At that shrill, ducklike voice, Xu Yi's gaze lingered for another two seconds on the man's smooth face, which had not a single whisker and barely any fine hair. Then a word he had almost forgotten flashed through his mind.
Eunuch.
Yes, this old man was very likely one of the extremely rare eunuchs on the Sains Continent.
Eunuchs were exceedingly rare on the Sains Continent. As far as anyone knew, they existed only in the imperial palace of the Candel Empire, much like the eunuchs in the imperial palaces of ancient China on Earth.
Not even the imperial palace of the Malo Empire had such people.
And in the royal palaces of smaller countries such as the Lampari Kingdom and the Rulson Kingdom, they were entirely unheard of.
When Lampari the Thirteenth and King Eric were alive, there had been quite a few male attendants in the Lampari Kingdom's Royal Palace, but no eunuchs. After Servini took the throne, she replaced all the palace attendants with maids, making eunuchs even less of a possibility.
Thus, although more than eight years had passed since Xu Yi arrived in this world, he had never seen a eunuch. He had only ever heard them mentioned once, in a book introducing the traditional customs of the Sains Continent.
Now that he had seen a eunuch standing before him in person, Xu Yi's expression inevitably turned a little odd.
Although that unusual look only flickered across his face, the old eunuch still noticed it keenly.
His expression had not been particularly pleasant to begin with, and now it grew even uglier.
"Hey, I asked you a question. Are you Xu Yi?" the old eunuch whom Baron Billier had called Chief Steward Mancini asked again, raising his voice.
Xu Yi immediately stopped scrutinizing him and