Chapter 7: Being Eunuch (Part 1)
Li Shubai brought Huang Zixia along, returned to the prince’s manor and entered Jing Yu Court where he lived.
Huang Zixia was reading the almanac while he sat by and watched with cold eyes. She flipped through the pages of the almanac from January 17 to February 21, then to March 19, and then to the current day. She read at a speed so fast, she almost put it down after at a glance. Then she said, “If there are officers and soldiers patrolling tonight, you can focus on the southeast of the city, especially the families with pregnant women. They are likely to be targets.”
“Are you sure the fourth target of the killer is a pregnant person?” Li Shubai raised his eyebrows and asked.
“Very likely.” Huang Zixia said.
Li Shubai turned his head and called out, “Jing Yang.”
The court eunuch outside the door who had a cheerful and lovely demeanor answered the call. “Your Highness.”
“Go to the Court of Judicial Review and ask Deputy Captain, Cui Chunzhan to come.”
“Yes.” Jing Yang took the order submissively and did not even look at Huang Zixia who was standing in the hall. After paying obeisance, as he was leaving, Li Shubai pointed to Huang Zixia and said, “Bring him with you and arrange a proper place for him. Remember that he is a young eunuch.”
“Yes, Your Highness, please rest assured.”
Just like that, Huang Zixia, a wanted, prime criminal thus became a young eunuch in Prince Kui’s manor.
Along the way, Jing Yang introduced her to several paths of the manor and ordered several things to pay attention to. Then he took her to the north residence of the manor where the eunuchs lived. He gave her a separate room, and asked people to bring all the daily necessities and three sets of eunuch clothes. He said to her, “Little eunuch, you are new here. So, you are not assigned any duties for the meantime. Just remember to go to the prince’s residence to greet him every day.”
Huang Zixia thanked him again. She went to the eunuch next door to exchange greetings and inquired about daily life, then went to the kitchen to get some food.
She was exhausted after a day full of incessant activities, so tired that she fell asleep as soon as she hit on the pillow.
When she woke up, it’s already late in the morning. When she went to the well to fetch water, the eunuch who was sweeping the courtyard said to her, “Eunuch Jing Yang asked us to tell you to go to the Yu Bing Court when you wake up.”
She quickly drank a bowl of porridge, after inquiring about the path, changed into eunuch clothes and ran to the Yu Bing Court. Yu Bing Court was the study room of the manor, surrounded by flowers and trees; doors and windows also used Korean paper window screens.
Before Huang Zixia entered the door, she saw through the carved elm wood window panel, Li Shubai was sitting inside while looking at the map of the capital.
Hearing her footsteps, he raised his head and said, “Come here.”
Huang Zixia went to him. He pointed to the map and said, “The murderer didn’t show up last night. But in your opinion, is the killer going to be in the northwest tonight?”
Huang Zixia was slightly taken aback, looked up at him. “Your Highness already knows according to what method I judge?”
“You can read the almanac, and so can I,” He said quietly as his fair, slender fingers glided over the twelve lanes in the northwest of the capital and said, “I’ve been making inquiries in the morning, and there are a lot of pregnant women in these twelve lanes. There is a pregnant woman who are seven months along in Xiudefang*; there is another pregnant woman who are full-term and close to delivery in Puningfang; and there are two pregnant women in Judefang, five months and six months respectively.”
Xiū dé fāng*=fang坊= lane (usually as part of a street name)
“Puningfang.” She pointed her finger at the Puningfang neighborhood and said definitely.
Li Shubai tilted the map a little, looked at the detailed composition of the Puningfang area, and said, “The pregnant woman’s home is next to Imperial Duke Li Ji’s former residence.”
Huang Zixia looked at Puningfang (on the map) and suddenly thought of something. She hesitated for a moment. Finally, she held back and planned to wait for the case to be solved.
But Li Shubai seemed to have thought of it, turned his head, simply looked at her and said, “Zhang Xingying’s home is also in Puning square.”
“Hhmm,” she nodded. Since he initiated, she took up the topic and said, “If this case can be solved, will Your Highness consider letting Zhang Xingying return to being the guard of honor?”
“Not possible.” He said without hesitation.
Huang Zixia explained, “Zhang Xingying asked me to pretend to be him and join the prince’s honor guards. Although it is unreasonable, he is indeed a rare good man, and gratitude is also a gentleman’s virtue. Can you please forgive him and let him investigate the case with me first?”
“Utterly wishful thinking,” he rebuffed, “Although gratitude is justifiable, however, I don’t need a sentimental person around me.”
Huang Zixia bit her lower lip and said in a low voice, “Please be kind, Your Highness…
He interrupted, “What’s the use of making rules of punishment if the person who made the mistake can come back safe and sound in a few days? How am I going to control my men in the future?”
Huang Zixia bowed her head and was speechless, so she gave up the idea and asked, “What should I do next?”
