Seeing that the siblings were about to start arguing again, the old madame intervened. First, she told Guan Jixing that she understood the situation, advising him to entertain their guests well for today and bring Miss Su directly to her later for negotiations.
Guan Jixing left with a triumphant look on his face.
Leaving Guan Xiunian both angry and anxious. The old madame comforted her granddaughter:
"Don't be so anxious. Truth be told, this Miss Su hasn't even seen the house yet. Nothing is set in stone. We have to meet her first before making any decisions."
Seeing that Guan Xiunian had calmed down, a look of reminiscence crossed the old madame's face. With a smile, she said:
"I haven't gone out in so long that I actually don't know anything about this Miss Su. Tell me about her. Speaking of which, Eunuch Su and I go way back."
Go way back?
Guan Xiunian was stunned. She had never heard of this before.
"When I was a child, I went to the palace with my father and mother. I was teased by other children and got lost. Suddenly, a large dog lunged out to bite me. It was Eunuch Su who stepped in, subdued the dog, and saved my life."
"I suppose you could call it a life-saving grace."
"But, I've never heard of our family having any ties with the Su family," Guan Xiunian pointed out rather tactfully.
Before Su Ning returned, the Su family had fallen so low that they were reduced to fortune-telling on the streets and living on the edge of a knife. The Guan family was doing much better, yet they had rarely offered any financial help.
"Oh, you don't understand these things."
Old Madame Guan began to explain to her granddaughter. Although the eunuch had saved her life, according to the rules, the grace belonged to the imperial family. After all, eunuchs were the servants of the royal family.
However, the palace wasn't entirely unreasonable.
Because of this incident, Eunuch Su was transferred out of the dog-raising facility and assigned to a much better position, which essentially changed his fate.
Their family also secretly sent him a considerable amount of gold and silver.
"I was still young back then and couldn't make any decisions, so I just listened to my family. And when I grew up, it was even more inappropriate for me to be close to Eunuch Su—" The old madame chuckled.
"He was skyrocketing in his career, eventually becoming the Head Eunuch serving right before the Emperor. He was riding high on success, and the people wanting to curry favor with him could circle the inner city three times over. What would it look like if I tried to cling to him then?"
Pfft. Guan Xiunian burst into laughter.
"A person's fate is truly hard to predict," she sighed. The Su family was truly miraculous; even after falling to rock bottom, they could still climb back up.
Eunuch Su was like that.
And so was Miss Su.
Thus, she began recounting Su Ning's exploits to the old madame. Her words carried an unconcealable admiration and envy. With her forceful tactics, Su Ning had stirred up a storm in Beiping. Whether people hated her or liked her...
They all had to admit one thing: Su Ning was already considered a prominent figure in Beiping.
"She sounds very impressive," the old madame nodded. "I just wonder how she compares to her great-grandfather. Back then, Eunuch Su's intelligence was famous throughout the palace."
Pausing for a moment, she smiled:
"I'll only tell you this, but don't go spreading it around. Eunuch Su was also incredibly handsome."
...
So, what was the handsome and intelligent "Eunuch Su" doing?
The answer was feeding dogs.
After Su Ning fainted, she opened her eyes again only to hear the sound of dogs barking all around her. She understood immediately: she had entered another crucial memory.
She immersed herself in the sensation.
Hmm, there was still a dull ache down below. Not much time could have passed...
"The meals for the dog ancestors are all here today. You little brats better tighten your skins. Anyone caught stealing dog food will be punished with ten heavy strikes of the board."
A middle-aged eunuch with a stooped back drawled out his warning.
Several large baskets sat before them, filled with bags of refined millet, large eggs, boiled sheep intestines, prime cuts of meat, and plucked, chopped chickens and ducks.
"Understood."
The young eunuchs' responses were sparse and scattered. Their eyes couldn't help but dart toward the baskets. With no fat in their bellies, they were naturally starving to death.
Su Ning wasn't surprised by this.
It had been this way from ancient times to the present. Sometimes, a human life was worth less than a pet raised by the powerful. It was even worse in the palace, where young eunuchs and maids couldn't even get a proper meal.
Yet the cats and dogs they fed had meat at every meal.
Just as she was sighing with emotion, a sudden cramp hit her stomach, as if her intestines were twisting together, sending sour bile up her throat. Su Ning froze for a moment before realizing that this was hunger—the feeling of being starved to the absolute limit.
She had never truly been hungry before.
Thanks to robust modern productivity, people today worried about losing weight, not about what they could find to fill their stomachs.
Even after arriving in the Republican era, Su Ning ate even better and more expensive food.
