Scheming Emperor X Hunting Eunuch - Chapter 2.1

A dark shadow slowly crept up to the door.

Wuli gripped a carving knife in his hand and silently pushed open the door.

He first went to the first bed and lifted the blanket.

No one was there.

He shook his head, suddenly sensing something. He furrowed his brow and looked up toward the opposite bed.

“Ghost! A ghost!”

A heart-rending scream echoed through the courtyard in the middle of the night.

Wuli’s fat body collapsed entirely to the floor. His trembling legs had no strength to stand, and he could only scrape along the ground as he retreated.

On the bed by the window, a brown figure slowly turned over and sat up.

Wuli clutched the door frame tightly, his tear-streaked face suddenly frozen.

“Sorry for startling you, my apologies.” Pei Yanci smiled kindly.

“What are you doing here!” Wuli glared with wide eyes and roared angrily.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Wuli, you’re back? Are you alright?”

“None of your business, go back to your rooms and sleep.” Wuli irritably shooed away the people from the neighboring rooms who had been awakened by the commotion.

“What’s this smell?” someone suddenly spoke up, the tumor beside his nose jiggling as he sniffed.

Wiping the sweat from his face, Wuli only then noticed there was a dark stain on the ground where he sat.

He was extremely embarrassed. Having others see this scene made him even more mortified.

He sat awkwardly on the ground, laboriously shuffling toward the shadows behind the door.

“Yanci, why are you in Wuli and Fei Yuan’s room?” someone from the neighboring room poked his head out and asked strangely. “In the middle of the night, what are you doing here playing ghost?”

“Wu Luo’s coughing is quite loud. Since we’re both either injured or ill, it’s inconvenient for us to recover in the same room.” Pei Yanci said, getting up and walking to the door, tossing an outer garment onto the ground. “So I thought I’d stay here temporarily for a few nights.”

Fei Yuan was dead, so his bed would be vacant for some time. He could stay here.

“If you’re staying here, won’t that leave an empty bed in Wu Luo’s room for the next few days?” someone’s eyes immediately lit up.

Another person said, “Yanci, why don’t I just swap rooms with you directly? My room is big and bright, and doesn’t have any musty smell.”

“Your room gets sun all year round. In summer you can’t even set foot in it. Trading the worst room for the best – aren’t you taking advantage of Yanci’s honest nature?” yet another person said. “My room is better than his. I’ll swap with you.”

“Your roommate snores like firecrackers when he sleeps, and has smelly feet too. Aren’t you also deceiving him?”

“Yanci, are we still brothers or not? If you’re swapping rooms, you should think of me first.”

Pei Yanci looked at the other two with difficulty, appearing helpless. “Please understand, my good brother has already spoken up. What other choice do I have?”

The two men’s eyes immediately flashed with disappointment, but they understood and returned to their rooms somewhat resentfully.

That servant happily went back to pack his belongings, looking like he wouldn’t delay even a night.

Pei Yanci dismissed the remaining servants who had come to watch the excitement with a few words and closed the door.

Wuli by the door stood up from the ground, tossed aside the outer garment that had been blocking him, and thinking of the scene just now, couldn’t help but feel sorrowful. He sighed, “If Fei Yuan were here now, he would surely get his wish to room with Wu Luo.”

Pei Yanci casually agreed, “That would be a pity indeed.”

Wuli went to the courtyard outside to fetch water for washing. When he returned, his body was clean. Seeing Pei Yanci still lying on Fei Yuan’s bed, he said, “Why aren’t you leaving yet? Someone has already agreed to swap rooms with you.”

“Wu Luo is ill and sleeps lightly. Packing bedding now would disturb him.”

“Now you’re being considerate of him,” Wuli said with disgust. “If you truly considered him a good brother, you wouldn’t mind his coughing disturbing your sleep.”

“I only said that because it was a convenient excuse to give up the room and avoid continued resentment.” Pei Yanci turned over toward him. Seeing Wuli wiping the carving knife in his hands, he raised an eyebrow slightly. “Do you have a habit of keeping weapons for protection while sleeping?”

