In the autumn of the fourth year of the Ningwu era, the rain in Shengdu was torrential, with bean-sized raindrops crashing down. Inside the main hall of Chongming Grand Hall, a eunuch paced out with an anxious expression. “Quick, quick, summon the imperial physician! The young master has fainted.”
“Who will go to the Eastern Depot to inform Lord Xu—”
Amidst the patter of the rain, no one dared to answer.
Lord Xu, Xu Xiaoman, was the head of the Eastern Depot, a third-rank official, and a eunuch who walked the corridors of the imperial court. That’s right, a bona fide eunuch. During the morning court sessions, he stood in the Hall of Proclaiming Governance alongside the ranks of civil and military officials—and in the front row at that. He debated state affairs, wielded immense power, killed without batting an eye, and was ruthless in his methods. Even the military officials feared him somewhat.
He was also known as Nine Thousand Years.
Even among fellow eunuchs, there was a world of difference between those with rank from the Eastern Depot, who served under Lord Xu, and those from the Palace Affairs Department of Taiji Palace.
“You, yes you. Run an errand and deliver the message,” the head eunuch said, randomly pointing at a young eunuch.
The young eunuch steeled himself and agreed, running out into the rain to deliver the message. He cursed his bad luck. Why did a chore like this have to fall on him?
If it were some ordinary, trivial matter, he would have been happy to run to the Eastern Depot. What if Nine Thousand Years saw his cleverness and promoted him into the Eastern Depot? His life would be made.
But today, the young master had fainted. Everyone in the palace knew that the young master was the son of Nine Thousand Years. Nine Thousand Years doted on him, and His Majesty had even granted the young master the privilege of studying and practicing calligraphy in Chongming Grand Hall.
As for… why a eunuch would have a son.
It was naturally impossible for the child to be his own flesh and blood.
Nine Thousand Years had been castrated and sent into the palace as a child.
The young eunuch had heard that when His Majesty was still the Prince of Wuzhou, Xu Xiaoman had found an abandoned infant of a refugee in Wuzhou. Taking pity on the child, he had kept him by his side, fed him, and raised him as his own son.
Tsk, what a fortunate fate. A forsaken child from the countryside had now become someone above the common folk.
My head… hurts so much. My throat is as dry as if it hasn’t seen water in three years. Xu Duofu tried to move his eyelids, wanting to get up for a drink, but his eyelids ached. It felt like forcing them open would blind him, a fear that made Xu Duofu obediently keep his eyes shut.
He had only pulled an all-nighter reading a novel. He couldn’t be this fragile, could he?
He was only eighteen, the prime age for staying up late. How could this happen?
Xu Duofu complained internally, then felt a pang of guilt. It wasn’t just one all-nighter. After his college entrance exam results came out and he had enrolled in a university—not a great one, just scraping into a second-tier school—his parents had each given him a sum of money.
With money in his pocket and no one to supervise him, Xu Duofu had let himself go.
Air conditioner set to eighteen degrees Celsius, he played games, then read novels, then ordered takeout, then went back to gaming and reading… This blissful cycle had been going on for nearly a week.
If he didn’t get sick, who would?
Now that his body was protesting, Xu Duofu…
Heaven, please, don’t let me go blind! I haven’t finished that book from yesterday. It’s too long.
Xu Duofu remembered the half-empty bottle of Coke by his bed. He could moisten his throat and get a sugar boost first. He reached out his hand—
“The young master is awake.”
A joyful female voice.
The small hand, raised with great effort, trembled in shock. Xu Duofu’s eyelids twitched, his face showing bewilderment. How could there be someone in his home? And—young master? Who? Me?
Who was calling him by such a fancy title? It was kind of embarrassing. Hehe.
Soon, several more sets of footsteps entered the room. Xu Duofu’s confusion deepened. Just as he was about to say something, he first heard a voice in the room: “Blessings upon Your Majesty.” This was immediately followed by a male voice: “Imperial Physician.” Then it said: “Xiaoman, the imperial physician said it’s just a common fever.”
The voice was ice-cold.
So he was still dreaming. That explained it. But he had been reading an e-sports novel last night. How did he suddenly end up in ancient times? He’d gone way off track!
Someone approached the bed, took his wrist, and then felt for his pulse.
Xu Duofu: ?
