Chapter 22: Volume 2 - CH 1.5

26-35 minutes 08.11.2022

Finally, the end of this chapter…so many things happened in this section…anyways welcome new followers! 

TW: mentions of sexual assault involving a minor

Here’s my Ko-fi if anyone is feeling generous

Translation Notes

1. The characters for Kouei are 黄英, which is another name for chrysanthemums. This comes from a short story called “Huangying,” which is included in the Chinese short story collection Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio. Chrysanthemum spirits show up in the story

2. Roumitsu (臈蜜) is apparently hardened honeycomb/wax that’s used as a base for ointments or something like that

3. “Furen” (腐人) literally means “rotten person”. Couldn’t think of a good localization for it so I decided to keep it the way it is

4. This is based on the Japanese caste system under the Ritsuryo legal system. The upper-class is the ryomin (良民 or good citizens) and includes regular citizens, nobles, while the lower-class is the senmin (賤民 or lowly citizens) and includes servants and slaves.

That night, around the second watch of the night (nine to eleven p.m.), Koushun came to Yamei Palace, bearing lilies in hand.

“So even you have a mind to bring someone flowers?” Jusetsu asked, somewhat surprised.

“I didn’t prepare these,” Koushun looked somewhat puzzled and displeased at the same time. It was rare for him to show such feelings. “It was Shou Kouei.”

“Who is that?”

“The Swallow Lady. Didn’t you meet her during the day? When I visited Hien Palace, she told me to give these to you.”

That woman? Jusetsu recalled her face. Not that Jusetsu was in any position to speak on it, but how could she use the emperor like an errand boy?

“I heard you cut some rabbit-ear irises and gave them to her. She was delighted.”

“Even if I decorate this place with flowers, they will only wilt, so I gave them to her. To begin with, they are flowers of Hien Palace, so there is no reason to give a thank-you present.”

“Kouei seems to have taken a liking to you. I heard you smiled at her.”

“I have no recollection of that. The Swallow Lady must have misunderstood something. She was afraid of me to begin with.”

“She told me that she thought you were a mysterious and scary consort, but you were actually a lovely person.”

“…The Swallow Lady is a bit odd, isn’t she?”

“She was raised carefully in the depths of her estate, so she knows little of the world. She’s afraid of adult men and older women. She’s even afraid of Kajou. I’m younger than Kouei, so it seems to be a little better. She prefers playing with children and young girls.”

What were her parents thinking, throwing her into the inner palace? Jusetsu thought.

“Why don’t you plant some chrysanthemums at Hien Palace?” (1)

“Why?”

Koushun asked, looking sincerely confused. Jusetsu was astonished.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never given her a chrysanthemum?”

“…I haven’t.”

“Even though she’s your wife? You once said that I’m not sensitive to the feelings of those around me. I can say exactly the same thing to you.”

Koushun stopped whatever he was going to say, his mouth still open. It seemed that he couldn’t find anything to say in reply. Kajou must have said something similar to him. In place of Koushun, who couldn’t say anything, Ei Sei, who was standing behind him, looked angry.

Koushun cleared his throat.

“…Putting that aside, you’re kind to women and children.”

“I wasn’t trying to be kind.”

“I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve smiled in front of me, and you’ve never given me flowers.”

“Are we not the same in that regard?”

“I brought flowers today, didn’t I?”

“Are those not from the Swallow Lady?”

Koushun was speaking without any expression, so it was always difficult to tell whether he was joking or serious. She didn’t think he was the type of man to make jokes, though. It was annoying either way.

“How is Ishiha doing?”

Because she was annoyed, she changed the subject. Ishiha was entrusted to Ei Sei. Koushun glanced back at him. Ei Sei knelt and answered.

“For the time being, he is under my employ as a servant at Gyokou Hall.”

“He must be a bright child.”

“Yes, he is.”

Because there was a suggestiveness in his response, Jusetsu asked, “Do you not like him?”

