I Married a Eunuch - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I entered the palace, and at long last, I met the legendary heroine-the Little Empress.

The Empress was truly fresh and lovely, with a pair of big eyes that fluttered when she blinked. Her features still carried a trace of childish softness, yet in her gaze was a weary worldliness that did not belong to someone her age.

“You must be Wanwan. You’re so beautiful.” She came down the steps and linked her arm through mine with an affectionate smile. “Rong Heng is in the hall next door. The imperial physician treated his wound, and he fell asleep afterward. You can go over once he wakes.”

Rong Heng, then, was the Damned Eunuch’s name.

“I’ll go see him,” I said, turning to leave.

But the Empress would not let me.

“Stay for lunch. Rong Heng was injured protecting me, so His Majesty rewarded him with many precious medicinal ingredients. You can take them over with you later.”

Since the Empress had spoken, I had no choice but to thank her for the grace and stay.

During the meal, the Empress kept looking at me and asked a great many questions about Rong Heng. But I had only just married into Lord Qiansui’s Mansion. I knew far less about him than she, his childhood sweetheart, did. Why keep asking me?

By the end of the meal, I had barely eaten anything. The moment she set down her chopsticks, I immediately put mine down as well.

The Empress had no choice but to send a young palace maid to lead me to Rong Heng.

On the way, my maid He Ye sighed from beside me. “Miss, Her Majesty the Empress actually resembles you a little.”

I froze.

Then I shook my head.

The Empress had entered the palace at fifteen, and more than ten years had passed since. Every movement she made carried an imperial bearing beyond the reach of ordinary people. I, on the other hand, had grown up following my brothers around the military camp, happiest when playing with swords and spears. I was a tomboy through and through.

It was the difference between clouds and mud.

“Don’t say things like that carelessly again,” I warned He Ye.

He Ye lowered her head and said no more.

The young palace maid ahead led us through one turn after another. I had no idea how many palace halls we passed. We never found Rong Heng, and in the end, she successfully got us lost.

“He Ye, do you know where this is?” I asked.

He Ye looked around. “It seems to be a garden.”

Fine. I had forgotten that He Ye was entering the palace for the first time too.

I was just about to find a palace maid and ask for directions when I saw a large procession approaching from afar. In the center were two bright yellow canopies. Without needing to think, I knew it had to be the Old Emperor’s carriage.

I had heard that the Old Emperor was over sixty and had only two great passions in life: collecting beauties and refining elixirs of immortality.

To avoid unnecessary trouble, I pulled He Ye into the nearby artificial rockery.

On the other side of the rockery knelt two junior consorts who, like me, were hiding because they did not wish to meet the Emperor. Once they saw the Old Emperor’s procession move away, they began chatting as if no one else were around.

And so, despite myself, I ended up hearing an earful of palace secrets.

They said the Old Emperor was over sixty yet remained obsessed with pursuing immortality, while Lord Qiansui controlled him under the pretext of refining medicine. Every year, he would gather large numbers of beauties from among the common people and bring them into the palace for selection.

The youngest of those beauties were only thirteen.

Strangely, once those beauties entered the palace, they would mysteriously disappear after a year or two.

Rumor among the people said that all those young girls sent into the palace had been thrown into the alchemy furnace.

Rumors might not be trustworthy, but year after year, the imperial selection had never stopped. Among the daughters of noble families, any girl with even a little beauty was either hidden away from public view or betrothed early.

The two junior consorts were grateful that they were not outstanding in looks and had always avoided the Old Emperor. That was how they had escaped the fate of being thrown into the alchemy furnace.

The two of them moved from the Emperor’s selection of consorts to the elixir of immortality, and then, with a sudden shift in topic, began discussing the Xiao Clan of the Former Dynasty.

They said that when the Old Emperor was young, he had once been the Former Dynasty’s great general who defended the state. Later, under the pretext of marrying the princess, he raised an army in rebellion. The poor Xiao Clan of the Former Dynasty, thousands of lives, were slaughtered overnight.

The prince consort turned himself into the master. The princess was violated by countless men until she died. As for the Crown Prince of the Former Dynasty, who had been only a three-year-old child at the time, he was forced to be thrown into the sea.

Back in the Former Dynasty, the ruler had been wise and enlightened, and households did not even need to lock their doors at night. Ever since the new emperor took the throne, everything had changed.

For his first fifteen years, the new emperor was obsessed with chasing beauties. For the next fifteen, he became fixated on pursuing immortality.

A perfectly good realm had been driven by him into misery. Corrupt eunuchs held power, the common people were full of resentment, and uprisings broke out everywhere.

After the two finished talking about the Former Dynasty, they moved on to that matter between the current Empress and Lord Qiansui.

That the Empress of the Central Palace was involved with Lord Qiansui had long been an open secret within the palace. It was only because everyone feared Lord Qiansui’s tyrannical power that no one dared to step forward.

But rumors could never truly be silenced.

They said Lord Qiansui had entered the palace for the Empress’s sake.

They said the Empress’s eyes lit up whenever she saw Lord Qiansui.

They even said that whenever Lord Qiansui spent the night in the palace, a woman’s cries would always come from the Central Palace in the middle of the night…

I was listening with rapt attention when my collar suddenly tightened.

“Heard enough?”

I turned my head and saw none other than my eunuch husband, the one who was supposedly gravely wounded and unconscious and needed me to come serve him-Rong Heng.