The bewilderment on his face and the confusion in his heart now turned into dumbfounded shock.
This sensation felt so real.
The person even gently lifted his eyelids.
It was too real to be a dream.
A moment later, the imperial physician stood by the bed and reported, “Your Majesty, the young master caught a chill. The high fever has now subsided, and he is out of danger for the time being.”
“Duofu?” Xu Xiaoman sat down on the edge of the bed and touched his son’s forehead. He let out a sigh of relief. “It’s not as scorching as last night.”
“You stayed up with him all night. Weren’t there palace attendants watching?” Zhong Cheng’s tone was cold, tinged with displeasure.
Xu Xiaoman ignored him, muttering, “He’s my son, so I’ll worry about him. What if the fever makes him an idiot?”
“True. He’s already silly enough.”
Hearing this, Xu Duofu thought, dream or not, you’re the silly one!
“Duofu is not silly at all!” Xu Xiaoman protested, displeased.
Xu Duofu nodded furiously in his mind. Yes, yes, yes! He wasn’t silly at all.
The room fell silent. The imperial physician bowed his head, not daring to breathe too loudly. Even though he had witnessed the Head of the Eastern Depot, Xu Xiaoman, speak to His Majesty like this before, he was still terrified. The other eunuchs and palace maids felt the same.
Xu Xiaoman even glared at Zhong Cheng. Was that any way to talk? Zhong Cheng’s face was dark. This blockhead. A few seconds later, he smoothed things over with the blockhead, his tone as cold as ever, “He’s not silly. He’s obedient.”
Obedient was more like it. Xu Xiaoman was satisfied. He looked down at his cub. The child had been sent back yesterday afternoon and had been unconscious until now. He had also stayed up until now, his eyes currently bloodshot. “Duofu? Do you want some water? Or should we feed you some congee? Or should you take your medicine first?”
The imperial physician answered, and the palace maids and eunuchs bustled about, bringing congee and medicine.
His eyes didn’t hurt anymore, but Xu Duofu absolutely, positively, did not dare to open them now!
What in the world was going on?
When he was fed the congee, he was helped up and held in a semi-embrace—Xu Duofu felt something was wrong. He pretended to half-open his eyes, and then a bolt from the blue: his hands had become smaller!
As he reeled from the shock, a spoonful of congee was placed in his mouth.
Even plain white congee had a taste. It was too real to be a dream.
“How did he get even sillier—I mean, more obedient,” Zhong Cheng hastily corrected himself under Xu Xiaoman’s glare.
Xu Xiaoman held his cub with one arm and fed him with the other, speaking with practiced experience, “This is how children are when they’re sick. He hasn’t fully recovered yet.” Annoyed that Zhong Cheng kept calling his cub silly, he said deliberately, “Your Majesty, when you were sick back then, you were just like Duofu, all dazed and confused.”
Dumb and dazed, and yet he called him a blockhead all day! Zhong Cheng was the real blockhead.
Xu Xiaoman thought, grinding his teeth internally.
Zhong Cheng said nothing.
Nestled in the man’s arms, Xu Duofu used the tiny slits of his half-open eyes to look at the man who had called him silly. The man was very tall, looking down at him from above. Before Xu Duofu could be stunned by his handsome features, he first sensed that after the man behind him had spoken, this man not only wasn’t angry but even seemed a little pleased.
At any rate, the way he looked at him was no longer like looking at a dog; there was a bit more warmth.
I should really thank you, I guess. What a weirdo. You only get happy when people scold you.
After the congee came the medicine. Xu Duofu’s face contorted in a mask of pain from the bitterness. The man behind him fed him spoonful by spoonful, coaxing him with a gentle voice, saying things like, “Duofu isn’t afraid of bitterness. Once you finish the medicine, you’ll be all better.”
The man standing by the bed looked at him like he was a dog again, cold and indifferent.
Xu Duofu’s attention was entirely on the bowl of medicine that never seemed to empty: …Maybe I should just down it in one go. When will this spoonful-by-spoonful torture ever end?
…Thankfully, the medicine was finally finished.
Xu Duofu breathed a sigh of relief, thanking the heavens. Then something was stuffed into his mouth. The overwhelming bitterness was quickly replaced by a hint of sweetness, a sweet and sour flavor. It seemed to be a sugar-cured dried plum.
