From CEO to Concubine-Chapter 133: Bamboo Horse

A man might ’live’ to nine thousand years but once upon a time he was but a boy.

Supervisor Liu Suzhi of the Department of Ceremonies would go to his grave one day knowing that history would forever record him as the unscrupulous eunuch who sullied the waters of Emperor Wenchun’s harem. But no one would remember that before he had been sold into servitude by his wastrel of an uncle for drink coppers, before he had been subjected to the mercy of the callous blade in the castration room, he was but a boy.

Before the man Liu Suzhi came a boy called Shen Xi.

Shen Xi, born in the darkest hour on the coldest day of winter. He was a modest merchant’s son, which in Great Ye meant little because the merchant class sat at the bottom of societal ranks, just above the whores and the beggars and barely any better than the street pedlars that blocked the busy main streets of the marketplaces with their myriad of wares. But he had a father who loved him, a mother who doted upon him. Merchant families were by nature superstitious, so it was that a soothsayer was invited to their home at the break of dawn.

Those with rosy cheeks are born beneath an unlucky star. (1) This was not the fate that one would expect for a boy but out of fear for what his future entailed, his father changed the character for ’Xi’ in his name from one that was laudatory to one that was pejorative, out of the traditional belief that a lowborn was easier to raise than a fortunate child.

Shen Xi, named as such because he was born just as a beautiful dawn crept over the horizon.

Shen Xi, named as such because he was destined to be a flame that was extinguished in the first gust of wind.

It didn’t matter to him. A name to a child was just a name; his parents loved him with everything that they had and he wanted for nothing. The years passed, his cheeks grey rosier with each passing season, his skin fairer, his eyes brighter with a cunning mischief that endeared him to even the sternest of servants in the household.

And then, one day when he was eight, he met a kindly ’big brother’ when lost at a festival, and who escorted him home thinking he was a lost little girl. This older brother was tall, strong, and carried himself with the pride of a soldier even as he impressed Shen Xi with his refined manners. Shen Xi might not have known this at that time, but at the end of the day, no matter how rich a merchant might be or how lavish a life they led, nobility was carved in the flesh and bone, not in how many gold taels one owned.

"Shen Xi?" Big Brother Pan asked while ruffling his hair. "Xi like ’precious’ or Xi like ’the dawn’?"

Xi like ’to wither’, ’to die’, ’to fade away’, he couldn’t bring himself to say, and for the first time in his life, felt the burn of humiliation as, for the first time too, he learnt to lie.

"Ah Xi." Whenever Big Brother Pan called him, Shen Xi knew that at least one person in the world meant for him to represent the brightness of the morning sun.

No more needed to be said about Shen Xi’s childhood because those were the happiest times of his life but in this day and age, happy times were often short-lived. He didn’t need to recall golden afternoons spent perusing the street stalls with Big Brother Pan, childishly proud that Big Brother Pan, who was the crown prince’s study companion, would choose to indulge him with his company. Or lazy evenings revelling in the quaint teahouses, pestering Big Brother Pan to divulge more stories about the frontier, where Big Brother Pan’s father was currently holding fort. It was a pity that merchants were banned from participating in imperial examinations due to the disregard the ruling class held for them but Shen Xi harboured a dream of one day following Big Brother Pan into battle at his side.

This was not a dream he wished to recall either.

He was eleven or twelve summers—it was hard to remember when the days blurred into one meaningless passing of time to another—when news of his father’s death arrived on their doorstep. The old man had been on a trade excursion to see if there were brighter prospects for the family business in the west but had fallen prey to bandits. Not long after, his mother followed in his footsteps, her grief exacerbating the illness that trapped itself in her chest at the start of every winter. It was said by physicians that his father’s prolonged absences from the household had caused an imbalance in the yin and yang in her body, with the resulting Qi obstruction impeding her breathing (2).

Whatever the reason, Shen Xi was left alone in the world. Or perhaps, it would have been better if he had been, but instead, with a last, trembling sigh, his mother handed him into the care of her brother-in-law, perhaps hoping that he would love him as a son, for his uncle had not yet had any of his own.

Evidently, his uncle didn’t need any as he was capable only of love for himself. Under the guise of raising Shen Xi, he helped himself to the small fortune Shen Xi’s parents left to him, going so far as to waste his sister’s dowry on the flowers in the brothels. To add insult to injury, it didn’t take long for him to start eyeing Shen Xi speculatively, with a calculative gleam that left Shen Xi barring the doors to his quarters tightly every night, shaking like a leaf behind the curtains of his bed that he foolishly believed would protect him from the outside world. He had no one else to save him from whatever thoughts were running through his uncle’s mind now that Big Brother Pan was at war and had to protect himself somehow whilst waiting for his return.

He didn’t manage to hold out until the north quietened down again. It was his uncle’s greed that saved Shen Xi from him.

The Shen Family might have amassed a respectable amount of wealth due to his father’s hard work but it was by no means lavish. Thus, his uncle soon found himself running out of wine money, around the same time he began to notice that his dear nephew had inherited the looks of his vixenish mother, whom he had always fantasised about lasciviously. From the elegant slope of his nose to his fair creamy skin and those eyes that haunted his wildest dreams...