“Go back to get some sleep, then go to Puningfang with me at night.”
Puningfang, Northwest of the capital.
As a rule, after the second gong signal, all the streets in Chang’an City were closed and no one was allowed to walk on the street outside. So Li Shubai pretended to be a touring scholar, while Huang Zixia pretended to be his disciple. In the evening, they dressed in ordinary clothes and stayed in the inn of Puningfang.
One was an elegant young man, and the other a handsome young man. On the way, even men turned their heads and stared at them. They lived in the inn, the innkeeper’s wife came four times under the pretext of delivering water, and the innkeeper was worried, so he came five times.
“Forget it. I’ll get in touch with the people in the Ministry of Justice. I’ll go out tonight.” Huang Zixia tied up her hair, ready to go out, “As for you, I don’t think you could get away from the innkeeper and his wife.”
Li Shubai said coldly, “When I can’t stay in peace, do you think you can go out?”
Huang Zixia was about to speak when she saw the landlady, walking in an attractively elegant way coming back with the teapot.
She looked back at Li Shubai, who also looked at her with an indistinct smile on his face and said, “I’ll give you a quarter of an hour to send the person away.”
For a quarter of an hour, it seemed like the landlady would not give up so easily without giving her a harsh blow. And for a woman whose heart was infatuated, the biggest blow was, of course ———
Huang Zixia stood in front of Li Shubai, took his hand and pressed it on her waist. Then, she raised her voice that could be heard outside the window as she pleaded in a cloyingly sweet tone, “Iya, young master, right now we are outside. We should avoid people’s eyes and ears! No-no, don’t touch it here, hey, you can’t touch it here too, you are shameless. We’re both men, what will people say when they see it…”
As soon as she spoke, the landlady who was walking gracefully suddenly stopped midway and stiffened at the spot.
Li Shubai’s hand, which was held by her place on the waist, froze in an instant. But just for a moment, he slowly retrieved his hand from her grip and turned his face away to drink tea and then he said, “The innkeeper’s wife is very annoying; she always comes to stare at me. Could it be that she finds me only like men?”
Outside the window, the landlady ran away with the teapot in her hand. Huang Zixia seemed to hear the shattering sound of her broken heart all the way.
Huang Zixia was kind of pitying her and immediately condemned him, “Why must you add the two words ‘very annoying?’”
“This is to allow you to complete the task faster,” He put down his teacup without expression.
Huang Zixia fastened the door latch, and then opened the window to check the outside surroundings before jumping out the window, she waved to him, “Let’s go!”
The second alley after Imperial Duke Li Ji’s old house, it was the sixth house with a pomegranate tree in the courtyard was the Wei family.
In the capital, every inch of land is equivalent to an inch of gold; the land of the Wei family was not very big. The so-called courtyard was actually only a small place about one zhang [328 square feet] in area. There were two houses behind the garden, and the surrounding garden walls did not reach Huang Zixia’s chest level.
Opposite the house, they quietly squatted by the bridge hole*, hiding themselves with a few clusters of Chinese herbaceous peony.
After the second gong signal¹ [9:34pm], the street was quiet and the lights were out.
The clouds covered the moon; the hazy moon light was dim. After Li Shubai and she squatted there for a while, he simply sat under the Chinese herbaceous peony flowers, and enjoyed the shadow cast by the moon in the water.
Huang Zixia lowered her voice, “Your Highness, why do you want to come here in person? What about the people of the Court of Judicial Review and the Ministry of Justice?”
“This prince didn’t notify them.” He said leisurely, pulling down the side of a bud peony, looked at it, thoughtfully said, “This year, the ground is warm; Chinese herbaceous peony buds have sprouted before the mǔdān peony.”
Huang Zixia suddenly understood that she was going to catch that perverted, cruel and mysterious murderer, but her only accomplice was the guy who didn’t seem to be conscious at all. She had no choice but to ask, “Why not inform the people of the Court of Judicial Review and the Ministry of Justice?”
“Cui Chunzhan of the Court of Judicial Review urged me to strictly guard the east of the city, as he believed the key to this case is the four-direction(s). Since he is determined and I think that I should respect his opinion – so he is setting up a net in the east of the city.”
“And where is the Ministry of Justice?”
“The person in charge of this case in the Ministry of Justice is Minister Wang Lin, the father of your fiance Wang Yun, your former father-in-law – do you want to have a face-to-face with him?”
The water waves under the bridge reflected the bright moonlight onto her face. For a moment, Li Shubai saw her expression fluctuate slightly, just like the water surface at this time, but disappeared in an instant, as if it was just an illusion cast by the moonlight on her face.
She spoke blandly, and all her emotions disappeared in the air. “Forget it, let them go to the east of the city.”