“No, it’s just that he’s too honest.”

“Is it bad to be honest?”

“It makes him inflexible,” he said without hesitation. “He can’t communicate subtly.”

Jusetsu hmmed.

“Then, he cannot work under you?”

“I’m not saying he can’t,” Ei Sei glanced at Jusetsu. “But I cannot guarantee his safety.”

Jusetsu frowned. Although the empress dowager was no longer in the world, it seemed that danger still surrounded Koushun.

“Why not put him in Yamei Palace?” Koushun said. Jusetsu cast down her gaze, her brow still furrowed.

“It must be very inconvenient to be without a single eunuch.”

“I had no palace lady until recently. It wasn’t particularly inconvenient for me.”

“You don’t realize an inconvenience is an inconvenience. You should add a few more people here now.”

“…I…”

“A chi’er who has been abandoned by his shifu would have a hard time no matter where he goes. If you had created that impetus, you must look after him. Isn’t it awful to get involved in his life, and then tell him to live in good health and abandon him?”

Koushun’s voice was quiet and calm, but it pricked at Jusetsu’s chest. She remembered that Ei Sei had said something similar to her before. She wondered if something similar had happened between the two of them.

“…Does that mean you looked after someone?”

Koushun was silent for a moment, glanced at Ei Sei, and then replied, “I did.”

“I took Ei Sei as my personal attendant when I was ten years old. Ei Sei was twelve or thirteen. I took him away from his shifu at that time and made him an official of the Eastern Palace.”

He didn’t say much. Ei Sei’s shifu or someone like him was most likely an awful eunuch.

“I don’t know if it was a good thing or not, because he had to suffer plenty of hardship when I was the deposed crown prince.”

Koushun said detachedly. Ei Sei widened his eyes, as if to say, That’s outrageous.

“What are you saying? It wasn’t hardship. Compared to the suffering that preceded it, it was nothing.”

“Is that so?” Koushun said and smiled faintly. Jusetsu stared at the tea on the table and pondered.

——What I did was not so different from what the former Swallow Lady did to Yuisa in the past.

Unrestrained kindness and consideration were invisible poison. She shouldn’t have reached out her hand so thoughtlessly. She had made a mistake from the beginning. She didn’t know what to do——.

“The previous Raven Consort…”

Jusetsu raised her gaze at Koushun’s voice.

“She taught you how to write, how to speak, and gave you knowledge and wisdom. But, you would have been fine without those things. They can be expressed in another way—by what we call love.”

The image of Reijou flashed through Jusetsu’s mind. From the time Jusetsu was brought here, Reijou looked like an old woman of considerable age. She wasn’t someone who smiled much. However, she was patient. She was a person who patiently poured her love into the vessel that was Jusetsu’s empty heart.

“You should also have someone to love. Whether it’s one person, two people, or several people. Think about it.”

Jusetsu cast down her eyes. What Koushun said seemed understandable, but it wasn’t. He said difficult things with seeming ease.

“Ishiha will stay at Gyokou Hall for a while. Let me know when you’re ready to receive him,” Koushun stood up. “If you’re not sure, ask for advice.”

“Ask you?”

“That’s right.”

Jusetsu gave a small smile. “I have no need for that. You only speak of serious things.”

“So you want unserious advice? I’ll think of some.”

Koushun turned on his heel and headed for the doors. Ei Sei opened them. It was night outside, and it was as if everything was painted with black ink. There was no moon, and the starlight was unreliable. As Ei Sei was about to light a candle, Jusetsu pulled a peony from her hair and held it out. The flower shook and melted, lighting a pale red flame at the end of the candle.

“It’s the new moon tonight. Take it with you so that Yeyoushen will not catch you.”

It was said that if you wandered around at night, you would be taken away by Yeyoushen, so people warned against going out at night. That was why they closed all the street gates and forbid people from coming and going.

“Wulian Niangniang wanders about as Yeyoushen on moonless nights, right?”

