HLCOB C30

Chapter 30

The Emperor decided to withdraw the power he had granted to the eunuchs.

“Chief Attendant Wang knows the Throne well… so why make such a racket.”

Every civil and military official gathered in the great hall sensed it at once. This was not the Emperor who used to let any fault of the eunuchs pass; the Emperor had changed.

“Attend.”

For the eunuchs, only downfall now lay ahead. The only justification by which they had maintained power was the Emperor’s favor.

“Cut out Wang Bo’s tongue.”

At the Emperor’s words, the soldiers drew their blades.

Shrrk—!

A single scream rang out. The noisy hall fell silent. A dreadful stillness settled. In that silence, the smiling Emperor spoke.

“Has no one more to say?”

No one answered.

The Qingliu had no disagreement with impeaching Wang Bo; the Zhuoliu were terrified their own tongues would be cut.

“Then let us end here.”

With a bored look, the Emperor rose.

As the Emperor left the hall, the murderous air that had lain over it dispersed as well. The ministers broke up with sighs of relief—some grateful to be alive, some relieved the Emperor had finally changed, some sensing their own turn might not be far off.

Yet one remained in the hall.

“Yirang Im.”

It was the eunuch Zhang Rang.

“…You’ve staged something rather amusing.”

At Zhang Rang’s abrupt words, offered without greeting, Jaheon smiled, recalling the assassins who had come over the wall to find him.

“As it happens, a meeting with Your Excellency was on the mind.”

“…You thought to seek me?”

“Yes. Having received a gift, it is only right to offer thanks.”

All in Luoyang knew that Wang Bo had tried to ruin Jaheon. Yet until yesterday, someone had been sending assassins to him on a regular basis. And if Jaheon were killed by such an attack, whom would people think the killer?

“……”

All would think Wang Bo had done it. Thus Jaheon could easily guess who had sent the assassins.

“Had I accepted that gift, would not Chief Attendant Wang be cursing Your Excellency from hell?”

It was the sort of sinister ploy Zhang Rang favored—eliminate a rival by using another’s hand.

Unable to deny it, Zhang Rang’s lips twitched.

“Did you tell His Majesty that?”

With a sharpened look, he pressed Jaheon.

“Is that why His Majesty turned his mind?”

Zhang Rang knew it well.

None of this could have happened without the Emperor’s leave. So he pressed Jaheon. If the Emperor had resolved to purge the eunuchs completely, Zhang Rang’s death was not far off.

“How could a mere subject know the Throne’s heart.”

Nor could Jaheon tell what moved the Emperor to act thus.

“Only…”

Only, Jaheon knew the Emperor’s taboos with perfect clarity.

“This was a scheme that would have been impossible had Your Excellency not been in‑laws with Lady He.”

“……!”

This was an Emperor who had sent even his son outside the palace lest the balance of power be twisted.

In short, the Emperor did not desire the overgrowth of any force beyond his control. Therefore this purge was not aimed at Wang Bo alone; it was directed at Zhang Rang, who sought to gather into his grasp the consort and affinal forces behind Wang Bo, together with the Turbid‑Stream officials at court.

“Even without me, it would have come to pass in time.”

In the original course of events, Zhang Rang had carefully raised Lady He to Empress. But history was diverted by Jaheon’s appearance. Using Jaheon to provoke the eunuchs, the Emperor had led that cautious, sinister Zhang Rang to make a rash choice. Perhaps, in the end, this was the outcome the Emperor desired.

“I was…”

Power placed in foolish hands eventually forces a mistake.

“…in His Majesty’s palm from the start.”

With lips trembling in anger, Zhang Rang asked in a low voice,

“Then why not, with that beguiling tongue, impeach me as well while you had the chance? If the Throne meant to discard this Zhang Rang one day…!”

Cutting him off, Jaheon said,

“It is not yet time.”

Jaheon needed Zhang Rang.

“What?”

“It is not yet your time to die—because you still have use to me.”

So long as Zhang Rang was Lady He’s in‑law, he needed to live; to make Lady He Empress, Jaheon needed the help of the man who controlled real power within the palace.

“And you think I will heed those words now?”

At being treated as a mere piece, Zhang Rang flushed red.

“You would insult me so?”

He had always treated others thus; he had not thought to be treated so himself, and he fumed to leap—

“You will have no choice but to help.”

“What?”

Jaheon spoke, gazing at the empty hall.

