[The full manuscript is in progress. Add it to your collection if you're interested!]
A fun-loving imperial physician who saves lives × a groveling, bootlicking eunuch
After serving in the palace for three years, take the prestigious Imperial Medical Bureau's credentials home and open a clinic.
That was Lu Zhaoxun's crystal-clear plan for his life, the best option for a nobody with no family connections or backing.
When he worked desperately to pass the Imperial Medical Bureau's exams, Lu Zhaoxun told himself, Just three more years, and I'll be free.
When the mad emperor wanted the entire Imperial Medical Bureau buried alive every day, Lu Zhaoxun told himself, Just hold out until next year, and I'll retire.
When that damned eunuch kept picking fights with him, Lu Zhaoxun told himself, Historically speaking, there's a 99 percent chance this guy won't meet a good end.
The heavens always settle their accounts, and retribution never misses.
Who could have guessed that, by a twist of fate, their paths would cross?
In the end, Lu Zhaoxun was the one who told himself:
"Even with a 99 percent chance of a dead end, I'll fight for that one chance of survival."
Li Chengde was a rather unfortunate man.
As a child, he endured famine, was castrated, and sent into the palace.
As a young man, he had no one to rely on, and survived by keeping his head down and living in fear.
A thousand hardships had turned him into a bootlicker who fawned on the powerful and kicked those below him, a treacherous courtier from a storybook, a clown on the stage.
So of course he thought the imperial physician named Lu Zhaoxun looked down on him.
When imperial power changed hands, those beneath it were like dust scattered in the wake of a carriage.
With the new emperor's declaration that "eunuchs defy the natural order," the new policies of the coming decades made it clear that eunuchs would no longer be needed.
Li Chengde was the most insignificant page in the pile of discarded papers that made up history.
Crumpled and torn to shreds, he could only let out a single, decaying moan of pain.
But then those hands searched through the scraps and pieced him back together.
At the end of the palace path, Lu Zhaoxun stood holding an umbrella. His open, honest gaze outshone the falling snow.
"Eunuch, shall we go home together?"
Content warnings~
1. The male lead is a real eunuch. He has neither a scholar's refinement nor much education, and is simply a petty, sarcastic man who holds grudges.
Theme: It's all right