Koushun remembered what Jusetsu said before. She didn’t answer, and instead said something else.

“Don’t visit tomorrow.”

Tomorrow? Koushun was suspicious. “Why?”

“I will be tired tomorrow.”

“What do you—”

Koushun tried to question her, but Jusetsu refused him and told him to “leave immediately.” Koushun looked down at her intently.

“…I’ve also told you before,” Koushun said. “I want to talk with you. I want to hear your story.”

“Talking about myself is—”

“I want to know what gives you hardship, what makes you sad, and what delights you.”

I want to know those things, Koushun said, and left. As he turned away, the quartz ornament that hung from his hip swayed and glittered in the pale red flame. It was a quartz fish. Jusetsu had a similar ornament. He had given it to her. Koushun’s was transparent, while Jusetsu’s was milky white with a light pink tinge. It was a token of their oath.

Jusetsu had put it in the cupboard. There were other things there that Koushun had given her. An amber fish. A wooden rose carving. Sometimes, Jusetsu would look at them. On a moonless night like this, for example.

The light of the moon was lost, and the light of the stars were absorbed. The darkness of the night became deeper and denser than the night sky. The shadows were astir. Something was about to crawl out from the depths of it.

——No!

About to cry out, Jusetsu covered her mouth. The pale red flame of the candle was flickering faintly in the distance. Koushun was there. If she raised her voice, would he come back?

―What would that do?

The darkness seemed to become more viscous and entangling, so Jusetsu returned to her room and closed the door.

She had already made Jiujiu retire and rest for the night. She opened the curtains and stepped inside. There was a door in the back of the room and a narrow passageway on the other side. She opened the door and walked down the passageway. At the end of the passage was a small room. A large black mystical bird with a woman’s head—Wulian Niangniang, was painted on the wall, and in front of it was an altar. When she blew on the candlestick, a white flame flared and flickered. A musky scent filled the room.

Jusetsu pulled a peony from her hair and threw it into a white lapis-lazuli bowl. There was a sound like the tinkling of a bell in the distance, and the flower dissolved. This was a custom she did every three nights.

She exited the small room and returned to the original room. She let down her hair and laid down her bed, finding it too bothersome to change into her nightgown.

―I’m afraid of closing my eyes on moonless nights.

Despite those thoughts, her eyelids involuntarily drooped and her limbs became heavy and immobile. As she closed her eyes and darkness fell, Jusetsu felt as if her body was sinking lower and lower. The air that clung to her body was cold and heavy. Her breathing was labored. It was if she was being dragged to the bottom of the water. Once she sank to very bottom, she rose to the surface afterward. She emerged much faster than when she sank, but her body stopped midway. Only her mind climbed higher and higher.

Jusetsu let out an inarticulate scream. As her mind climbed upward, her body tightened as though thin silk threads were coiling around it, and she felt a pain like she was being torn apart. The mind, however, had risen to the surface on its own despite that and was now faraway from her body, under the night sky.

The threads twisted around her limbs tightly, bit into them, and tightened. Her limbs were going to be torn off.

The imperial palace was below her. Fires were lit everywhere, brightly illuminating the dark night. With a backward glance at that, the mind was flying somewhere. It had wings. Glistening black wings that seemed to absorb everything. The mind flapped its wings in a big, leisurely flap, and flew far, far away. Each time they flapped, a spasm of pain shot through Jusetsu’s body. The pain was so intense that she felt as if her flesh had been shredded and her limbs were severed.

It wasn’t Jusetsu’s mind that was flapping its wings. It was a human-headed monstrous bird with jet-black wings. The goddess from across the sea.

It was Wulian Niangniang.

Jusetsu resented the first Raven Consort, Koushou. Why did she accept such suffering? Did she love Ran Yuu—the Summer King—that much? The man who had locked her up in the inner palace and refused to let her call herself the Winter King.

