Sharing a Pavilion With You
Chapter 92: Suicide by Poison

Chapter 92: Suicide by Poison

The Second Prince walked along the line of palace eunuchs they had gathered in the light rain, glaring into their eyes, wondering which one of them could have been desperate enough to take money in exchange for murder.

He watched the shaking arms and hands of one smaller fellow. Could that be him, shaking with nerves?

Sergeant Wu knew the plan.

"Turn around!" he ordered the eunuchs, who did as they were told. "Now unlace your robes and bare your backs!"

There was great consternation at this order.

"Sergeant Wu," called the most senior eunuch among this sweep of the eunuchs who had reason to be in the vicinity of the Emperor’s garden, "is this appropriate? Shouldn’t you take us all into a room if you’re asking us to strip?"

Sergeant Wu looked to the Second Prince, who nodded at him to proceed as planned.

"Do as you’ve been ordered!" he barked. "Don’t make me ask a second time!"

Most of the eunuchs began untying their yesa robes and dropping them off their shoulders to bare their backs, holding them tight across their chests to preserve their modesty, so far as possible.

A smallish fellow hidden in the middle of the second row suddenly snuck out of his position and made a running break for the gate to the courtyard.

Sergeant Wu motioned at his men to take the man down and he was crash tackled before he’d made it even halfway there.

He struggled and screamed under the weight of the two soldiers who knelt on him.

"Get off me! Let me go! I’ve done nothing wrong! I refuse to disrobe in front of you! I want to see the Chief Eunuch! Let! Me! Go!" he screamed wildly.

"Strip him," ordered the Sergeant, implacably.

The rough soldiers tore down his robe, baring his slim, effeminate shoulders and back, all the way down to his girlish hips and waist.

The Sergeant strode over to inspect the man, kneeling down close to get a better look.

He rose and looked over at the Second Prince, nodding. There were scratches and bite marks consistent with a dog bite, on his upper left shoulder blade. They had been recently treated with a salve.

Sergeant Wu dismissed all of the other eunuchs, and they hurried off, looking fearfully behind them at their colleague, who they knew was not likely to survive whatever was to come next for him.

The man was dragged by the two soldiers before the Second Prince.

He had stopped fighting, stopped moving at all, his head drooped forwards in despair, his legs dragging along the ground after him, his robe becoming even more dishevelled and torn, obscenely exposing more of his young flesh.

The soldiers threw him before the prince where he lay face down, flat on the ground.

"Kneel!" they ordered.

He remained lying where he was, unmoving.

The soldiers dragged him to his knees and gripped his face, so that he was forced to look at the Second Prince who stood regally before him. He was not much more than a boy, the Prince noted.

"Who asked you to push Miss Mei into the lake?" he snarled at the young fellow.

One of the soldiers slapped the eunuch across the face, leaving behind a bright red handprint.

"Answer the Prince when he speaks to you!" he shouted in his face.

"How much were you paid?" the Second Prince growled. "There’s no point staying silent. We know it was you from the fresh dog bite on your shoulder. I might spare your family if you speak."

"Family?" the young man laughed sadly. "You mean the man who castrated me himself and sold me to the palace when, against his expectations, I survived his butchery? Be my guest. I have no wish for you to spare them..."

"Fine then, you don’t care about your family? Drag him to the dungeons. We’ll see if you care, first about your fingernails, then about your toenails, then we’ll see if you care about your toes; each one, one-by-one. Perhaps you’ll care more about your big toe than your littlest one? We’ll see how much you don’t care about your fingers, and then we’ll check on whether you care for your ears, then your nose, then, your eyes... Shall I continue? Last chance to speak yanshù..."

The soldiers began to drag him away, but the man slumped so heavily that they gripped his face to check on him, finding a trickle of blood running from his mouth down his chin.

The soldier peeled an eye open to find it rolled back in the fellow’s head. His jaw was prised open, only to find his mouth was filled with blood.

"He’s taken poison!" yelled the soldier to his Sergeant.

The Second Prince cursed, running his hand through his hair in frustration.

Of course the wrongdoer would cover their tracks like this. He wondered what they had offered the man to make him agree to give up his life if he was captured. He seemed not to care about his family... Freedom, perhaps...

Time to seek an audience with his Father.

The Second Prince bowed before the Emperor, after waiting more than an hour to see him in his study. He knew that the wait didn’t bode well.

It meant his Father both knew why he was there, and wanted to make him cool his heels before they spoke.

And yet still, he must see him... He had to try.

"Emperor Father, your son greets you and pays his respects."

"Rise," said the Emperor dispassionately, waiting for his son to start begging him for what he wanted.

He knew full well why the boy was here.

As soon as he had heard that Miss Mei had been pushed into his ornamental lake, he knew his second son would appear before him, to plead for her...

Though he wasn’t happy that his pretty little wildcard had nearly lost her life, it served his purpose for Yicai to become increasingly desperate.

He would deal with the culprit behind this unfortunate episode in slower time...

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