The Eunuch Regains His Manhood in the Second Round

23. The Man Who Gets Things Done

As the door opened, my senior brother asked in a startled voice.

“Junior, this, this is…”

“…There was a suspicious empty space beyond the wall, so I used my senses to find the weak spot and knocked on it, and this is what happened… It seems our ancestor prepared this for future generations.”

I invoked the name of Honwon Geomje, a figure from 300 years ago, to prevent my senior brother from pondering my hacking skills.

After all, even if he was the best in the world or a master of life and death, he was already deceased.

Now that I am a disciple of the Gongdong Sect, he wouldn’t get angry if I used his name a bit.

My senior brother’s eyes widened at my words.

“There was more to our ancestor’s arrangements… Junior, you’re amazing! If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have found it!”

I naturally avoided my senior brother’s attempt to grab my hand by stepping back.

Where does he think he’s touching, being a man?

“You flatter me, senior brother. I just happened to discover it by luck. Our ancestor’s arrangements await. Let’s go in and retrieve Honwon Geomje’s legacy.”

“Yes, we should. Let’s go together, junior.”

My senior brother nodded at my words.

Whether he was naive or a pushover, he completely trusted my claim that we found the arrangement by luck.

Without a shred of doubt.

He probably didn’t know much about mechanisms.

“I’ll go in first. There might be unknown dangers… Junior, follow me.”

“Understood.”

It’s good that he’s going first.

Thinking that, I maintained a safe distance of a hand’s breadth from my senior brother as we entered the stone cave revealing its dark interior.

—

—

Step.

At that moment, when I took a step into the darkness.

BEEEEEEEEEP!

A noise that shook my mind rang out.

Along with it, the presence of my senior brother, who had been walking right in front of me, disappeared from my senses.

‘Is it a formation?’

I immediately realized the identity of this foreign sensation.

It was a formation.

Well, formations always accompany institutions.

It’s like how important information in reality is protected by double or triple firewalls to maintain security.

That’s why the academic term is also called institutional formation, isn’t it?

‘Now, what kind of formation is this?’

Of course, I was confident that I could find and break through or pass through the life gate of any formation that appeared.

At the moment I was spreading my senses in all directions to figure out the identity of the formation.

‘Ugh!’

The flow of my energy twisted, and my blood and energy were disrupted.

The thread of my consciousness was momentarily cut off and reconnected.

My vision brightened.

I saw a ceiling.

An old wooden ceiling.

I tried to move my body.

Twitch.

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My limbs wouldn’t move.

I was tied up somewhere.

Where is this place?

“Ho. This child?”

“Yes. Judging by the fact that he can’t speak our language and only utters Joseon words, he seems to be a lost child from Haedong. How much do you think we can get if we sell him to the palace?”

“I heard that the palace needs a lot of fire users these days. They say they are even sourcing fire users from faraway Haedong.”

I heard conversations that I had never forgotten, or rather, could never forget.

Conversations that I couldn’t understand back then because I didn’t know damn Chinese, but now I could hear clearly because I knew Chinese.

—

This conversation was between the merchant Wang Sam, who sought to sell me, and the eunuch broker, known as the castrator, Zhang Yi-hyun, who had sold me to the palace.

The two of them whispered about me, and soon enough, they concluded their negotiations on my price.

I flinched.

I tried to move, but my limbs were firmly bound to the old wooden operating table stained with blood, rendering me immobile.

“Hehe. You’d surely prefer a life in the palace as a eunuch, free from worries about food and shelter, rather than starving to death as a wandering beggar in a foreign land. Who knows? You might even rise to power like Zhao Gao, grasping the world’s authority in your hands. Hahaha. If you do rise, don’t forget the grace of Wang Sam.”

Wang Sam looked at me with a sinister smile.

What?

Rise like Zhao Gao?

Setting aside the fact that Zhao Gao was the villain behind the fall of the Qin dynasty, his words weren’t entirely wrong.

In my past life, I had indeed risen as a eunuch, hearing the title of “Three Thousand Years” nine hundred ninety-nine times, commanding the intelligence agencies of the East and West, and controlling the court through the eunuchs, enjoying power greater than that of the emperor.

Zhao Gao, who threatened to call a deer a horse in front of the officials, wielding power with impunity; the Ten Regular Eunuchs, who blinded the emperor during the late Han dynasty; Wei Zhongxian, who heard the title of “Three Thousand Years”—all of them were merely beneath me in terms of power.

But what good is such power?

“I can’t have s*x!”

