His condition, all too obvious to those who've spent any time at all among the courts of nobles and their eunuch servants. The condition on which he was able to live after watching his entire family suffer the slow, lingering death of lingchi. That was the trade-off: he got to live but in shame. The line of his father ended. And all the while he endured the ridicule as he rose through the ranks of the Prince of Henan's army.

Ouyang bristled slightly. "It is due to being beaten as a slave."