“The Mail Hall is very large, so it can be used for a variety of things. Brother, stone and I have already thought of something. We think that the Main building with its semi-separate buildings should be your residence, while I take the west wing and Shixuan takes the east wing. What do you think?”

Ji Li took his time to process the image he had in his head, while looking at the map. He then nodded and was proud as he put his palm on Qianyu’s shoulder and patted it “You did well. Sure, since you have already thought of how to do things, then that’s good.”

Ji Li then looked at his other younger brother, sure that he was also waiting for his part, but it was just too difficult to pat someone taller than you on the shoulder, not to mention the shoulder, so Ji Li just patted the back of Shixuan as he continued.

“We will be changing a few things. First of all, I don’t want the guests to stay in our yard, so the rooms will be removed. We can just pull the guest hall larger and make that the Main Hall. If it’s larger, then there will be enough room to receive guests and no need for the guests to move any further into the yard. It’s a good thing that the front yard is separated in the first place.

Since we changed the Main Hall, we can also directly make the main hall from before the Training Hall, as it has enough space. Shixuan, you will make sure that formations are set there, so it will be secure. That will be better, and while we’re at it, make the Front Yard a little different.

Let’s talk about the front yard and back yard later, as we won’t be needing to change too much besides get different furniture. The last thing is to remove the servants’ quarters, as we won’t be having any. Just make the storage and kitchen larger, Qianyu, you will be taking care of our meals.

Let’s do that tomorrow, as some earth attribute cultivation will be able to change the structure very fast. After that, the Yard will be more than enough to accommodate us till we are High Eunuchs, since we aren’t planning on staying here too much, and the personal space is more than enough for three.”

Shixuan and Qianyu nodded, knowing that they wouldn’t need to change homes, and didn’t want that either. They also selectively ignored the fact that both of them got chores, while Ji Li didn’t get any… well, they were used to cater their big bro anyways!

…

The next day Ji Li woke up with a grumbling stomach, already frowning and upset in the morning, but he didn’t say anything aloud, as he usually would do in such a situation after waking up. In all honesty, he didn’t really eat a lot the day before, excluding the rich and filling breakfast and the many pieces of street food, he didn’t even have dinner!

But he also knew that he couldn’t really complain, as the Yard was barely handed over and the storage could be called an empty box or a box filled with air, depending on the situation. Qianyu wasn’t as knowledgeable with the map as he was, so naturally he wouldn’t know where the well-known Trade Pavilion was.

The Trade Pavilion, unlike what the name might suggest, was another Palace under the ruling power of the Eunuch Palace Complex. There were some more, as the Eunuch Palace was the only place among the ruling powers in the empire that had the full trust of all citizens while also being very neutral regarding the nobility, military and royalty.

Although some might think they were more inclined with the royalty, that was only for the royalty that was behaving properly in their eyes. There have been several cases of princes losing their status because they had acted inappropriately and the council decided against keeping them as a possible heir to the throne, and they were the highest power in deciding the successor.

There were three powers that were allowed to vote for a successor, which was the emperor himself, the Emerald Tree Spirit and the Grand Imperial Eunuch. While all of them had the veto right as long as it was reasonable, the only person that could outright kick someone out of the successor line, without needing a reason, was the Grand Imperial Eunuch.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

They were the ones that focused mainly on taking care of the empire and didn’t have too much of a bias to anyone, so it was widely known that they were the most loyal and honest to the empire. Naturally, that was only when they were acting for the empire, they were dishonest and cold monsters that could destroy cities and regions if that helped the empire in any way.

Ji Li only went out of his room and saw Qianyu embarrassed standing in outside, while Shixuan was also awkwardly scratching the back of his head. Grumpy, Ji Li didn’t comment and just went out, followed by the two. He had planned everything there was yesterday, so he didn’t need to spend any more time inside the unfinished Yard, especially not if he had to suffer from hunger.

…

Soon, they arrived by the administrative section of the Main Palace again, this time they didn’t need a carriage, as it was basically their neighbour. They visited the residence management building again, as it didn’t only offer the deeds to eunuchs but managed them generally.

The receptionist from yesterday wasn’t here, so Ji Li wasn’t too interested in acting nice and just went straight to the point. He gave the receptionist the map of the interior and told them which walls were to be broken and how the rooms were to be rearranged. While he was at it, he also made sure they added some sound preventing formations, although there were already a few.

Ji Li didn’t really bother spending any more time, as he knew that the residence management wasn’t giving out any furniture, the Trade Pavilion was. The Trade Pavilion also had two sections, just like the Mission Palace. It had the section for everyone to buy anything available to them, which was split into many floors inside of the main pavilion, while they had a separate building that was for eunuchs.

The separate building only managed the distribution of certain items to the eunuchs, such as monthly resources, income and other things, furniture for an example. If eunuchs wanted to buy anything, then they would also need to pay the main pavilion a visit, but they had some special privileges.

Besides the main pavilion, there were some side ones that trades specific things. They often included the things that would be sold in large quantities or were of very high quality, to lessen the burden on the main pavilion while also separating the different customers.

The main pavilion was more like a large store that had a bit of everything and even had an auction hall, while the side pavilions were the workshops that sent small quantities to the large store.

Ji Li crossed the doorstep of the Eunuch Pavilion, where he arrived after a small ride on a street carriage, there was a lot of space between the several Palaces, as they had special functions and the eunuchs working in them would need to reside in close proximity.

It would be bad if they centralised all the Palaces, making it more like a very tight space around the Main Palace, disturbing the calm and resting atmosphere of many eunuchs, while also making competition among the senior eunuchs that only wanted to live close because they were basically in retirement, and the working eunuchs that had to have the residencies for their work.

The insides of the Eunuch Pavilion were built exactly like the administrative buildings that Ji Li had visited. It slowly annoyed him that the building style of so many places were so similar, ignoring the fact that they pretty much had the same needs as administrative buildings, Ji Li went on an inner rant before he stepped forward towards a reception. He was just mad because he hadn’t really eaten anything, after all, so he wasn’t really angry.

The receptionist was very nice and presented several catalogues to Ji Li and then pointed for Ji Li to step aside towards the waiting area, where he began to look through the picture book. There were many interesting things, but most of them were in the ancient Chinese style.

Ji Li took a short break as some Purple Butterfly was presented to him, so he drank that and thought to himself ‘Hmm. There are many of the same style, honestly, it’s a nice one, but it is very boring, if you think about how every single one of them had the same.

But I won’t be changing that, not for now. There are many, really many, things that I’d have to do, and it’s just not worth it to do all that only for my first Yard. It might have some sentimental value, but in the end, I will just stay in there to relax and train, while also leaving a lot for special training and cultivation locations or missions.

If I wanted to progress slowly, then I might relax and design my Yard like a true home, but who am I to do that? I didn’t know of the things prior, but now that I know the situation, can I really expect nothing to happen while I relaxedly cultivate in the back, when the people at the front are experiencing more and mor skirmishes and the situation getting out of control?’

Honestly, I might not care about a lot of things, but I do care about my two brothers… and about entertainment! There isn’t even a TV!’