The Powerful Eunuch

In the Great Jing Dynasty, there were two people everyone couldn't help but remember:

Xiao Che was the chief eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs, cold-faced and ruthless. The young eunuchs in the palace hardly dared to breathe when they saw him, and people outside the palace said he could stop a child from crying at night. Shen Qingci was the top scorer in the imperial examinations, a refined and gentle man whose calligraphy was praised by the emperor himself as “full of character.” When he walked down the street, young women would secretly slip handkerchiefs to him.

At first, the two truly couldn't stand each other. Xiao Che thought Shen Qingci was a “spineless weakling,” an examination scholar who knew nothing of the deadly intrigues at court. Shen Qingci thought Xiao Che was “too sinister,” since the man in charge of the Eastern Depot had hardly ever done anything “aboveboard.”

Then the salt transport case brought them together. When Shen Qingci was cornered in an alley, Xiao Che swept his black robe embroidered with python patterns around and shielded him. When Xiao Che was investigating an old case involving his family's vendetta and ran short of clues, Shen Qingci found half a crucial note among the dusty papers at the Hanlin Academy.

Later, people saw Xiao Che secretly leave peeled loquats on Shen Qingci's desk while he was reading. When Xiao Che's old injuries flared up, Shen Qingci would grip his wrist and massage it, insisting, “I'm only doing this so your groaning won't disturb my reading.”

No one could have guessed that the young man who once chased after someone outside the palace gates to return a jade pendant and the chief eunuch who hid his family's vendetta in a secret compartment of the Eastern Depot would eventually leave the capital's turmoil behind. In a little courtyard south of the Yangtze, they would brew tea, peel loquats, and watch the rain beat against the bamboo blinds together.

After all, even the coldest person needs someone who can warm the old scars on his wrist, and even the straightest spine needs someone to protect it from the flash of blades.

Theme: Set against the turbulent undercurrents of the court, this story follows the powerful eunuch Xiao Che and top scholar Shen Qingci as they solve wrongful cases, stand against the empress's relatives, and stay together through the struggle, exploring the balance between duty to the country and love.