He realized with a start that the one who had just stuffed the dried plum into his mouth was—the man who had been looking at him so coldly.
Well, he’s actually a pretty nice guy.
“You pulled an all-nighter. He’s awake and better now, so go to sleep,” Zhong Cheng said.
Xu Xiaoman didn’t act stubborn. He wasn’t a stubborn mule. He lowered his head and said to his son, “Cub, you get some good sleep. If anything is wrong with Duofu, come and get me.”
The eunuchs and palace maids acknowledged the order, bowed, and respectfully saw His Majesty and the Head Director off.
A moment later, the room grew quiet.
Xu Duofu lay in bed, dizzy from the carbs of the congee he had just eaten. But he couldn’t sleep; he wasn’t that carefree yet. He waited until someone approached—it was a young girl in a pink dress with her hair in an ancient style, about thirteen or fourteen years old. She was tucking him in.
“I—” He tried to think of what to ask.
He couldn’t just ask: Where is this place?
“Where is this place?” Curiosity won out.
Zhu Yue thought the young master was just muddled from his illness and replied with a smile, “This is the courtyard of the Head Director of the Eastern Depot, and this is the young master’s bedchamber. You fainted in Chongming Grand Hall yesterday afternoon, and the Head Director carried you back. The imperial physician was summoned. It has been raining for several days, so you caught a chill and developed a fever. The Head Director watched over you for a whole night, and His Majesty also came over in the middle of the night…”
Listening to her voice, Xu Duofu, still recovering from his illness, found his mind working a bit slowly. But in his half-asleep state, he felt as if this scene had happened before, a sense of déjà vu.
So familiar, it was really so familiar. Chongming Grand Hall, young master, Head Director of the Eastern Depot, Xiaoman—wait, Xiaoman, eunuch, Head Director of the Eastern Depot. All the key words connected.
Xu Duofu shot up in bed as if “startled from his deathbed,” scaring Zhu Yue, who quickly supported him and asked if he needed anything. Xu Duofu’s eyes widened. “Is Xiaoman’s surname Xu?!”
Zhu Yue: …
Her confusion and surprise quickly faded.
The young master must have been muddled by the fever.
“Young Master, the Head Director’s surname is naturally Xu.”
“What’s my name?!”
“You are the Head Director’s son. Your name is Xu Duofu.”
Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap! A triple shock hit Xu Duofu. His skin, pale from illness, was now flushed red with shock and fright.
He… he… he knew where he was.
He was in a novel.
It was the first danmei novel he had ever read, the one that had gotten him addicted to reading novels ever since. He couldn’t quit. It was impossible to quit.
Xu Duofu looked at the young palace maid again and again, then asked tentatively, “Zhu Yue?”
“The young master remembers me.” Zhu Yue’s tone was like she was coaxing a child. She was also relieved; it seemed he really was just muddled from the illness. She helped the young master lie back down and said, “Zhu Yue will watch over you here. You should sleep. Just call for me if you need anything.”
Xu Duofu, dazed and bewildered, was tucked back into the covers.
First loves are unforgettable. Xu Duofu’s first love was: The Tyrant Emperor’s Eunuch Male Empress.
It was after the winter break at the end of the first semester of his senior year of high school. Upon returning to school, several girls in his class were acting strangely. They would huddle together, whispering and cursing about something, and secretly use their phones during class.
Within a couple of days, even the apple of the head teacher’s eye—the top student in their class—came to school with red, swollen eyes. The head teacher suspected it was a puppy love problem among the girls and pulled them aside to show her concern.
It was the last semester of senior year. How could their focus waver after the winter break? Distracted in class, crying at night instead of sleeping? And what were they writing in class? Love letters?
The head teacher called them into her office one by one for a talk.
The top student was in a relationship?
The whole class was abuzz with gossip. After all, the top student didn’t seem like the type to like anyone. She was truly devoted to her studies. To think she was in a relationship and even crying over it?
Xu Duofu wasn’t one for gossip, especially about a female classmate crying over a relationship. Shouting it out in public would be so humiliating for her. But the whole class was talking so loudly that he overheard.
That day, the class learned that the top student’s “puppy love” was a false alarm.
