Central Province, Divine Capital, inside the imperial palace.
The door of a refined bamboo house in the rear palace opened, and a burly man stepped out naked.
His tousled hair was as red as fresh blood, as was his short beard. Characters seemed to surface on his faintly ruddy skin, yet a closer look revealed nothing at all.
He was powerfully but evenly built, every muscle sharply defined, like a stone statue from a barbarian land. Only the savage gleam in his eyes was nothing like a statue's.
Barbarians were ordinary people too. They carved statues to embody beautiful wishes, not to frighten themselves.
The burly man stood in the bamboo house's waterside corridor. Several eunuchs came forward to dress him while others attended to him as he rinsed his mouth and washed his face.
Amid the bustle, one eunuch said as if in passing, "Your Highness, among the common women you favored earlier, it seems some have missed their monthly courses."
The burly man paid him no heed, as though he had heard nothing. After washing up, he threw on a robe and walked straight out.
Only when he was far away did the eunuch sigh and say to the others gathered around him, "Same as always. Deal with them all."
"As you command."
"Alas! His Highness is such a genius. Why won't he leave behind a few descendants? Even if they were less gifted than him, they could still grow into pillars of Great Xia!"
After lamenting for a while, the eunuch directed the others to clean the house. A short time later, they emerged carrying several human-shaped bundles wrapped in silk and took them elsewhere.
The burly man wandered through the rear palace as though no one else were there. Every eunuch, palace maid, and guard he