Koushou became the warden of Wulian Niangniang. She made sure the goddess was unable to escape. She bound her to herself.

The life of the Raven Consort was one with that of Wulian Niangniang. The Raven Consort also couldn’t escape from the goddess. Thus, the goddess was imprisoned beneath Yamei Palace.

However, when the moon disappeared and the darkness deepened, it was no longer possible to contain Wulian Niangniang. Slowly, slowly, she began to melt into the darkness and roam around the night. The Raven Consort felt pain as if she was being torn apart by the moving Wulian Niangniang.

Sometimes, Wulian Niangniang flew around all night, and sometimes she returned after just a single lap around the imperial palace. Tonight, it seemed that she was going to be flying all night long. She flew past the imperial palace, through the area near the palace, and beyond. She could smell spoiled water. There was a river below. Wulian Niangniang was flying along the river. The river snaked across the open plain, passing between villages and over hills forested with strangely shaped rocks.

——Where is she headed?

You are reading story Koukyuu no Karasu at novel35.com

Jusetsu gazed out at the scenery as she became overwhelmed by the pain. Soon, the lights of a town came into view. As expected, lanterns were hung all around town in fear of Yeyoushen. Wulian Niangniang glided over the houses. The doorways and windows of the houses, built of piled-up stones, were covered with cloth. The lanterns under the eaves were round and curiously shaped. The streets were narrow and maze-like, and there were many slopes. There were no people outside the houses. Jusetsu could smell sea water. They seemed to be near the sea.

Light was now leaking out from the second floor of a house. The wooden shutter that covered a window made the cloth fly up as it was opened. A young man looked out from inside. He had a pale face and dark hair hanging down loosely.

That young man looked up them.

——Owl!

Jusetsu didn’t know why she thought that. But that was the voice that echoed in her mind. At the moment she saw the young man’s face—no, the moment their eyes met.

Jusetsu suddenly opened her eyelids.

“…”

Letting out a wild breath, she slowly moved her head. She was in Yamei Palace, on her bed.

Her back was sweaty and uncomfortable. The pain that felt as if her body was being torn apart was no longer there, but her strength was being drained away from the inside. She had no strength to sit up, so she turned over with difficulty. As she laid on her side, the cool darkness enveloped her back.

As soon as Wulian Niangniang saw that young man, she returned here in an instant. Jusetsu sensed a flash of something like fright there.

“…Who was that…?”

Her tongue was heavy, her throat was hoarse, and she couldn’t put together words properly. There was no voice to answer Jusetsu’s hoarse murmur. The only thing by her side was darkness.

“Close the shutters, Shougetsu.”

Hou Ichigyou reprimanded his apprentice for opening a window on the night of a new moon.

“Okay, Master.”

Shougetsu said expressionlessly and obediently lowered the wooden shutter. His loose black hair contrasted starkly against his pale face. Though his way of speaking was rough, he was an obedient young man. A month ago, Hou had found him collapsed in the street and took him in. Since then, he had kept him by his side as an apprentice, but in reality, he was no different from a servant who did chores. He didn’t complain about it, but rather aloofly obeyed Hou. Instead, he never smiled and never got angry. He had nothing that could be called facial expressions. Even now, he was a young man who Hou still didn’t know much about.

Hou put down his writing brush and rubbed his eyes. Writing at night was hard on an old man’s eyes. He had been asked to write a letter on someone’s behalf. In this small port town, there weren’t many people who could write, so Hou was valued as a scribe. This wasn’t his original job, however. There were many such port towns in this country, which was a large island with several smaller islands.

Shougetsu was preparing Hou’s bed. Before going to bed, Hou took his tools out of his bag and checked them, as was his usual custom.

Paper talismans with cursive, illegible characters, blank talismans, red-ink sticks, cinnabar, roumitsu, (2) needles…After arranging them all on the desk, he carefully put them back into the bag. Next to the desk, there was a cane sword.

