HLCOB C16

Chapter 16

Jaheon’s golden eyes quivered. At the faint tremor at their corners, the Emperor smiled.

“Will you not ask why?”

“……”

“Why did you seek to entice the Throne?”

No wonder the stratagem had seemed to unfold so smoothly. Finding himself at the very worst of the outcomes he had anticipated, Jaheon swallowed.

“Do you know that spreading vain rumors is the crime of deceiving the sovereign?”

Deceiving the sovereign.

In truth, there is no one who does not in some way “deceive” a ruler, yet matters change when the Emperor speaks the fact aloud. As the word Jaheon least wished to hear issued from imperial lips, his brow knit.

“Before that, this humble one has something to ask, Your Majesty.”

At Jaheon’s words, the Emperor laughed.

“…Didn’t Attendant Wang tell you?”

“Was the one who guided me Attendant Wang, Your Majesty?”

“Yes. One of the attendants the Throne favors. Did he tell you nothing?”

Favors, does he. Jaheon scoffed inwardly. He could not begin to imagine how many had died before a eunuch learned the Emperor’s temperament. Drawing a breath, Jaheon replied,

“No, Your Majesty. Attendant Wang told me to refrain from asking questions.”

At that, the Emperor, face bored, propped his chin and asked,

“Then why did you ask?”

He added lightly,

“Were you not about to make the Throne scold him?”

“……”

“For failing to teach you proper etiquette.”

At the Emperor’s answer, darting in an unexpected direction, Jaheon’s lips trembled. Whatever the eunuchs were as sycophants, what fault had the man who merely showed him the way? Jaheon replied,

“It is the fault of a rude subject; pray, withdraw your anger from Attendant Wang, Your Majesty.”

Eyes lowered, Jaheon answered with submission. Timed just so, the Emperor rolled the dice in his fingers and spoke.

“Then let us hear your question.”

The lightless imperial eyes fixed upon Jaheon. A misplaced word would surely cost his head. And yet, the more Jaheon spoke with the Emperor, the more a certain conviction grew.

“Your Majesty.”

From the moment of entering Luoyang to this very day, there were oddities in the chain of events: the rumor that spread with his gender inverted, the imperial rescript arriving the moment he confined Cao Cao, and even the Emperor who had brought him here alive despite knowing he had, in essence, deceived.

“Why do you not put this humble one to death?”

Perhaps the Emperor had never intended to kill him at all. On that conjecture, Jaheon staked his life. At his answer, the Emperor smiled.

“The Throne thought you would ask something else.”

“What question, Your Majesty?”

“When the Throne uncovered your thinking—you were going to ask that.”

“……!”

At the words, Jaheon’s face hardened. The Emperor smiled at his expression.

“At last, a human look crosses your face.”

At the Emperor’s enigmatic words, Jaheon’s mind spun without cease. Had the Emperor read his thoughts long ago? Since when? Then why had the Emperor consented to be snared? And the reason the rumor inverted his gender? A hundred thoughts rose and fell.

“Hah.”

But all that was useless.

It was already past. Only the single conclusion to emerge from Jaheon’s mind mattered.

“From the moment Lord Wang’s recommendation to Luoyang was decided?”

The present Emperor, Liu Hong, is counted among the darkest tyrants of the Later Han, yet up to his dying breath he crushed every rebellion and wielded absolute power from the throne. What did that mean? Surveillance at its zenith.

The Emperor laughed.

“Shrewd.”

“……”

At the quiet words, Jaheon’s darting eyes lowered as he prostrated himself. Instinct spoke: this was an opportunity.

“You have tolerated this humble one’s deception to check the attendants, have you not?”

Now at last Jaheon understood.

Why the Emperor had stepped into every snare while knowing, why he had watched Wang Yun—there was but one answer.

Though he wrought every depredation, the Emperor’s might endured because he set his ministers at one another’s throats and, by that pretext, purged them without end. The attendants were only the Emperor’s blade. But what if that blade sought its own will? Jaheon murmured,

“Your Majesty requires a tongue to restrain the attendants?”

The Emperor gave no answer. But Jaheon lifted his head and looked up at him.

“In that case…”

His heart began to pound.

“Will Your Majesty entrust the task to this humble one and Lord Wang?”

A way to gain power lay visible before his eyes.

Chief Attendant Wang Bo.

One of the real powers of the eunuch faction, one of the men who gripped the palace. Before him, Zhang Rang—his cheeks black‑swollen with bruises—looked at Wang Bo with a hard gaze and said,

“…That boy—will His Majesty have killed him?”