“No, this is Fei Yuan’s knife. A while ago he said he wanted to carve a sandalwood bracelet for Wu Luo for protection, but who would have thought…” Wuli choked up. “Fei Yuan, your big brother is useless. I could only let those scoundrels take your body away. Later you’ll be used to slander His Highness the Crown Prince, waahhhhh…”

Pei Yanci’s eyelids, which were about to close, were interrupted by his continuous wailing. He gave up on sleeping and said, “It’s really not that serious. His clothes weren’t anything special – ordinary servants all dress like that. Even if the Elu Bureau wanted to investigate which household the servant belonged to and searched his body, finding an entry token for the Crown Prince’s Mansion and proving he was His Highness’s man, at most the Elu Bureau people would privately use this matter to mock the Crown Prince a few times. It couldn’t possibly become a big issue.”

A menial servant wouldn’t be taken seriously by anyone.

He carried too little weight.

“Really?” Wuli remained suspicious. “You must know that the Crown Prince has a tremendous grudge against that old eunuch from the Elu Bureau, right? Our Crown Prince is isolated and powerless. I’m truly afraid that someday the Elu Bureau will kill him, and we servants will be buried with him. Wouldn’t I die unjustly then?”

Pei Yanci: “……”

He had originally thought this one was loyal and devoted.

He was.

But not much.

Still, it was understandable.

Ordinary official residences mostly had house-born servants who, being utterly loyal, could be used with confidence. But princes’ mansions were different. They only established their own households after coming of age and leaving the palace. The trusted confidants they could bring from their birth mothers were limited. If their maternal family was weak and they themselves were not favored, they could only buy servants from outside, whose loyalty would be much less reliable.

Wuli was obviously a servant bought from outside. If he were truly house-born, he would have been promoted to steward long ago rather than being a mere servant doing the most exhausting and bitter work in the kitchen – something he learned from chatting with the kitchen women when he asked them to heat water in the evening.

As for someone like Pei Yanci, his status was the lowest. He wasn’t from a respectable family background and had a brand on the back of his neck – the mark of a hereditary criminal slave whose ancestors had committed crimes. Except for extraordinary imperial grace, he himself and his children would be slaves and servants for generations, subject to beatings and orders from others.

“However,” Wuli’s eyes brightened with excitement, “Fei Yuan went out today by bribing the gatekeeper woman to let him slip out of the residence. He wasn’t carrying his token.”

The residence had strict rules. Ordinary servants like them who ran errands couldn’t leave the residence privately, let alone cause trouble at will. If there was business to attend to, the steward would give the servants and maids below business tokens – they all relied on these tokens to enter and exit through the back door.

“Then there’s even less to worry about. You can rest completely at ease.” Pei Yanci yawned.

He really wanted to sleep now.

Seeing that he was about to lie down again, Wuli said dissatisfied, “Earlier in the alley behind the tavern, why didn’t you speak up?”

This person appeared kind but was actually full of malicious schemes. He probably wanted to watch him get caught by the Elu Bureau people while stealing the corpse.

“Oh right,” Wuli remembered something, his tear-filled eyes still holding unresolved suspicion. “What were you really doing when you secretly slipped out today?”

Seeing that Pei Yanci ignored him, he continued, “Don’t worry, just tell me. I definitely won’t tell a third person. I just want to resolve this knot in my heart.”

Pei Yanci was thoroughly annoyed by him. He opened his eyes and casually gave a perfunctory response, “Xiangqing Tavern has good food. I was buying some dishes for Wu Luo. He caught a cold and has no appetite for eating.”

Wuli stared at him fixedly. After a long while, he said, “You really haven’t tasted good food before.”

Pei Yanci: “……”

“If you acknowledge me as your big brother, even the Crown Prince will have to eat your leftovers in the future.”

He could no longer be bothered with this fat man and turned over to sleep.

****

The next day, Wu Shu came early to deliver medicine to Pei Yanci, change his dressing, and help bandage his wounds carefully and patiently.

Pei Yanci stared at his barely visible Adam’s apple, his eyes slightly lost in thought, when he heard “All done” from above his head.

