He did not stay long at the front gate. It would raise suspicion if he was seen standing in front of the concubine’s front gate. Moreover, the fact that he was - by ranking and association- one of the emperor’s most trusted eunuch and be seen with one of the concubine’s head maid would likely causing him to lost the emperor’s trust.

Eunuch Wang began to make his way back to the emperor’s place. He was a remarkable young man who was in his early twenties. Eunuch Wang held one of the most important position in the palace. He was carefully selected by the Elder eunuch to be the emperor closest aid five years ago. It took him almost two years to gained the emperor full and utmost trust. Despite his young age, he was a high ranking position among the eunuchs and given work scope that extend beyond what a eunuch supposed to do.

One of the many reasons Eunuch Wang was chosen to be the emperor’s aid was due to his incredible talent in grasping the art of writing and reading. He also had good analyzing and memorization skill. That is the sole reason why he was assigned to handle extra matters that was beyond the job scope of an eunuch. He believed that it was the reason why Concubine Rong had approached him with offers that he could hardly decline.

Sometimes, he would be cursing himself for not turning the offer away in the first place. However, it was too late now to blame anyone. Desperate times call for desperate measure. He needed to put an end to this complication!

Eunuch Wang decided to make a detour before returning to the emperor’s palace. There was something he needed to check on first!

After walking for a while, Eunuch Wang arrived at his destination. He greeted the guard before showing them his pass. For someone with his position, he was not obliged to show his pass in order to get into this place as he was literally the leader of this department. The guards were basically his subordinate. However, Eunuch Wang is an honest and upright man. He would not abuse his position for mere inconvenience such as this. Well, at least until today.

As soon as he entered the building, Eunuch Wang immediately climbing the stairs to the direction of his main office. It was the place where he stored valuable information regarding people who had stayed in this building. He began to browse his file shelf, searching for the name he had painstakingly search for the past two months.

Here it is!

He fished out a thick file with a label dated three years ago from the shelf. He perused through the numerous page, trying to scan for the particular name that he had already kept in his memory box.

Nothing! He could not find anything about this man! The only information that was available about this man was his name and in which section he was kept. It was worth to note that he had definitely committed a grave sin as he was kept in the section that was reserved solely to high prolific criminal. No one is allowed to enter the upper level right wing section except for two loyal servants who was directly under the Elder eunuch’s command. Not even him, the acting leader of Royal Prison Department! Despite being put in the special section, Eunuch Wang found absolutely nothing about this man’s background nor history. He also failed to identify the exact caused that lead him to be kept in this building either .

According to information in the file, the man arrived and was put in the cell almost three years ago while Eunuch Wang held this position for only two years. If anything, he had to refer to the previous department leader for more information regarding this man. But it was impossible as the previous leader had already passed away. That was how Eunuch Wang came to fill in this position. He was replacing the dead man ‘s position.

The clock was ticking and he had no time to mull over about this man any longer. He needed to go back to the emperor’s place or the emperor would be able to detect his unusual movement for the past weeks. The emperor was a sharp man! He hurriedly put the file back to the shelf and left the building.

Eunuch Wang managed to approach the emperor’s study room in a short amount of time. He was hoping no one in the study room would ask his previous where about . That - unfortunately - remained a hopeful wish as the Elder eunuch was waiting for him in front of the door with both his arm crossing in front of his chest.

“Where did you go?” the Elder eunuch began to interrogate.

“ To the prison building” He was - technically - telling the truth.

“ What did you do in that place?”

“I need to check on the numbers of new prisoners that are suppose to be put in the lower level right wing cells. I’m afraid we are running out of space to crammed all of them there.” Well, this is also technically right. But he already sorted that out. A little lie would not hurt.

“How do you plan to resolve them?”

“By putting them in temporary cells outside the prison buildings for two months. After two months, some of the current prisoners would be executed collectively. Only then ,can we placed them in their rightful place” The elderly man was nodding his head after listening to Eunuch Wang’s explanation. He looked satisfied with answers given by the younger eunuch. There was a brief silence between them for a moment.

After standing in silence for a while, the Elder eunuch suddenly turned his head toward Eunuch Wang and scowled at his young subordinate.