“She cried because a novel was too sad?!” “Pfft, what kind of novel makes several girls cry?” “I don’t believe it.” “The top student’s eyes were red, she must have been dumped—”
Xu Duofu spoke up against the bigmouths who insisted the top student and the other girls had been dumped. “The head teacher already said it was because of a novel. How do you know so much? Not even a wise judge could distinguish good from evil as well as you, huh?”
Perhaps because Xu Duofu had spoken up for them, the female classmates were quite grateful. Then, one of them recommended the novel to him, speaking quite loudly.
“The Tyrant Emperor’s Eunuch Male Empress. Don’t mind the silly title, it’s really good.”
“I bought the whole thing. If you want to read it, I can lend you my account. No one else, though.”
“It’s really good!”
The boys in the class: “Who reads that?” “Sounds like a gay novel from the title.” “What real man reads gay novels?”
The girls ignored them, content to have cleared up the puppy love rumor. But in private, a few of them said, “This novel is a tearjerker. What if someone gets hurt because we’re promoting it so hard?” “Don’t worry, there’s no way those idiot straight boys in our class would actually read it.” “Xu Duofu is a pretty nice guy, but his name, hehe…” “He didn’t ask for my account, so he probably won’t read it.”
And so, the girls relaxed.
…They relaxed too soon.
That night, the rebellious Xu Duofu opened his browser while muttering, “A real man reads gay novels.”
Mainly because he didn’t get along with the boy who had said that.
When he topped up his account, he didn’t know that the app charged a twenty-yuan service fee for a fifty-yuan top-up.
Damn it, damn it all.
The novel’s plot was still fresh in his mind, his young face turning sallow, and finally, he gritted his teeth.
The novel was advertised as HE (Happy Ending), but the “E” was silent. It was particularly passionate. The gong (top) was the legitimate son born to the empress, while the shou (bottom) was a low-status, somewhat dense young eunuch. The shou was three years older than the gong. They met when the gong was ten and the shou was thirteen. The once-noble and favored prince of heaven had, in a single night, his mother killed, his entire clan exterminated, and was confined to the Cold Palace.
The two met in their darkest hour and supported each other all the way.
Xu Duofu’s heart ached as he read, thinking, just wait a little longer. Wait for the protagonist to grow up, rebel, and kill his way back.
But then—
When the gong was seventeen, he got into a fight with the shou over something trivial and unreasonable. Xu Duofu scrolled through the page, still complaining, “You haven’t even rebelled and killed your way back yet, what are you two fighting about? Don’t have internal strife among brothers.”
In the next paragraph, the two of them kissed.
Straight-man Xu Duofu: ?
He vaguely seemed to remember that he was reading a novel about two men in a relationship.
After that, they would do it at the drop of a hat. Here, there, during battles, when injured, when their relationship was sweet, and when they fought—the shou would pin the gong down to beat him, and in the middle of the fight, they would start doing it again.
Xu Duofu steeled himself: Just wait a little longer, I haven’t gotten to the rebellion part yet.
Out of a 500,000-character novel, 400,000 characters were just pleasure and more pleasure.
The gong and shou counterattacked all the way up. The plot was thrilling, and so was the sex.
Later in the story, there was a child named Xu Duofu. At that time, Xu Duofu felt a little strange, but he was so engrossed in the story that he didn’t mind the shared name, even thinking, what a coincidence.
In the end, the family of three all died. End of novel.
Author’s note: Xiaoman, Zhong Cheng, and their cub being in another world is a kind of HE, right?
Xu Duofu: ?
In disbelief, he searched for the meaning of HE. When he returned to the page, he could no longer comprehend the green text. Author, do you even know what you’re saying? Ah! Ah! Ah! What are you saying?! Ahhhhh!
No wonder the girls in his class looked “more miserable than after a breakup.”
He had stayed up all night reading. The beginning was as sweet as could be, but in the end, everyone died!
Ahhhhh!
Xu Duofu, his eyes red from reading, instinctively learned how to leave a negative review. With tears of anguish welling in his eyes and his hands trembling, he couldn’t even write a long essay. After a long pause, he managed to squeeze out six words: “The author is a heinous criminal!”
Author’s Note:
The perspective will mainly be the cub’s, but I’ll write from other perspectives too. It’s a daily life-themed novel, a sweet little story. The author is definitely not a heinous criminal! [I swear!]