Rubbing his cheek, Zhang Rang ground his teeth. Wang Bo laughed at the sight.

“Why are you so fixated on that young ‘lord’?”

Wang Bo recalled Jaheon’s face. Though a man, he was said to be so beautiful as to draw the Emperor’s eye—but that was all.

“No matter how beautiful, a man cannot enter the harem; His Majesty must have summoned him just to look.”

“…Summoned merely to look?”

Pursing his lips, Zhang Rang recalled the Emperor who had pressed him so coldly. Half‑closing one eye, Zhang sank into thought.

“Do you take His Majesty for such a dull man?”

The Emperor was not a fool. While seeming to leave all in eunuch hands, he never relinquished full command of the Imperial Guards; while seeming sunk in pleasure and indulgence, at the moment imperial power was imperiled he would purge even eunuchs like a specter.

Nor was it as the people thought—that the eunuchs siphoned off state funds to fill their personal vaults. The money in eunuch coffers was not truly theirs; it was the Emperor’s slush, of which the eunuchs could spend a part as the fee for keeping it.

Such was the Emperor’s meticulousness.

“He must have a plan.”

There was no way the Emperor acted without thought. All the luxury the eunuchs enjoyed was under his tacit leave; it was possible because the eunuchs, using their Turbid Stream underlings, crushed the scholar‑officials who opposed the Emperor at every turn.

“She cannot even be Empress—what’s so important?”

With a shrug, Wang Bo spoke to the overwrought Zhang.

“Didn’t Lady He bear a son? At the first good chance, she’ll be made Empress. Since she’s so favored—once she becomes Empress…”

“…Empress?”

At that instant, Zhang lifted his head. About to take his leave, Wang Bo faltered under Zhang’s stare. Wide, glaring eyes and swollen cheeks. A killing chill. A monster’s face.

Startled, Wang Bo asked,

“Why that look? Did I say something wrong?”

“…Did you just say Empress?”

At Zhang’s words, Wang Bo nodded.

“Yes. Empress—the highest station a woman can rise to by imperial favor.”

At that, Zhang burst out laughing.

“Hahaha.”

“Attendant Zhang?”

To tell the truth, Zhang had felt reassured upon hearing the one summoned was a man. He wanted an Empress he could hold in his hand and turn at will. Should the Emperor die, the Empress would become Empress Dowager, and the Dowager could wield full power in the Emperor’s stead.

Thus Zhang had fretted that Wang Yun’s adopted daughter might become a stumbling block to his plan. But thinking now, that was no matter.

“For a woman, the highest place favor can raise her is Empress—and that is the end.”

Zhang murmured low.

“Then how high do you think a man can rise by imperial favor?”

“……?!”

The inner palace is the eunuchs’ domain. The favored Lady He had clasped hands with Zhang; even the inner women’s quarters were a eunuchs’ world. Were the person an adopted daughter, the tale would be easier still: there were a thousand ways to have her vanish without a trace upon entering the harem.

But if he were a man?

Favored as a man, Jaheon would move outside the eunuchs’ sphere of power.

“Emperor Ai raised Dong Xian to the Three Excellencies before he even came of age.”

Zhang clenched his fist. His hand trembled. An Empress could be managed; a great minister favored by the Emperor could not be controlled.

“Dong Xian was Emperor Ai’s lover.”

Imperial favor toward a man could raise him to an entirely different plane of office. Does not Sima Qian’s Records say it? A man of handsome looks could, by that alone, ascend to office. For women, even the heights are Empress and then Dowager; but for men, it was otherwise.

They could grasp all power.

Did not Emperor Ai once even seek to abdicate in favor of Dong Xian?

“Now—what is this…”

Having caught up, Wang Bo’s face too went rigid.

And then—

“Attendant Zhang! Attendant Wang!”

Cao Chong—one of the Ten Attendants—came scurrying down the corridor in comic fashion, shouting.

“His Majesty…!”

The short, stubby Cao Chong flung open the door to their room and cried out,

“Has appointed Im Jaheon as Yirang(2)!”

Footnotes:

1. “Deceiving the sovereign” in imperial codes could cover rumor‑mongering that touched the ruler’s dignity; here it is wielded as pressure rather than punishment, revealing the Emperor’s tactical leniency.
2. Yirang – Han dynasty title yìláng (議郎), literally “Discourse Gentleman,” an imperial court post that combined prestige, access, and advisory duties without being among the very highest ministers