It was almost midnight when some sound finally emerged from the Wei family household. Some people lit candles inside the house, and soon after some people in the kitchen began to boil water. All of them were busy and rushing. A man put on his clothes to go out, opened the door and walked out of the yard. Someone called after him, “Midwife Liu lives in the fourth house on Chouhua lane. Don’t make a mistake!”
“Don’t worry, mother.” Although the man walked anxiously, his voice was full of joy.
Huang Zixia motionlessly stared upstairs. Li Shubai also loosened his finger and let go of the peony and said, “It seems that the lady is about to give birth.”
“Hhm,” She answered, her eyes fixed on the courtyard wall. She saw a figure walking slowly in the dark. Standing beside the pomegranate tree, making a bird sound over the garden wall to the house two times, “hoot, hoot –“
In the dark, this sharp and ominous voice was mixed with the groans of the pregnant woman in labor, which made people enervated when they heard it.
“Owl”, Li Shubai said thoughtfully, “It’s really ominous.”
The ancients said that when the owl hooted at night outside the window, it was counting people’s eyebrows. After counting, it will take away human life. The birth of a child was also said to be a tumble on the back of the coffin. So when the bird called, the people in the room jumped up. An old woman immediately ran out of the kitchen and shouted, “I’ll go and cover my daughter-in-law’s eyebrows first. Husband, come and boil the water quickly!”
The father-in-law went to the kitchen quickly. The old woman covered the eyebrows for her daughter-in-law. She heard the owl cooing twice outside the window; she quickly picked up the clothes pole next to her, ran to the yard, and hit the pomegranate tree, trying to drive the owl away.
And in that moment she left, the man had already circled to the back of the house.
Huang Zixia jumped up, but Li Shubai was faster than her. He took her hand and flew over the peony bushes. Huang Zixia felt that the wind in her ear was suddenly in chaos. After several steps of ups and downs, the shadow had already flashed into the back door.
Li Shubai kicked open the door and pushed Huang Zixia in; he didn’t go in.
Huang Zixia saw that the murderer’s dagger was held high to stab the pregnant woman’s stomach. In shock, she was pushed by Li Shubai again, staggered a few steps, and suddenly fell heavily, hitting the murderer’s side with her shoulder, and slamming him to the side.
Seeing that he was exposed, the murderer tried to escape with the dagger. Huang Zixia was lying on the ground and couldn’t stop him; she could only immediately grab the flower rack beside her and sweep it towards the murderer’s feet.
The flowerpot on the flower rack fell on the ground with a loud bang, and the murderer tripped over it and fell on the ground. Before he could stand up, Huang Zixia got up and kicked him on his wrist. The murderer felt pain shooting through his hand and couldn’t hold onto the dagger. Huang Zixia grabbed it and pressed it against his waist, “Don’t move!”
Li Shubai stood at the door and looked at her until she subdued the murderer. He said, “Not bad, you’re quite agile, however the steps are all in a mess.”
Huang Zixia was speechless, “You won’t come in to help me?” She was in this critical juncture between life and death, however, he was standing at the door, not even moving slightly of his hair under the moonlight, his whole body was bathed in the bright moon, shining like an angel.
“There is a woman in there about to give birth to a child. How can I, a man, go in?” These few words already made her at a loss of words; he looked up at the moon in the sky leisurely as he asked another question, “What’s the situation of the pregnant woman now?”
Huang Zixia did not speak, and the cry of the child rang through the whole room.
The mother-in-law, who heard the chaos in the yard, finally came to the room. She saw in the room was originally with only her daughter-in-law, but right now there was a young scholar boy, a man in black who was pointed at by the young scholar boy with a dagger, a weak daughter-in-law, a child wriggling and crying on the bed, and by the back door, there was a man standing and looking at the moon, a broken flower pot and a flower rack smashed to pieces. She was stunned and frightened, “Oh, heaven! What…what’s going on?”
Neighbors nearby heard the cry of the child, opened the window to ask, and the father-in-law also carried hot water to the door. Amidst the noise in the surroundings, Huang Zixia could only helplessly raise her head and squeeze out a smile at them, and said, “Sorry, we are here to catch the bandit.”
Father-in-law and mother-in-law looked at the dagger in her hand, then looked at each other blankly, suddenly jolted to realization just like waking up from a dream. They screamed to the outside, “Someone help, please help, bandit has come to kill—–.”
- The Gēng-diǎn (更 – 點) system uses predetermined signals to define the time during the night. Gēng (更) is a time signal given by drum or gong.
The 5 gēngs (gongs) in the night are numbered from one to five. The time between each gēng is 2 hours and 24 minutes long.
First gong; (7:10pm)
Second gong; [9:34pm]
Third gong: [12:08am]
Fourth gong: [2:32am]
and Fifth gong: [4:56am]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_timekeeping
Cloud Manor 
Hello! Sorry if I’m bothering you but is it ok if you could translate the novels 九州·朱颜记 and (九州·青蘅传 by 斩鞍?
Hi Nabi. Sorry I don’t take translate request.