“Do you think the Zhuoliu will still follow the eunuchs?”

Before all the ministers, Wang Bo had slandered He Jin to save himself. For Wang Bo, it was the right choice. For the eunuchs, it was not. It shattered the tacit trust between the Zhuoliu and the eunuchs. It showed that the eunuchs would abandon fellow Zhuoliu men at any time to save their own skins.

“They are no longer the eunuchs of old.”

And even if once they had wielded unchecked power, now the eunuchs might be purged at any time with a single word from Jaheon. There would be no Turbid‑Stream gentry willing to join hands with such eunuchs. Even those Zhuoliu who had bowed to power had once been scholar‑officials who scorned eunuchs.

“Moreover, they have betrayed even trust.”

So would the Zhuoliu now follow the eunuchs? By no means. In a world of explicit ranks, a eunuch without imperial favor was but a palace slave. The gentry would instead seize the moment to vent the accumulated resentment they bore the eunuchs.

“Your Excellency Zhang.”

Zhang Rang understood.

It was not Jaheon who had lost his forces; it was the eunuchs whose limbs had been lopped off. With a single strike, Jaheon had overturned the board—and even reversed attack and defense.

“There is no choice to be made.”

In the end, the only path for Zhang Rang’s faction to recover was to raise his in‑law Lady He to Empress. Making Lady He, who had joined hands with Jaheon, the Empress—and her son the Crown Prince—was the only way for Zhang Rang, who could not leave the palace, to survive.

“Do you know? My name is not a single character.”

In this age, a non‑single‑character name often meant much—non‑Han blood, or a birth so mean that advancement was nearly impossible. By origin, Jaheon was no different from the eunuchs.

In the end, the answer was already fixed.

From the moment Jaheon joined hands with Lady He, from the moment he struck Wang Bo, everything was foreordained.

“Therefore, it will be better for you to take my hand.”

At that moment, Zhang Rang felt a shiver of déjà vu.

It was the feeling from when the thirteen‑year‑old Emperor had used the eunuchs to seize the court.

It was not even two months.

A boy who had suddenly appeared in Luoyang had turned the court upside down. And defying everyone’s expectation that the Qingliu would be purged yet again, that boy had even impeached the eunuch Wang Bo. The name of Jaheon, who had brought down the mighty eunuchs, spread far and wide.

“Ha ha ha!”

At the news, Wang Yun roared with laughter.

“My lord! An imperial decree has arrived! Censor‑in‑Chief Wang Yun is commanded to come up to Luoyang and seek out all involved in this affair and punish them severely!”

And the news matched exactly what Jaheon had sent to Wang Yun by express letter a week before.

Chief Attendant Wang Bo would be impeached, and to fill that vacancy the Emperor would advance Wang Yun’s promotion.

“To think that Im Jaheon would keep his promise so swiftly!”

In short, Jaheon kept his word.

He kept his pledge to establish a base in Luoyang and become the Emperor’s other “eunuch.” Not only that—he even delivered to Wang Yun the support of provincial great families drawn by Jaheon’s growing fame.

“Yet, my lord—his ability is no common thing.”

“If Im Jaheon should harbor other designs in Luoyang, we would have no means to act.”

Wang Yun’s retainers were not unreservedly favorable to Jaheon; he was too extraordinary. Who would have thought anyone could so soon wrest imperial favor from the eunuchs?

“To remain as we are with Im Jaheon is rife with danger.”

“Indeed. Even the servants we sent now follow Im Jaheon more than us!”

For now, as long as Choseon was in Wang Yun’s hand, Jaheon would work for him—but returning to Luoyang would surely change matters. For the sake of his sister, there was nothing Jaheon would not do.

A sure way was needed to keep Jaheon bound.

But Wang Yun smiled.

“Enough. On that matter, there is something prepared— we shall speak of it in due course.”

“…Something prepared, my lord?”

“A hunt does not end when the prey is brought down.”

Through Jaheon, the Qingliu had drawn breath again.

So all expected the Qingliu to rise.

Had not Wang Bo, the most powerful among the eunuchs, fallen miserably? Yet how many key offices had his faction held? Now, with the common enemy collapsing, how many Qingliu would resist foolish thoughts? And would the Zhuoliu sit idle?

Wang Yun was certain.

“It is more troublesome to deal with the crows that rush to devour the carcass.”

Worse strife than now would soon break out in Luoyang.