“Let’s resolve the problem this way. I heard that there were a lot of empty cells in the upper right wing. Why don’t you put them in that section?” Eunuch Wang’s cannot contain his excitement when the Elder Eunuch utter the word ‘upper level right wing’. But, he had to keep on maintaining his compose face.

“But is this alright with His Majesty? Isn’t the place is reserve for high profile prisoners only ? This new convicts are just mere thugs and I don’t have access to the section too.”

“Fret not. I will arrange for that. Besides, we cannot put new convicts in the temporary buildings. They are dangerous. The upper right wing is better. I’ll talk to His Majesty about this and give you the key to get access to the section.” the Elder chief assured him. He was about to get back into the emperor’s study room before suddenly halted on track.

“What’s wrong sir?” asked Eunuch Wang. The Elder eunuch turned his serious face back at the young eunuch. This sudden movement almost made Eunuch Wang gotten panic stricken. He was worried that this experienced man could smell his bullshits miles away.

“ Even though you were given a higher position by His Majesty, that does not mean you could dismiss your duty as the emperor’s eunuch just like that. Remember! The acting leader position is just temporary. Your priority is attending to His Majesty!” He scolded the young man.

“I’m so sorry. I already learn my lesson. I would not repeat it again”

“Good. Now go inside and try to be as quite as possible. His Majesty is having audience with Dr Zhan and the Crown Prince.” He instructed.

Eunuch Wang silently follow the Elderly men into the study room. The study room was a spacious room. Unlike any other upper class officials who loved to show off their power by decorating their property excessively, the emperor preferred to keep his work space as simple as he could. The room have minimum decoration as the emperor was very frugal and minimalist individual.

However, most of the furniture in the room were made of high quality material and rather gigantic. The size of the table itself could be used by three scholars at a time during examination session. Piles of paper works were scattered on the the table.

His collection of brushes were also dispersed on the left side of the table. The ink stone was in upside down position with ink stain glued on the table. The ink stick was nowhere to be found. The emperor also had a large bookshelf behind the table. The books were usually never arranged in proper manner. This is due to the emperor habit of taking out the books and not putting them back on its original place. He dislike having the servants touched his work areas as he claimed that they would only ‘messing up’ his things. Therefore, the place was normally appeared disarray as the servant was prohibited to clean them up.

In other words, this dignified emperor was actually an orderless individual who could never work in a clean and neatly arrange areas. He actually worked better when his things were scattered all around the place.

This is the sole reason why the study room is a forbidden place for anyone including the servants. Only the Elder eunuch and Eunuch Wang were allowed to stepped into the study room.

Meanwhile, for non-servant, only the crown prince who was also the emperor’s younger brother and Dr Zhan - a long time friend of the emperor- have ever graced the study room. Today was one of the days where the two of them would seek an audience with the emperor to discuss about things related to medicine.

Both Eunuch Wang and the Elder eunuch was standing quite far from the table as servants were not allowed to eavesdrop the conversation between three of them. The only time they were allowed to get close to the table was when the emperor instructed them to do so.  By looking at the atmosphere around the table, there seemed to be quite a heated discussion occurred between the three of them.

Dr Zhan was calmly explaining something to the emperor while sitting comfortably on his chair. As oppose to him , the emperor was standing on his feet, with both of his hands rested on the table. He appeared to be in agitated state. His face was red and he looked as if he can explode anytime soon. It was a stark contrast with the defeated look he shown at Concubine Rong’s place not long ago. As usual, the Crown Prince was seen standing beside him while occasionally trying to calm the emperor down.

When most of royal siblings in the world had always involve in bad blood as the result of fighting over the throne, the emperor and his younger brother - however- had a really good bond with each other. They were  affectionate siblings who genuinely cared for each other. The emperor did not hesitated to name his younger brother as the crown prince when he realized that there was inevitable unrest among the ministers regarding the subject of heir as he still did not have children of his own.

A throne without an heir would definitely brought turmoil  to an empire.  The fact that the emperor did not officiated any of his available consorts as the empress also left the ministers feeling agitated about their heir apparent problem. Therefore, the emperor purposely name his younger brother as the crown prince as assurance for the stability of the throne.This way, no one can pressured him about producing an heir nor taking an empress.