I had experienced the ability to truly bring down birds and wield power greater than the emperor, yet none of it held any interest for me.

Because I had no manhood.

What use is wealth and glory when one is a eunuch?

A life where I could meet the most beautiful woman in the world yet fail to win her heart!

A life where I couldn’t even engage in the most basic of pleasures!

It was utterly miserable.

Like drinking seawater, the more power I wielded, the greater my thirst for the pleasures of the clouds and rain grew.

And what now?

Don’t forget the grace?

“Then I shall begin the procedure now.”

With a swift motion, Zhang Yi-hyun picked up the surgical knife.

Castration.

A term that referred to a clean body, it was also a euphemism for the surgery that turned a man into a eunuch.

Moreover, despite its elegant etymology, in everyday language, it was often used as an insult akin to calling someone a “eunuch b*stard.”

So, cutting off the testicles and penis to make a man incapable of manly duties is considered a cleansing operation?

What a ridiculous notion.

—

Bubble, bubble.

Emotions boiled over.

In fact, I knew.

Although the senses of my whole body were vivid, I was merely caught in an illusionary formation showing me a hallucination.

I guessed that it was a formation set up 300 years ago by the greatest swordsman, Honwon Geomje, to test his successors, showing illusions that stimulate trauma and inner demons.

But that was that.

It still felt disgusting.

Even knowing it was an illusion, I couldn’t endure it.

“You b*stards…”

My insides bubbled and boiled.

I changed my mind.

Testing successors? Making them relive such unpleasant memories for a test?

A person who died 300 years ago, the greatest swordsman or not, experimenting on the living like this?

I won’t look for the life gate.

I’ll break the formation.

The illusionary formation forcibly interferes with another’s mental world to show illusions.

Inferior illusionary formations only deceive the five senses, but superior ones directly interfere with the mental world.

Thus, a truly realistic hallucination unfolded before my eyes, deceiving not only the five senses but even the sense of energy.

But I was a warrior who had reached the supreme state of Hyungyeong in my previous life.

And the state of Hyungyeong is to complete a microcosm through enlightenment.

By completing the microcosm and opening the upper danjeon, one can refine one’s mental image through the realization of martial arts and manifest it as martial arts.

This is the so-called state of mental sword, the state of mental martial arts.

Although I lost my inner strength after returning, my mind remained the same, so my completed microcosm also remained.

That means.

“Damn it, I never wanted to use this again.”

I glared at the enemies in the illusion and spoke in Korean.

“What are you mumbling about?”

“I don’t know much about Joseon language, but it seems you’re scared of the sword. It’s common here to tremble in fear of castration, so don’t worry too much. It’s more surprising that you didn’t wet yourself.”

Watching the two enemies mumbling to each other, I closed my eyes and focused.

If it were reality, it would have been impossible, but this was the mental world.

—

—

In the mental world completed by a master of the Hyungyeong, even another master of the Hyungyeong cannot guarantee victory.

Illusions and illusionary formations also do not work on the already completed mind and will of a master of the Hyungyeong if they are normal.

In my case, although my microcosm was already completed, my body was still immature and my internal energy was lacking, so I was caught in the illusionary formation.

However, now that my mental world has already been interfered with, breaking the illusionary formation is only a matter of time.

Mental martial arts are the martial arts of the mind. In reality, it might be impossible to unfold due to the low quality of the body and internal energy, but it was not difficult to unfold in the mental world.

I gritted my teeth and recited the formula of ‘that trash internal energy’.

Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo!

Following the profound principles of the Gyuhwabojon, an impossible cold energy surged from my danjeon.

A miracle possible only in the mental world.

Crack.

The ropes binding my limbs froze and shattered.

The cold air imbued with the North Wind and Cold Snow (北風寒雪) swept through my entire body.

“Ugh?!”

“What, what is this?!”

The illusions of my enemies, my trauma, erupted.

I looked at them and stood up, unfolding the martial arts of the mind.

Along with it.

A Piece of Ice Heart (一片氷心)

The mental martial arts trained solely for metamorphosis and the pleasure of clouds and rain (雲雨之樂). As the phrase ‘a piece of ice heart’ suggests, the pure heart created for the affairs of men and women, like a piece of ice, turned into the blade of ice and struck the enemies.

Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa!

With a loud noise, the bodies of the enemies were pierced by the blade of ice and shattered into pieces.

It wasn’t just them that shattered.

The damn operating table, the old and dirty workshop of Um Gong, and even the power of the formation that interfered with me all froze and collapsed.