All of them were tools used in sorcery. Hou was a sorcerer. However, he seldom practiced the art. When the previous dynasty fell, Hou abandoned it and fled the country. Even though he had a disciple, a young man from the imperial family he was about to adopt――

“Master, I’m done.”

Shougetsu indicated the bed that had been made up. Hou put his hands on the desk and slowly stood up. His knees creaked and ached. A groan escaped from his mouth despite himself. Shougetsu helped him to his feet. Hou looked at his face from up close. He had a pale face and glossy black hair. His upturned eyes were sharp but captivating. He had a beauty that made it hard to tell whether he was a man or woman.

——They don’t look alike.

He didn’t even remotely resemble the disciple that Hou was about to adopt. That disciple had silver hair as magnificent as moonlight, and a crisp beauty that seemed to dispel the darkness of the night. However, Hou gave this young man, who he had found collapsed in the street and whose name was unknown, a character from the name of his former disciple. Perhaps it was because they were the same in apparent age and height.

——Hyougetsu.

When he thought of that name, bitter regrets and sadness spread through Hou’s heart. The executed imperial grandson. Without even seeing his corpse, Hou escaped the capital, snuck into an anchored ship, and fled the country. The reason was that there were orders to capture the sorcerers who had been used frequently by the previous imperial family. Many of them were executed.

He was afraid of death. He was familiar with ghosts and thought that death was something close to himself and not to be feared, but when there was the possibility that he might be killed, he ran away. ―I left Hyougetsu to his death.

Sitting on his bed, Hou let out a deep breath. Since his return to Shou, he had moved from one port town to another and had never set foot in the capital. He didn’t intend to ever set foot there again. He had no right to bow his head for Hyougetsu at the Ran family mausoleum.

“Master.”

Shougetsu stood by Hou’s side and called his name. What was strange about him was his voice. It couldn’t be defined as either low or high-pitched, but it had a quality that left the listener entranced.

“What is it?”

“I want to ask you something.”

Hou wondered where Shougetsu had lived before, for everything around him seemed novel to him, and he asked all sorts of questions about them. Thinking that it was the same for this time as well, Hou nodded and said, “Tell me.”

“I want to go to the capital. How do I do that?”

In the morning, Jusetsu couldn’t get up from her bed. She had no strength. She had to summon up all her energy even to move a finger. Jiujiu was so worried that she sent a messenger to the medicine official even though she told her not to. They brought her rice gruel with water chestnuts and pine nuts and soy milk. Jusetsu had no appetite, but Jiujiu and Kougyou were anxiously watching her, so she lifted her spoon.

“If you don’t have an appetite, then please drink the soy milk first. It’s sweetened with honey.”

Certainly, the soy milk was sweet on the tongue and seemed to soak into the back of her throat. Once she drank the soy milk, the rice gruel also went down her throat. After she had eaten, her strength returned. Her complexion improved, and both Jiujiu and Kougyou lowered their trays, looking relieved. As if to replace them, Onkei came over. He had been sent to the medicine official by Jiujiu, who was worried about Jusetsu.

“The color has returned to your face, Niangniang.”

Onkei was placing a medicinal decoction he had brewed in the kitchen on a tray. Jusetsu glanced at it.

“No, sorry to have sent you on such an unnecessary errand,” she said, trying to get him to back down.

“Your body must be feeling weak, so it would be better for you to drink this decoction.”

The decoction was most likely a mix of ginseng, di huang, and huang qi. It was meant to restore one’s strength. What Onkei was saying was right and she should drink it. However—the most effective medicines were often bitter.

Onkei silently urged her, so Jusetsu had no choice but to pick up the bowl. It had cooled down moderately. However, judging from the scent, it was bitter. Her brow furrowed naturally, but she couldn’t say she didn’t want to drink it because it was bitter. Resolving herself, she held her breath and gulped down the decoction in one go.

It was bitter. She frowned, unable to withstand the bitterness that lingered on her tongue.

“Shall I bring you some hot water?”

