The Eunuch Director

The Eunuch Director is a historical wuxia time-travel novel by Yiyu Pochunfeng, serialized on Qidian starting August 2016 and completed in August 2017, totaling roughly 1.56 million Chinese characters. The novel opens on a brutal scene: a modern man, Bai Muqiu, transmigrates into the Central Plains empire of the Wu Dynasty, only to open his eyes and find himself Bai Ning, a young eunuch freshly castrated—his body has been cut off from the path of human intimacy, and there is no way back. The Wu Dynasty faces troubles abroad and within: to the north the Liao mass their horsemen, the Jurchen rise amid the white mountains and black waters, greedy Xia presses from the west, and bowmen on the steppe covet the Central Plains; at court the regent Zhao Wu holds power while the young emperor Zhao Ji is little more than a puppet. Relying on a wuxia system of unknown origin, Bai Muqiu rises: he wins the emperor's trust by telling him The Deer and the Cauldron, first helps Zhao Ji wrest imperial authority back from the regent, then maneuvers among the factions of the inner palace, climbing step by step to Grand Steward of the Imperial Household. Thereafter he is ordered to found the Eastern Depot and serve as its director, wielding the power of life and death under the name "Nine Thousand Years": at court he kills corrupt officials to establish his authority; in the jianghu he clashes repeatedly with the Liangshan rebels and other forces, recruiting heroes such as Lin Chong into the Eastern Depot and sending Li Shishi into the palace, while also tasting defeat against masters like Zhou Tong. The novel's defining feature is its "true eunuch" protagonist: the humiliation and repression of a mutilated body give rise to a ruthless, vicious yet still patriotic strongman; his marriage to the simple-minded girl Xifu becomes the last guardrail between his reason and his madness. Told in a "nation before family" register that spans court and jianghu, the novel combines brisk leveling-up with a somber undertone, making it one of the more distinctive works of dark wuxia.