In the winter of the twelfth year of Zhenning, the snow came nearly a month later than the previous year. The cold air from all over the world gathered with the dry wind, freezing people so much that their shoulders hunched and their backs hunched. Outside the palace wall on the southeast side of the capital, in the 20,000-square-meter royal hunting ground Nanhaizi (1), all the seamen (2) were looking forward to the first snow of the year.
Deng Ying leaned against the stone wall, and in front of him was a large group of people who were as thinly dressed as he was.
They huddled in different corners, staring at Deng Ying in silence, most of them with mixed emotions. Deng Ying pulled his leg with the torture device back a few inches, and his trouser legs fell down to barely cover the scratches on his ankles. Under the gaze of everyone, a young man tore off a piece of cloth from his clothes, tentatively handed it to Deng Ying, and timidly said, "Use it to wrap your ankle."
Deng Ying looked down at the grayish-white rag, and suddenly she felt connected to the situation of these people.
The place where they were was the warehouse of Nanhaizi, which was usually used to store grain and meat from the lake to be supplied to the palace. But at this moment the warehouse was almost empty, with only a few pieces of dried meat hanging lonely on the roof.
The harvest was poor in autumn, so the Imperial Household Department turned this place into a temporary detention camp. The warehouse was inhabited by unregistered eunuchs. In the early years of Zhenning, the court prohibited private castration of men, and severely punished those who castrated themselves to avoid corvée and taxes. However, as the number of royal heirs increased, the affairs of the Twenty-Four Bureaus became increasingly complicated, and the demand for eunuchs increased, so the ban in the early years basically became a dead letter.
Most of the people in Nanhaizi were eunuchs, some were only fifteen or sixteen years old, and some were older. They worked in Nanhaizi during the day and crowded into the warehouse at night, waiting with longing for the people from the Silijian and the Twenty-Four Bureaus to come and select them.
Deng Ying is the only "man" among these people.
I don’t know if the person who arranged it did it on purpose.
The ants surrounded and injured the crane.
This is the best humiliation before execution.
"This is not... Oh my god..."
The wind lantern at the door burned the human shadow into a fine, furry edge.
Deng Ying raised his head and saw Yang Wan slipping in from the corner door with a large bunch of herbs. She fell in front of him before she could finish her words.
The ground was covered with hay and wheat bran, which immediately drew blood when they rubbed against the skin.
Yang Wan squinted her eyes in pain, struggled to sit up, took a look at her broken palm, and blew on the wound helplessly a few times.
It's been half a month, and she still can't get used to this body.
No one in the warehouse said anything, obviously it was not the first time they saw Yang Wan.
After looking at her in unison, they all retreated back to their corners.
Yang Wan coughed, spat out the grass roots that choked her mouth, and was about to stand up when her forehead hit Deng Ying's cold fingers.
She looked up quickly. The person in front of her was still sitting silently against the wall. His hand was stretched out to her and was cleanly spread out. There were torture instruments on his wrists. The thin sleeves of his prison uniform had slipped to his elbows, revealing the new and old scars on his arms.
What a stunning beauty.
Yang Wan sighed in her heart, this perfect sense of brokenness after being tortured (harmony); the pain of his family being destroyed and the humiliation of a life of poverty, but still maintaining a self-reliant character, if brought back to modern times, it would break the hearts of many girls. But he remained silent, with a calm expression and restrained behavior. While maintaining the initial mystery of the research subject to Yang Wan, he did not lose the cultivation of a scholar.
"Okay... okay, I can stand up by myself."
As she spoke, she stood up, brushed off the grass ash on her body, and carefully piled the herbs on the ground at Deng Ying's feet.
"If you keep rubbing the wound on your ankle, the bone will be exposed. You will be crippled in the future. I am not a proper doctor. This herbal recipe was taught to me by my grandmother when I was a child. I don't know if I remember it all. If it works, you don't have to thank me. If it doesn't..."
She reached out and tried to pull up Deng Ying's trouser legs, "Don't blame me if it doesn't work..."
When Deng Ying's hands were pinching his trouser legs, he suddenly pulled his legs to the side. Yang Wan was caught off guard and was pulled to the side by his force, and fell hard again.
"What the hell… "
Deng Ying still didn't say anything, and there was no wariness in her eyes, just some confusion.
Yang Wan rolled her eyes while lying on the ground. She stood up and sat cross-legged in front of him. She calmly tidied up her messy hair, spread her hands, and tried to make her voice sound more sincere. "Come on, I'll be honest with you. I just want to apply some medicine on you. You tell me too. It's been half a month. What do you want me to do before I can touch you?"
Deng Ying hugged the shackles on his hands, bent down and put down the trouser legs that were half lifted up by Yang Wan, then put his hands on his knees and closed his eyes silently.
Just like she had devoted all her patience to the original documents before, Yang Wan felt that her temper was so good at this moment that even she felt it was a little unreal.
"Deng Ying."
She stared at Deng Ying's face, adjusted her mood and called his name.
The person in front of him just moved his eyelids.
An elderly eunuch sitting next to Deng Ying couldn't stand it anymore and advised Yang Wan, "Miss, he hasn't opened his mouth since he was brought to us. Maybe..." He pointed to his throat.
Yang Wan couldn't help but laugh after hearing this, "Ha, he has so much to say. He's going to piss off a lot of people in the future."
The old man also laughed when he heard her bright voice, "You talk really interestingly, girl."