“Mm…”

Onkei went into the kitchen and then came back with the hot water.

“It seems to have honey dissolved into it.”

The hot water she held in her mouth was slightly sweet. Like the soy milk from earlier, it was probably the servant who had been here for a long time, Keishi, who suggested adding honey to the water. When Reijou was alive, she always prepared this sweetened water for Jusetsu after she drank a medicinal decoction. Keishi probably remembered that. She was a taciturn and unsociable old woman, but her work was brisk and surprisingly meticulous.

——You must never keep a palace lady. You need only a single servant.

She recalled Reijou’s voice. Her teachings always tugged at Jusetsu’s sleeve. Eunuchs are out of the question, she had admonished her strongly. Because they would want to form a faction.

The Raven Consort must not gather people around her. They would become comrades, become a faction, and eventually they would swell. They would become the elite of the Winter King.

Therefore, Jusetsu had to live alone. ——And yet, she had already broken Reijou’s orders.

Jusetsu put the bowl back on the tray. But Onkei didn’t leave and remained standing there. She looked up, puzzled. Onkei looked as though he wanted to say something.

“What is it?”

“…You may think that I am being too forward, but may I say something?”

“I do not mind. Tell me.”

Onkei thanked her, placed the tray on the small table next to her, and spoke. “It’s about Ishiha.”

Jusetsu lowered her gaze at that name.

“Niangniang, do you regret helping Ishiha?”

“…If I had not gotten involved, Ishiha wouldn’t have been chased out by his shifu, and he would have eventually risen through the ranks. He is a clever boy, after all.”

“For those from a rural minority tribe, without an exceptional promotion, they would remain a lowly eunuch for the rest of their lives. He would have continued to receive beatings.”

That may be so, she thought. It was a fact that Jusetsu got involved, and it was also a fact that it changed Ishiha’s life and future. Jusetsu was afraid of getting acquainted with others and changing way of life. That was true for both Jiujiu and Kougyou as well.

“I have changed Ishiha’s path by meddling in his life. Whether it will do him good or not, it is Ishiha that will walk that path. Not me, who changed it. If I couldn’t bear that responsibility, then I shouldn’t have gotten involved.”

It was as Ei Sei and Koushun said. Jusetsu had irresponsibly interfered from the side and pushed Ishiha onto a path that had no guideposts.

“…I was once an acrobat in a wubang.”

After a short silence, Onkei opened his mouth.

“You’ve said so.”

She had heard this from him before.

“One year, we were employed by a certain official. We were summoned to every banquet he held. Some of us were musicians, and some of us were good at magic tricks. There were also many acrobats like me. …The banquet that night was held for the friends of the official. I don’t remember what the celebration was for, though. Both the official and the guests were drinking heavily. We retired to our rooms after we were summoned, but one of the guests asked us to send one of our colleagues to his bedroom. The one he wanted was a girl who played the biwa. She was only thirteen years old.”

Onkei closed his mouth briefly. She didn’t know why he was starting this story. But Jusetsu was listening with bated breath.

“We were not in that sort of business. So we refused. However…”

After some hesitation, Onkei seemed to collect himself and resumed his story.

“The guest forcibly dragged the girl into his bedroom. She was a gentle and quiet girl, so she was frightened into not shouting for help. I searched for her when I noticed she disappeared and found her by the well in the rear garden. She was washing her face and rinsing her mouth. She was quietly sobbing under the sound of the water—even now, I can hear her sobbing. …I went to the guest’s bedroom and struck him as he was snoring loudly. By the time the official’s manservants pulled me off him and held me down, the guest was covered in blood. I intended to kill him, but I couldn’t carry it out. That is why I am still alive today.”

There was no expression on Onkei’s face as he spoke dispassionately, but his voice grew colder and colder.

“The official tried to keep the matter private without it going public, but the blood-covered guest told him to make me into a furen.” (3)

Furen was another name for eunuchs. It was also a derogatory term.

