He survived the castration knife and scraped by in the Laundry Bureau,
enduring the coldest contempt the world had to offer and every painful humiliation the imperial palace could inflict.
Step by bloody step, he rose from a lowly eunuch to the all-powerful Nine-Thousand-Year-Old.
He quelled palace coups, stabilized the court, pacified the borderlands, and helped a new emperor take the throne,
with one hand governing the inner palace and the other ruling the realm.
After taking control of the realm,
some feared him, some hated him, and some wished him dead,
but only he knew
that he had lived his life without betraying those who had recognized his worth, the realm, or his original purpose.
When peace and prosperity finally came and the emperor took the reins of government,
he relinquished his overwhelming power and returned to Zhongcui Palace.
In the first half of his life, he weathered the stormy seas of the eunuch’s court;
in the second, he quietly guarded a peaceful life.
He spent his life in the treacherous world of court politics, holding power over the realm,
yet returned as the same young man he had always been, never forgetting his original purpose.
