The ruffians met up with the eunuch who was already wringing his wrists in impatience. When he spotted them, he scowled in displeasure.
"What took you so long? Do you think I'm as free as you? If not for the hefty sum you offered, I wouldn't even agree to this. My life is on the line here." He breathed in slowly through his nose to calm himself and then ordered the little eunuchs by his side to carry He Yuan in.
The leader of the brutes scratched his head with a dry chuckle and threw a bag of coins to the eunuch. "Apologies, he was quite squirmy. Be careful when he wakes up."
The eunuch humphed as he caught the money bag. Then he proceeded to wave his sleeves and walk away.
He Yuan was cooperative as he let himself be carried through passageways before they arrived at a stone chamber. The horrible smell hit him and he was forced to open one eye to take a peek.
It took everything he had in him for He Yuan not to directly jump out of their arms and run away when he saw the sharp tools and stone table that was perpetually red from the amount of blood that had been shed on it.
The eunuchs dumped He Yuan on the stone table and walked out. A short while later an old man dressed in blue robes walked in and started shackling He Yuan to the stone table.
He Yuan attacked at this moment. He took out a pill from the chest of his robes and after breaking it in between his fingers, he blew the dust on the old man's face. The old man slumped on top of him.
He quickly pushed the old man away and got down the stone table. Looking around, he grabbed a few tools, water from the large basin and his bag. The eunuchs had directly dumped it in the room after bringing him in, he was thankful for this.
Placing the basin of water by the stone bed, he took out five red pills and dropped them in. Slowly, the colour of the water changed to bright red and then continued on until the smell, colour and consistency of the water was just like blood.
He Yuan had discovered this pill a year ago. It was made from the blood flower and was used by theater troupes to make fake blood when they acted on stage.
He made them for fun and also in case he needed to fake deep injury. Who knew he'd use them to create fake blood from his lower regions on this day. Once the 'blood' was ready, he took out his human skin mold and molded a penis.
He was about to dump it in the blood bath when he suddenly paused. It was quite small. Even if it was fake, he couldn't let them look down on him! He quickly remolded the fake penis to make it bigger and once he was done, he nodded in satisfaction and then dumped it in the blood bath.
Next, he scooped up some 'blood' and smeared it over the part of the stone table where his 'jewelled rod' was supposed to be. He also smeared the tools with the blood and molded tiny bits of flesh to add to it hence making it look more convincing as the tools seemed blunt.
What horror. Using blunt tools to castrate a man, He Yuan's lower regions hurt just from thinking of it. He was sure this was a special request from Fu Hei's stepmother.
Finally, he smeared his own clothes, the old man's hands and his blue robes with blood. He washed his hands, he was done. Using memory wiping dust was a cut and join method but he had no other alternative.
If there was a pill that could input fake memories into others then it would be nice but alas, one can't have everything.
Looking around to inspect his work one more time, He Yuan placed the old man and his tools on a stone bench. Then he rushed over to lay on the stone bed as he shackled both his legs and one hand and then placed the other hand against the chain so it looked shackled. When he was satisfied with his position, he snapped his fingers.
The old man woke up and his eyes suddenly widened as he looked about in confusion. He had already carried out the operation? He looked to He Yuan who was 'crying' his heart out on the stone bed and he became even more confused.
Why was it that he had no recollection of castrating the young man? The old man stood up shakily. Was old age finally catching up with him? Was he developing the same disease as old Ma?
He touched his chest as he stood up and froze as he pulled out a container of blood staunching paste usually applied after castration. He frowned thoughtfully. "The paste was not applied."
He Yuan froze. He'd made a mistake! If the old man decided to apply the paste now he was doomed. What to do, what to do, what to do.
The old man quickly threw the container to the bleeding youngster "Apply it yourself." And then he rushed out quickly. If the young man bled to death then he could only blame his ill luck. After all, castration was rife with casualties.
He was more concerned about his health! How could he forget an entire castration process? He really needed to see a physician as quickly as he could. He would rather die than end up as the forgetful old Ma who couldn't even care for himself!
He Yuan was stunned as he stared at the back of the old man. He didn't even clean up before rushing out! The two eunuchs from earlier came in after and, without asking questions, stood on either side of He Yuan.
They unshackled him before each man grabbed an arm and leg and then proceeded to lift the 'weakly sobbing' He Yuan up the stone bed. He Yuan was too embarrassed from the posture to even wonder why they weren't surprised that one of his hand was unshackled.
The eunuchs dumped He Yuan next to a public bath to wipe himself, gave him his official robes and finally walked away. They were once like He Yuan but were now used to seeing despairing young men go through this process so they were quite numb to his depressed looks.
He Yuan stared at the roof of the bath house in exhaustion. The task seemed simple enough so why did he have to go through so much?
Whilst he cleaned up, he made sure to tweak the features of 'Fu Hei' a little bit to reduce his resemblance to the original Fu Hei. He just got into the imperial palace so not a lot of people could properly remember his features yet.
This way, if anything were to happen in the future and one of the servants were to run into the real Fu Hei, they would just exclaim at his uncanny resemblance to a eunuch that once worked in the imperial palace and nothing more.
They hadn't asked He Yuan for his name yet so he could use a different name entirely. The only person that knew about Fu Hei's family situation was the eunuch that collected the bribe. But even then, the eunuch wasn't even really clear on things.
Madam Fu had used a third party for the transaction so all the eunuch knew was that Fu Hei came from a noble family and that was all. He also had no idea what Fu Hei was even called.
Hours later, He Yuan was fully settled in his quarters. He shared it with another new eunuch but he didn't mind. They were going to be assigned to their tasks after completing the castration process but He Yuan was beyond impatient at this point.
He just wanted to get things done and leave this cursed realm. Why did the realm even need taskers to save it in the first place? Why couldn't it just snatch back its luck by itself? He thought as he slept off.