“I was taken to a pecking house. It’s a house that creates eunuchs. The guest laughed as he watched them cut it off.”

Jusetsu felt a chill at the bottom of her chest and couldn’t speak. With difficulty, she muttered, “How cruel.” Onkei looked at her.

“When I was held down by the servants and beaten until the guest was satisfied, when everyone else found out what the guest had done, and when I was taken to the pecking house, not one person said anything like that near the official and his people. Of course, there was no one who stopped them. After all, I was from a wubang, and people from those are of low class.”

The people were divided into upper and lower classes. Slaves, prostitutes, and musicians were classified as lower class citizens, and they weren’t allowed to marry upper class citizens. (4)

“Niangniang, there are not many people who would have said, ‘How cruel,’ out loud. Even more so for those who intervene when they see a eunuch being beaten. You are unaware of that. …If only just one person had said, ‘This is cruel’ at that time, even if it wouldn’t have saved me, it would have—it would have saved my heart.”

Onkei’s voice was bleeding. Fresh blood was flowing from a wound that hadn’t yet healed.

“Do you know how precious a person like you is to us? What a salvation it is, to have someone like you here who is willing to lend a helping hand to the weak. We don’t need you to bear any responsibility.”

Onkei knelt down, his forehead touching the ground.

“As a eunuch, I would like to express my gratitude to you. Thank you for helping Ishiha.”

Jusetsu couldn’t find the words to say to the kowtowing Onkei. She got off her bed, got on her knee, then placed her hand on his back. “——Onkei.”

Onkei was crying silently. His shoulders were shaking uncontrollably. Jusetsu stroked his back without saying anything.

“I’m sorry. I have not only dirtied your ears with my story, but also your hands.”

Onkei raised his head after a while, and his face was back to its normal appearance.

“You did not dirty them in any way,” Jusetsu said, putting as much conviction in her voice as she could. She used the hand that had been stroking his back to help him stand up. There wasn’t a single tear left on Onkei’s face, but his eyes were moist as if there was a film of water covering them. She thought they were beautiful, sad eyes. “May I ask something?”

“What is it, Niangniang?”

Jusetsu put her face close to Onkei’s ear and whispered, “Do you know the names of that ‘official’ and ‘guest’ you talked about?” Her voice was surprisingly cold even to herself.

Onkei was silent for a moment, then his eyes softened.

“Niangniang, you don’t need to concern yourself with them anymore. …When I told this story to Attendant Ei a long time ago, he asked the same question.”

In other words, Ei Sei probably already did something about them.

“Oho,” Jusetsu’s eyes widened. “Ei Sei, huh.”

“Niangniang, I recommend Ishiha to be your eunuch. He will be of great help to you. I am your guard, but since I work under Attendant Ei, I may not be with you at all times. I think it will be better for you to raise a eunuch like that.”

“I cannot raise a eunuch.”

“All you have to do is to tell him what you need him to do. He will learn with that. Then, you can teach him how to read and write.”

“Reading and writing, huh. I also learned how to do those things from Reijou.”

She remembered it fondly.

“Once he becomes a qualified eunuch, he can work in another department. It is difficult for someone like Ishiha, who has been abandoned by his shifu once, to find someone who will nurture him to that level. That’s why…”

“So, you’re saying that I should raise him up to that point?”

Onkei nodded.

“That’s correct, Niangniang. If you are concerned about your own responsibility, but cannot keep him at Yamei Palace forever, then this is the best way.”

“I see. ―You’re quite smart.”

“I’m honored to receive such praise from you.”

On one hand, she thought it might be a good idea, but on the other hand, she also felt that it was still a bad idea. However, after glancing back at that indecision, Jusetsu agreed with Onkei’s idea. Perhaps, she truly was looking for a reason to keep Ishiha here.

Reijou would surely be angry with her.

Jusetsu didn’t know if this was the right choice.

It was most likely the wrong choice.

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