Sansan
One year ago.
It was a bright spring day in the 20th year of Yeonghwi. The private residence of Yoon Yun-gyeom, a Jusa of the Ministry of Works, had been quite noisy since early dawn.
“I can really see Wol, right?”
“I said yes! Honey, come here quickly. Stop running away! You need to put on your belt. If you keep dawdling like this and Madam says she’s leaving without you, I won’t be responsible, you hear?”
Sansan, who had been hesitating at the momentum of Yeon, who was speaking excitedly with flying spittle, let go of the pillar he’d been hiding behind and sheepishly walked out.
As soon as he came within range, Yeon snatched his wrist and began wrapping the brilliant jade-green silk belt around Sansan’s waist, pulling it taut. To anyone watching, it would have seemed she was determined to completely crush that slender waist.
“Urk, uuurk.”
“You have no idea how much Madam emphasized this. Just bear with it a little, okay? You absolutely cannot just loosen and throw it off because it’s uncomfortable, understand? If you want to see this girl get beaten, go ahead and do that.”
“Mm, mm. I, I won’t take it off.”
Though it was rough service that might have earned a slap from a fiercer master, Sansan, who had an inherently gentle temperament, didn’t know how to complain. Besides, just because her behavior was a bit crude, how could Sansan not know her true feelings? In this household, Yeon was the only one left who looked after him.
After being dressed in formal attire against his will by Yeon’s hands, Sansan hesitantly stepped out of the Seosangbang. To avoid doing what Yeon had warned against—loosening it just because it was uncomfortable—he bit his lips several times.
Sansan usually wore hardly any silk clothing, let alone silk belts. His daily life consisted of wearing roomy cotton clothes with a cotton belt tied loosely, so the awkwardness and stuffiness was beyond words.
But last night, unable to resist his pestering, Yeon had worked so hard making gui-byeong. A person should know how to recognize kindness. That’s right, absolutely.
Sansan kept nodding his head repeatedly, enduring and enduring again the desire to rip off the belt constricting his waist. Originally, he found controlling impulses the most difficult thing.
Because I have to see Wol. Because I want to give Wol gui-byeong.
He looked down at the small silk wrapping cloth in his hand. Inside was the gui-byeong he and Yeon had carefully made together last night. Since she was pregnant, he really wanted to feed her this, which Sanwol loved most. After all, he was her older brother, wasn’t he?
Thinking of his younger sister who would put the gui-byeong in her mouth and smile broadly, Sansan suddenly became excited on his own. He walked with lighter steps, almost skipping improperly. Of course, that mood didn’t last long.
“What are you doing, not hurrying up?”
When they had almost reached the inner courtyard, a cold voice suddenly greeted them. Immediately intimidated, Sansan shrank his shoulders completely and approached the owner of the voice with quick steps.
“……Mother.”
Lee Ja-yoon, the biological mother of Sansan and Sanwol, swept over her firstborn son with an appraising gaze.
“When you enter the palace, don’t chatter unnecessarily.”
“Yes.”
“There’s no point in talking to this person and that person—it will only reveal your inadequacy. Understand?”
“……Ye-es. I, I won’t.”
Sansan even nodded his head diligently to please his mother.
He knew he was inadequate too. He hadn’t finished learning all his letters even at his age, and he couldn’t understand complicated speech well. He was scattered and found it very difficult to concentrate on one thing. He was also quite impulsive, and his emotions—whether joy or sadness—fluctuated excessively and he couldn’t hide them from others.
Despite having walked excitedly until just moments ago, Sansan suddenly felt like crying. Nevertheless, just for today, he didn’t want to upset his mother, so he put more strength into the hand gripping the silk wrapping cloth and endured. Unfortunately, this caused Lee Ja-yoon’s gaze to shift to the wrapping cloth.
“What’s that?”
“Gu-gui-byeong. I made it last night with Yeon,”
In an instant, the silk wrapping cloth in Sansan’s hand was snatched away by a sharp hand.
“Another useless thing. Hongseon—.”
Lee Ja-yoon handed the snatched wrapping cloth to the middle-aged woman beside her.
“Nothing from outside the palace can be brought into the palace.”
“……Ah.”