So when the hunger struck, she found it exceptionally unbearable. She just wanted to hug her waist and squat down to save energy—but she had no control over this body.
Eunuch Deshun stood with his back slightly hunched, his eyes lowered submissively, and the smile on his lips looked festive no matter how one looked at it.
Seeing this, the managing eunuch nodded inwardly.
He was a promising talent.
Thus, he relented and called him out. "You, yes, you. From now on, you're in charge of the feeding. Watch them feed the dogs. No slacking off and no stealing food."
Then, without pausing, he rattled off a long list of feeding requirements, trivial and complicated: which breed ate what, which month they needed milk, which sick dog needed extra supplements.
The other young eunuchs were dumbfounded.
Those who initially envied and felt jealous of Deshun now looked at him with sympathy.
If he made a mistake, it wouldn't just be a simple beating.
"Did you understand all that?"
Deshun took a step forward and nodded gently:
"To answer you, sir, I understood, and I've memorized it." With that, before the managing eunuch could lose his temper, he kept his head down and repeated everything flawlessly, without a single stutter.
The courtyard fell silent for three seconds.
The head eunuch snapped out of his daze, circled Deshun once, stared at his delicate and youthful face, and chuckled:
"Alright, you've got a bright future ahead of you. Be careful and stay alive. Don't die."
With that, he left. It was freezing cold out. With this kid keeping watch, he could go back, sit by the stove, drink wine, and eat meat in comfort. If the kid messed up, a beating would sort it out.
Su Ning, however, felt a sense of pity.
With such an incredible memory, if he had been born in modern times—no, if he had simply been born into a family that could afford schooling—Deshun would definitely have made a name for himself.
At the very least, he wouldn't have been reduced to becoming a eunuch.
Using this kind of memory to remember how to feed dogs...
Deshun smoothly stepped into the role of the managing eunuch, directing the young eunuchs to feed the animals. He kept a close eye on everyone, and whenever someone was rebellious or tried to cause trouble, he handled them perfectly.
He used their own force against them, employing threats and bribes with absolute naturalness.
In any case, Su Ning, watching from a god's-eye view, found it utterly fascinating and learned quite a few things herself.
Finally, the day's feeding tasks came to an end.
Deshun gathered the leftover broken rice and scraps of meat, wrapped them in a piece of cloth, and tucked them into his clothes, showing absolutely no intention of leaving any for the other young eunuchs.
"Um, you can't possibly eat all that by yourself..."
One young eunuch couldn't help but say.
"I can."
Deshun's tone was extremely cold. He turned and headed straight for his living quarters, leaving the remaining young eunuchs to exchange bewildered glances. They all felt that he didn't look hungry at all, so why was he being so selfish?
In reality, he was starving.
He was about to collapse. Su Ning could feel it. Deshun had been quietly swallowing his saliva, his stomach aching worse and worse, which in turn caused his wound down below to throb with pain.
Children from poor families already had weak constitutions to begin with.
Plus, he had just suffered a massive trauma.
Healing a wound required nutrition, so how could he not be hungry? He was starving to death!
Since unauthorized fires were forbidden in the palace, Deshun sought out a young maid who did odd jobs in the kitchen. Promising to share some with her, he had her boil the scraps into a thick paste.
When the food was finally cooked and Su Ning took her first bite of the thick paste, she was so moved she almost cried.
It was absolutely delicious.
She declared it the best thing she had ever eaten. It was no wonder the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty missed his legendary Pearl, Emerald, and White Jade Soup so much. She decided she had to give her humble paste a grand name, too.
She would call it the Splendid Golden Jade Porridge.
In the days that followed, De Shun improved day by day.
Now that he had enough to eat, his brilliance became increasingly apparent.
Su Ning had never met anyone so intelligent. He picked up all the palace's secret techniques for training pets the moment he learned them, and mastered them shortly after.
In less than half a month, all the cats and dogs would become incredibly affectionate the moment they saw him.
Furthermore, he used leftover dog food to bribe the literate palace maids and eunuchs. He didn't just learn Chinese; he also studied Manchu and Mongolian. Sometimes, Su Ning felt he was like a mythical beast of gluttony.
He was ravenously devouring any knowledge that could be of use to him.
But this was a good thing.
Because Su Ning was also learning, also devouring.
The days seemed to be put on fast-forward. Immersed in their studies and surrounded by cats and dogs, Su Ning was almost lulled into a daze, actually beginning to think that life in the palace wasn't so bad. But then, an utterly abhorrent and bone-chilling incident occurred.
It was an event that would witness De Shun's complete and utter transformation.
