How I found out transmigration was a thing.

Chapter 59 - Who Invented the Tea Bag

I hope this chapter works.  It's another case of wanting to give you information but not sure how to present it.  If it makes you any happy there is smut on the way.

I couldn't pinpoint why I wanted to talk to Eunuch Kim. Perhaps it was because I felt responsible for the condition he was presently in. It was my idea to interrogate him every hour on the hour, never letting him sleep for any length of time. At the time I thought I was saving him from the more gruesome torture techniques the guards would use.

Within a few days, Kim was suffering from sleep deprivation. Do-Yoon was surprised at how effective the method was in causing his mental state to deteriorate. He was sure he would break him quickly. I told myself that Eunuch Kim was part of the plot to kill me and not to beat myself up about being inhumane. I never anticipated the little man would hold out for so long. I thought he would cave in and it would be over and done with. I soon realised I created a different sort of hell for him.

Or maybe the real reason I wanted to talk to him was simpler, I wanted to have the last word and gloating that the plan had failed.

I kept reminding myself that he was not an innocent man. That he had played a part in the attempt to murder me. I was certain of his guilt, no matter how much he denied it. The little weasel never wavered from his original story. I have to give him full marks for having the guts to endure the sleep deprivation and hunger.

Still, for some reason, I wanted to give him one more chance. Do-Yoon told me he didn't understand why I wanted to waste my time on him. I hated the idea that once the Eunuch left the Pavilion his own people would probably repay his loyalty and silence with a mercifully quick death. He was now an inconvenience.

I heard the gong from the gates and knew Do-Yoon would deliver him to me any minute. I chose to meet Kim in my workshop, thinking the unusual setting would put him at ease. The room is cosy and smelt pleasantly of herbs and spices. It's felt safe.

....

My stomach did a summersault when I eventually turned to look at Eunuch Kim. He sat rigidly in a chair where the guards had dumped him. The smell of his unwashed body filled the room. He was skin and bone, a grotesque creature. The grey translucent skin on his arms and legs, showed every vein like a street map. Kim's chin rested on his chest, his eyes downcast. The little man sat awkwardly like a broken doll. But even in this state, he somehow maintained his subservient dignity. For a second I was tempted to believe he was innocent.

But if my assumptions were correct he would suffer all this again and more, for the same sort of reason that had driven Yung-So to try to kill me.

I asked the guards to leave. When Do-Yoon lingered I nodded at him and he grudgingly left the room as well.

"Raise your head please Eunuch Kim. Look at me when I speak to you." Slowly the little man did as I asked. His dark eyes took a moment to focus on me. His face was free of the thick white powder he normally wore. I was surprised to see what would be, under different circumstances, a pleasant face. Kim was younger than I first thought.

"Eunuch Kim, how did you end up here?" I shook my head in regret as I turned away to finish what I was doing.

My workshop consists of two large benches and shelves which ran along the walls, from floor to ceiling. All of them were crammed with wooden boxes, bottles, and jars. There is a firebox stove set into a fireplace in one corner. I had been tending it for an hour, carefully adding kindling and fanning the flames. Gone are the days when I turned a switch on my stove top and the gas burners instantly came to life. Here cooking takes time and patience, even to make a decent cup of tea. I mentally added another thing to the list of things I missed from my old life, large mugs of Twinning's Darjeeling or Russian Caravan. My mind wandered to, who invented tea bags? There's no Google, so I'll never know.