His thoughts interrupted, he didn’t dwell on it further. He left Wuli’s room with Wu Shu, and during their casual conversation on the road, he gathered some information.

Strangely, the Crown Prince usually lived reclusively, leading a simple and leisurely life. There weren’t many eunuchs who should have served in the residence and managed most of its affairs – only Chief Steward Zhang and a few trusted confidants he had brought with him. Everyone else was servants bought from outside.

Because of this, people like them had opportunities to become stewards.

Take Fei Yuan, for example.

Fei Yuan and Wuli usually called each other brothers, and he had a good relationship with the original owner. Some time ago, word came from above that they needed to select a new steward for the tea room. Fei Yuan was usually good at handling people and had always been extremely popular. Everyone thought he would become the steward. There were congratulations and invitations to drinks, creating a fuss for half a month, but there was never any movement.

A few days ago, he got wind from other stewards that Chief Steward Zhang was still hesitating between the original owner and him.

Others had already offered their congratulations, and he had already hosted drinks. If he didn’t become steward in the end, Fei Yuan would become the laughingstock of the entire residence.

A young man in his twenties, hot-blooded and face-conscious, how could he tolerate such a result?

Yesterday’s decision to follow and track him was nothing more than wanting to catch some damaging evidence from his “abnormal” behavior, thereby attacking and eliminating his competitor.

His final murderous intent was probably also an attempt to fish in troubled waters, framing the original owner’s death on the Elu Bureau – at the time, it seemed like perfect timing and circumstances.

By a twist of fate, Pei Yanci lost a competitor.

“Brother Fei Yuan isn’t a good person either. These past two days he’s been spreading rumors everywhere that you and Brother Wu Luo are having an improper relationship.” Wu Shu said, pouting with displeasure. “And you too, why did you get so close to Brother Wu Luo?”

Ha, so they were also rivals in love.

Pei Yanci touched his injured head.

“Brother Wu Luo is kind to people, has a good temper, and is physically weak. Usually everyone looks out for him a bit. Sometimes I help too. I just don’t know why, but I just don’t like him when I look at him.”

“You’re still young. You’ll understand later.” Pei Yanci said.

He had just learned that Wu Shu was only nine years old, the youngest servant in the residence. His father died in an accident while working and was thrown on the roadside by his master’s family. The body had rotted before anyone discovered it. Later, the clan members went to make trouble, and only then did they obtain fifty wen for burial expenses. But the mother and son never saw the silver, and their house and fields were seized. They were expelled from the clan registry. The orphaned mother and son couldn’t survive, so they sold themselves to human traffickers.

“Later, mother was bought by Chief Steward Zhang. The residence had enough maids, and the chief steward originally didn’t want to take more people. Fortunately, I’m male. The chief steward saw that we mother and son were helpless and pitiful, so he agreed and let me follow Steward Yue, who manages the storehouse, to learn bookkeeping.”

Pei Yanci listened to Wu Shu’s chatter. They encountered a servant coming toward them who greeted them both. The servant’s attitude toward Pei Yanci seemed a bit better, and there was even a hint of faint sympathy in his eyes.

When they passed by his original room, he finally understood what that sympathy was about.

His shoes, socks, bedding, clothes, and the tea bowls and other items the previous owner commonly used were scattered messily across half the courtyard, deliberately thrown outside the eaves and soaked by spring rain all night, terribly dirty.

“Oh, Yanci, you’re here. Look at my impatient nature. Last night when you said you’d swap rooms with me, I moved in right away. Thinking that you have a head injury and it’s inconvenient for you, I helped you pack and organize everything.”

The servant who had swapped rooms with Pei Yanci the night before smiled enthusiastically. Walking outside, as if he had just noticed the courtyard’s condition, he feigned surprise. “Oh my, how did it become so messy? It must be those women who love to take advantage of small gains, thinking these worn-out things were unwanted and wanting to find something valuable among them. Those women are just annoying.”

Wu Shu quickly walked over, saying angrily, “Anyone can see you threw these yourself. How can you blame it on the women? You’re just a scoundrel! A rogue! And Brother Yanci was so kind to swap rooms with you.”