“Yes. I’m suppressing it with my internal energy, but there hasn’t been much improvement. If you would permit it, I was hoping I might have some time to recover before entering the palace, but I wondered if...”

Qing gently moved into the heart of the matter.

I’m really very sick, can’t I wait until I’m a bit better before I come?

“Oh dear. I had already heard the tale of the boy-hero who repelled Minor Water Witch, so I brought a few elixirs to bolster internal injuries—but for an accurate prescription, would it be all right if I took your pulse?”

He’d already expected this excuse.

What better material was there than Minor Water cold poison for someone trying to feign illness?

If it struck home, the extreme cold from the dantian outward would shatter the meridians, so of course she’d try to use that convalescence as an excuse to drag things out.

“Ah. Uh. You... practice medicine...?”

“I wouldn’t call what I can do ‘medicine.’ The truly great imperial physician is back at the palace. If you find my skills a bit lacking, perhaps you might consider entering the palace and receiving a prescription from the royal medical service?”

Which amounted to this:

I know it’s fake.

If you don’t want to get caught when I take your pulse, just come quietly. If you say you’ll come, I won’t bother digging into whether you’re faking it or not.

At that, Qing thought, Oh, for fuck’s sake, he’s a martial artist.

Normally, with male martial artists, the point at the temples bulged slightly, the yang energy overflowing so that there was a subtle aura about them.

But since he was castrated, his temple point was flat, and instead of any aura, he had that peculiar eunuch-ish, cringing quality. She’d been completely fooled.

And yet, wasn’t he acting strangely familiar with her?

Was she imagining it?

Chief... whatever... was smiling at her outright, his expression clearly saying he knew she was faking and was curious to see what she did next.

Qing, on the other hand, carefully extended her wrist.

“It’s shameless of me, but if you’re willing to worry about the depth of my internal injuries, I would be grateful for some elixirs...”

Wi Baseon’s eyes narrowed.

So it wasn’t a fake? She’d actually been hit by Minor Water cold poison?

Or was it that, now that she’d heard he was going to drag her off no matter what, she’d decided she might as well brazen it out and squeeze some elixirs out of him?

Wi Baseon took Qing’s wrist and felt for her pulse.

A faint thread of internal energy ran along her meridians, tracing inside—and he gasped.

“What on earth... how are you even sitting upright right now?”

“With a high official of the state coming all this way, how could I greet you lying down...?”

Wi Baseon was genuinely shocked.

Cold didn’t even begin to cover it. It wasn’t just frozen; calling it “frozen” was too mild, it was an extremity of cold.

Minor Water cold poison had a terrible reputation, but was it really this vicious?

He doubted even that supreme ice crystal from the Northern Sea, said to be the very crystallization of the coldest qi under Heaven, could be this savagely cold.

Because what he was feeling was that.

Qing had mastered Ice-Jade Divine Art and already formed an ice core in her dantian; she had simply unleashed that internal energy to the full and completely blocked off the area around her dantian.

To someone who didn’t know, feeling her pulse, it could only feel as if some unprecedented horrible cold was freezing everything from her dantian outward to the extremities.

“I felt it would be unforgivable disloyalty to stand before His Majesty in this state, so even at the cost of shame...”

Qing spoke and held out her hand.

Her meaning was perfectly clear.

Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to stake everything unless you’re sure? What are you doing, not handing over the damn elixirs?

Wi Baseon swallowed a curse.

Damn it all, in that case, what was the point of summoning Heavenly Flower Sword in the first place? Left alone she looks ready to die on her own, and instead we’ve brought her here, only to hand over elixirs and then line up royal physicians to treat her on top of that?