Just as I was about to destroy the formation.

“Brother, please stop.”

Swoosh.

I felt a warm body temperature from behind.

Along with it, the face of a beautiful woman suddenly appeared before my eyes.

A peerless beauty with the looks of a nation-toppling beauty (傾國之色), the ideal type I had only dreamed of or imagined, was embracing me, wearing a semi-transparent silk robe that revealed her figure.

Her ample and white chest, resembling a pair of watermelons, pressed against my chest.

—

“Ga Ga, did you have a bad dream? To make such a terrifying face, I’m worried about Ga Ga’s health.”

Her body, wrapped in my arms, emitted a sweet fragrance.

I looked around.

Under the moonlit night, the lake was filled with the smell of alcohol, and the trees decorated with kihwa-yocho and gi-am-geok were dripping with juicy red meat.

It was a genuine jujiluk.

The scenery had changed due to the transformation of the law.

“Me too! I want to be wrapped in Ga Ga’s arms!”

“No, Ga Ga! First, I······.”

The seven beauties, adorned with different beauty, wearing sajiluk and jujiluk, surrounded me, trying to hug me.

Sajiluk and jujiluk.

What I had longed for, my ultimate goal in life, was right in front of me.

It wasn’t just that.

Suddenly.

My body, reacting to their soft skin and sweet fragrance, stood upright.

It was enormous, ideal for a woman to be transported to a state of nirvana through intercourse alone.

It was a situation I had only dreamed of.

‘Is this unpleasant?’

My feelings were far from good.

This was a world created by the law of transformation.

Even those three sajiluk and jujiluk were just imaginary existences.

If I were a color demon, I would have indulged in a wild and licentious relationship with those beauties.

But I am not a color demon, I am a sage of the color path.

I am not seeking satisfaction of physical pleasure alone.

If I were, I could achieve it now by going to a red-light district.

But that would not bring true pleasure.

True pleasure, what is it?

It is the s*x that allows two people to communicate with each other’s hearts.

This is a proven fact by modern science. When a woman has s*x with someone she loves, her brain releases oxytocin, a hormone that makes her feel happy.

To have real s*x that sends someone to nirvana, one must first win over a woman’s heart.

Pleasure without heart’s pleasure is fleeting and soon reaches its limits.

—

Mental pleasure is the pinnacle of the union of heaven and earth,

and the ideal I pursue in the realm of desire.

“You have no heart.”

But surely, illusions cannot possess a heart.

Thus, sharing true intimacy with an illusion,

the ultimate union of heaven and earth, is impossible.

I do not desire a hollow relationship,

one that exists solely in the physical realm.

Pleasure that transcends the five senses and the body,

fulfilling even the heart and mind, is the true union of heaven and earth.

I will conquer the hearts of the most beautiful women

with the charm I have honed myself,

and establish a collection of exquisite encounters.

In this way, I will enjoy the ultimate morning clouds and evening rain

with them in the paradise I have created.

So, I have no need for such false pleasures.

“I cannot have true intimacy with you!”

I felt an overwhelming discomfort towards the beautiful women.

I am not a lecher.

I do not think in base terms.

I am a man whose rational and cold intellect

stirs the hearts of countless women,

a man whose brain is s*xy.

How dare they use such lowly and crude seduction

against me, who possesses the charm of a brainy man

and is destined to become a master of desire.

This is unacceptable.

A heart of ice.

My intense emotions resonated with the path of the mind.

With it arose a blade of cold,

freezing the space and blossoming into the form of a great tree.

The branches of ice that grew from the great tree,

and the swirling frost-laden leaves pierced through the seven beauties,

filling the lake with wine, and further, freezing the entire world.

At that moment, when the north wind and cold snow

blanketed the paradise of wine and meat in white,

the world was dyed gray.

Time stood still.

“Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle…”

From all directions came the sound of a tongue-clicking laugh.

It was the technique of transmitting sound through the six harmonies.

“Well, well, a successor has come who exceeds my expectations.”

Standing alone in the gray-dyed paradise,

a middle-aged man in black robes,

marked with the symbol of the reversed Taiji, appeared.

I instinctively recognized him the moment I saw him.

That middle-aged man is none other than the Sword Master of the Primordial Unity.

—

—

300 years ago, during the chaotic period at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming dynasty, he was the greatest master of the Gongdong Sect who blocked the advance of the Blood Sect and saved the martial world.

And he was the possessor of the ultimate life force, Sungeuk Saenggi (純極生氣), or rather, the absolute vitality.