But he couldn’t touch the goods or they wouldn’t sell for much. And perhaps good luck was always relative because the imperial palace chose that year to hire more eunuchs and palace maids and his uncle, aware that a child with Shen Xi’s looks and upbringing would fetch a fair price, sold him off without a second thought.

Unlucky star. A life of suffering, of hardship, of grief. Shen Xi supposed he should be grateful the disgusting lecher didn’t find the brothels the more suitable option. Perhaps he had the innate selfishness of men to thank for that; what his uncle couldn’t have, he didn’t want anyone else to enjoy either.

Or maybe not. After all, that thought process was flawed. There was no better place for beauty to shine than within the confines of the inner palace. As his uncle had expected, Shen Xi was indeed the sort of servant the high-ranking eunuchs sought to make their godson. Lovelier than the concubines and more educated than the poor man’s sons, he could also be charming, smart, or elegant when the occasion called for it. Even his injuries from castration had healed prettily, pale pink scar tissue instead of the ugly twisted gnarled mess he’d caught a glimpse of when his fellow eunuchs were washing up. The healthy state of his wounds meant that where other eunuchs often had difficulties with the act of relieving themselves, the acrid stench of piss lingering on their robes no matter how much they perfumed their bodies with incense, Liu Suzhi had no such problems.

Thus, it was of no surprise that he soon obtained gainful employment as an indoor servant in the palaces, pleasing the masters and mistresses with his looks and witticisms.

A beautiful silkworm embryo (3). Even the cocoon it spun for itself would be resplendent.

It was only a matter of time before someone paid attention. And someone did.

There was no need to remember that day either because Shen Xi didn’t allow himself to ruminate on it after, not on the filthy hands that had pinned him down into the soil in a quiet corner of the imperial garden, his cries for help muffled by his own servant’s tunic, torn off him roughly and shoved into his mouth. He particularly did not want to think about how the weight above him was kicked off with a startled cry or the kind, handsome face that swam into view straight after, the sunset illuminating it from the back like a regal crown.

If he had known what Crown Prince Liu Zhuo was truly like, if he hadn’t let himself trust blindly just because this was who Big Brother Pan had pledged loyalty to, perhaps things might have turned out differently. Perhaps he might have been violated by that disgusting imperial guard, the one that Liu Zhuo executed not long after, but it would have been a small price to pay for never piquing Liu Zhuo’s interest.

That night, Shen Xi died and Liu Suzhi, the crown prince’s personal eunuch, was born.

There were many things that Liu Suzhi would never forgive Liu Zhuo for but once, a long, forgotten time ago, he had been grateful to his liege. Crown Prince Liu Zhuo hadn’t been what he’d imagined from listening to Big Brother Pan’s stories—he was, softer somehow, weaker somehow, or perhaps Liu Suzhi was so used to putting his big brother on a pedestal that no one else could compare—but he was the only connection to familiarity that Liu Suzhi had left, even if that link to Big Brother Pan was tenuous. Liu Zhuo was gentle with him too, taking the hapless chick under his wing and protecting him from the hidden perils of the inner palace.

He was too young to understand where this generosity was coming from—and it certainly wasn’t out of the goodness of anyone’s heart. Liu Zhuo was an expert, concealed the warning signs so well that simple, spoiled Shen Xi, pampered since birth, couldn’t pick up on them even as Liu Suzhi.

For someone so bright in his studies, one could say that he was a veritable idiot in other aspects. He didn’t think anything of the furtive whispering that stopped whenever he entered a room, didn’t understand why the crown princess and the other concubines of the eastern palace frowned upon his presence, why he was not allowed in the company of Liu Zhuo’s six-year-old son for fear of being an ’influence’.

If the Shen Family built him a cage out of love, Liu Zhuo’s cage was made of a different material.

Winter changed to spring. On the fifteenth new year of Liu Suzhi’s life, his eyes met Big Brother—no, now newly promoted to General, a mere servant could no longer still address him with the same casual affection of little children. His eyes met General Pan’s across the banquet hall. The easy smile that had graced the lips of General Pan all evening fell from his face and his cheeks, flushed from the headiness of their magnificent victory up north and the endless flow of toasts he’d had to endure, drained of blood.

"Ah Xi?" he thought he saw General Pan mouth in disbelief.

Welcome back, Big Brother. You’re late but I’m glad to see you nonetheless.

He thought that he’d lowered his lashes in time to hide the tears in them and indeed, General Pan had been too far to notice the wetness at the corners of their fox-like curl glistening in the lantern light.

But someone else had.

"You’ve never said how you’re acquainted with General Pan." Before that night, the crown prince had never asked. Liu Suzhi had just assumed it was because it was inappropriate for a servant to be discussing an esteemed military official behind his back and had held his tongue in consideration of the ever-widening gap between their statuses.

If he hadn’t been such an idiot, if he’d learnt to fend for himself, nurtured the caution required to guard his own back and turned it against his own master, perhaps things might have been very different.

Instead, he was foolish. Heart racing at this reunion, he forgot his place, he didn’t remember to be prudent.

He smiled at the man who would become his greatest enemy whilst giving away his biggest weakness for free.

"We were childhood friends," he said, the faint blush on his face betraying everything he left unspoken. "Bamboo horses (4)."

He didn’t have to wait long to learn just how fragile bamboo—and emotions—could be.

But maybe he should have known. After all, that was his destiny.