Tsk tsk. Clicking her tongue, Lee Ja-yoon boarded the waiting carriage first. Sansan looked once at the wrapping cloth in Hongseon’s hand with tears welling up in his eyes, then sniffled deliberately, swallowing his regret. Then he followed his mother onto the carriage.
“Father, go-good,”
Yoon Yun-gyeom, Sansan’s father who was already in the carriage, waved his hand dismissively to stop his son from clumsily offering morning greetings. Already accustomed to his father always treating him as if he didn’t exist, Sansan sensibly placed his bottom quickly on the seat opposite his mother.
“Depart.”
With a sharp crack of the whip and the sound of horses neighing, soon the carriage’s four wheels began to roll with a rattle. Thus the carriage carrying Yoon Yun-gyeom, his second wife Lee Ja-yoon, and their eldest son Yoon Sansan set off toward the imperial palace.
Sansan looked out the window, unable to hide his excited mood. Not knowing this was a path from which he could never return.
***
“You—your testicles still haven’t descended, correct?”
When the carriage had been moving for about half a shichen, Yoon Yun-gyeom suddenly asked Sansan. Sansan was flustered and couldn’t close his gaping mouth, just stammering. Even seeing him redden up to his neck, Yoon Yun-gyeom didn’t take his eyes off his son.
“Didn’t I tell you I confirmed it?”
“Did you confirm it properly? You can’t be certain just by looking.”
“Yes, I checked by touching directly. And besides, why would such a thing be important? It’s not like it’s news that His Majesty occasionally keeps male consorts outside the Six Palaces.”
“To keep His Majesty’s feet returning, it’s better to be inside the Six Palaces if possible. Capturing the Son of Heaven’s heart is no easy matter. Every other day, the person in his embrace changes. If what’s in the belly now isn’t a prince, it’s useless. Until she gives birth to a prince at minimum, we must keep his feet returning by any means so she can conceive again and again.”
“……How long we can keep him, I can’t say for certain right now, but look at that face. Even Wol can’t compare to this one, so he’ll surely be moved. Moreover, Sansan has a strange appeal, being neither man nor woman. Because of that alone, we should be able to keep his feet for quite a while.”
“Hmm.”
Sansan couldn’t understand the conversation his father and mother were exchanging. The words were long, and more than anything, due to the question his father had asked just before, the embarrassment still hadn’t subsided.
He recalled the night a few days ago. His mother, who had visited Sansan after a long time, ordered him to remove his undergarments and show his genitals. For some reason, showing himself to his mother felt shameful, but he didn’t know how to disobey her. In the end, he pretended nothing was wrong and pulled down his pants completely, spreading his legs.
His mother lifted his hanging genitals and checked underneath. The perineum area, that bare flesh where something should have been but wasn’t—she pressed it repeatedly with her thumb and index finger hard enough to leave nail marks, searching for something several times. Not even knowing what he disliked about it, Sansan endured that time just shedding tears.
“Fortunately, they still haven’t descended. Seeing that I can’t feel them, they’re clearly not there.”
After the examination ended, Sansan hung his head low and hurriedly pulled his pants back on. For some reason he couldn’t look directly at his mother. He just felt embarrassed and only wanted to run away somewhere.
“It would have been better if that one had been born female.”
“It’s all due to my lack of virtue.”
“Sigh…… I’m not trying to blame you, wife. I’m just frustrated.”
Yoon Yun-gyeom once again conjured in his mind the fantasy he’d occasionally entertained since Sanwol had entered the palace as a concubine. A distant future where his two daughters of outstanding beauty would win the Emperor’s heart, bear princes in succession, and those princes would grow up to bring great glory to the Yoon family.
His first son, obtained rather late compared to others, was a simpleton and an eunuch too shameful to even speak of. For many years, Yoon Yun-gyeom had racked his brains desperately to have another son. But whether his luck was just terrible, the only children granted to him were the utterly useless Sansan and Sanwol, who was female.
Footnote:
Seosangbang (서상방) – Western room/building, Sansan’s room
Yeonghwi (영휘) – Era name
Jusa (주사) – Rank 6 official position, practical manager of the Ministry of Works
Gui-byeong (구이병) – Rice cake made from rice flour dough, steamed and coated with roasted bean powder