No matter what era it is, it is always a pleasure to be praised by others.
Yang Wan took out a handful of herbs and handed them to the old man, "Old man, I see you have a wound on your hand too. Crush this and apply it on your hand. It will be good for you."
The old man didn't dare to take it, and asked instead: "Where did these herbal girls come from?"
"I picked it up from the small drying yard in Eunuch Li's courtyard."
When she said this, even Deng Ying opened her eyes.
The old man lowered his voice and shrunk half an inch into the corner, "Steal... Stolen."
"Um."
She winked at Deng Ying and said, "When you have money in the future, return it to Li Shan yourself."
The old man looked anxious, and asked Yang Wan uneasily, "Girl, aren't you afraid of being beaten for stealing Master Li's things?"
Yang Wan looked into Deng Ying's eyes and smiled, then casually replied to the old man, "Fortunately, I escaped quickly."
Just as he finished speaking, there came a series of sounds of hay stalks being crushed in the mud at the door.
Yang Wan quickly shrank to squat beside Deng Ying.
Deng Ying turned his shoulders to the side and looked out the window.
Seven or eight people wearing felt cloaks and holding lanterns came against the wind. The one walking in front was Li Shan, the eunuch in charge of the Siyuan Bureau.
The weather was too dry and cold, and even a person who was particular about his appearance could not avoid having chapped hands. Li Shan took off his handcuffs, took the hand ointment and cut off a piece of it. While applying it, he asked the guard at the door, "Why don't you lock the door?"
"Master Li, why don't you leave the door open so they can relieve themselves at night?"
Li Shan rubbed his wrist, "Where is that person?"
"Oh, that person. He hasn't eaten for two days. He is already exhausted. I'm afraid he can't even move."
Li Shan nodded after listening, "Did he say anything?"
"No, the Ministry of Justice brought him here and we are the ones keeping him in our custody. He hasn't spoken a word yet. Master Li, are you afraid that he will commit suicide?"
Li Shan laughed, "If he wants to commit suicide, then the old ancestor doesn't need to take care of it. Do you think he looks like someone who wants to die? If he wanted to die, he would have starved himself to death like Jiang Ming and Guo Ding did when he came here."
After hearing this, Yang Wan couldn't help but turn around and ask Deng Ying, "Have you never fasted?"
Her natural response was still silence.
But Yang Wan was not discouraged. She let go of Deng Ying's hand and sat down beside him. She took out a booklet from her bosom, picked up a straw from the ground, poked her chin seriously, and said to herself: "The people who compiled the History of Ming Dynasty were really malicious towards you. They wrote that you went on a hunger strike in Nanhaizi and then begged for food. They must ruin your reputation before they are satisfied."
After she finished speaking, she bit the straw gently and said, "Well... this place should be changed."
Deng Ying lowered her head to glance at the booklet spread on her knees, on which were neatly written words that he could not understand.
Over the past ten days, she would poke and tap on it from time to time.
As she said, she suddenly appeared in the South Lake for more than half a month. No one knew who she was. At first, people saw that her silk clothes were exquisitely embroidered and worth a lot of money, and guessed that she had a complicated background. Most people did not dare to talk to her for fear of getting into trouble. However, she had been struggling in the lake for more than ten days, and the clothes on her body could not be seen in their original texture. They were tattered and tangled with her loose hair. She looked no different from the poor people in the lake, so these eunuchs let go of their grudges against her.
Moreover, they gradually discovered that the girl's attention was always on the man with a heavy sentence.
It’s a pity that Deng Ying didn’t let her get close.
She is neither a wife nor a concubine, but she rushes to show her kindness to a sinner who is about to have no children or grandchildren.
The sinner was too cold and clean, which made the girl look very pitiful.
Someone was sighing for her when suddenly footsteps were heard outside approaching the door. Yang Wan heard the sound and quickly put away the booklet, stood up, and swiftly hid behind a haystack.
Li Shan and several eunuchs walked into the warehouse and continued the conversation they had just had outside as they walked.
"How many more days do we have to deprive him of water and food?"
A eunuch at the back responded, "It will take two more days."
Li Shan stood in front of Deng Ying and looked at him with disgust. "Alright, if you sentence me to death for another day, I will torture you."
After saying that, he pressed the base of his neck and said, "Let's settle the matter quickly. Hand the person over to the Imperial Household Department before the New Year, and we won't have such a hard time. It's so cold, and it's a bit unpleasant to have such a cold thing in mind. Go and tell Zhang Huzi to prepare the knife and do the work for the Imperial Household Department. Tell him not to drink for the next two days."
The person who answered was embarrassed, "Zhang Huzi is now hanging out in the temple outside. I saw him looking for someone to scrub his back at the mouth of the lake the other day."
"Pooh."
Li Shan spat, "Damn it, he's showing off that he has a soft worm under him! Hurry up and tell him to come back and prepare the knife!"
This sentence touched the hearts of everyone present except Deng Ying.
Li Shan was also unhappy, so he changed the subject and said, "As for the torture device on him, we can't remove it here. Tomorrow morning, go to the Ministry of Justice and ask for their opinion. Let's see whether we should let him be tortured like this or remove it."
The person who answered the question frowned, "Master Li, please let the Ministry of Justice know about this."
"ah."
Li Shan responded impatiently, looked at Deng Ying and sneered.
"All of Lord Deng's family members were killed, leaving only this person behind. His story is very complicated."