Marry Me
The world I live in is Three Kingdoms. And not just any Three Kingdoms—this is some hardcore, no-bullshit Three Kingdoms. How do I know? Because my name is Gongsun Zan.
Usually when people get isekai’d into the Three Kingdoms, they’re the type who already know the era inside and out, right? Or at least some history major, or a veteran who’s sunk thousands of hours into Romance of the Three Kingdoms games. Me? I don’t know jack about the Three Kingdoms. If you ask why, I don’t really have a good answer. Ever since I was a kid I liked Greek and Roman mythology way more than the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and as I got older the only history that interested me was World War I and II. Besides, I was an officer. A soldier, you know? Even when we studied military history, we focused on modern warfare after the world wars. Who the hell teaches sword-swinging grunt tactics to company commanders?
The most I knew was the basics I’d picked up from idle chatter with the duty officers—stuff like Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei being the Peach Garden Brothers. I also knew Cao Cao was a MILF killer and that Xun Yu kept committing suicide like some kind of champion. That was literally it.
“Yes, Mother.”
Thankfully, my father in this life was a high-ranking official. I’d heard he received a salary of two thousand stones… I didn’t know the exact cost of living in this era, but the fact that we could live without starving in this primitive ancient Chinatown meant he held considerable power. In other words, he had enough influence to take concubines and father sons. And I, of course, was the son of a concubine.
“Even though you are merely a Scribe, you now eat from the country’s salary. You must devote your loyalty to the Han imperial family.”
“Yes.”
Scribe. Basically a secretary-clerk type job. Or more accurately, the lowest grunt in a city hall secretary’s office. A human Excel spreadsheet. Since there were no computers or actual Excel in this era, someone had to copy, compile, and organize official documents. And that was exactly the first job I’d been assigned.
The work itself was easy. Chinese characters were difficult, but after using them for over ten years in this world, I’d grown somewhat familiar with them. My handwriting—based on the very root of Korean calligraphy, Han Seok-bong’s style—was more than enough to be called excellent in this world. What’s Han Seok-bong’s style, you ask? It’s that default font that appears when you type Chinese characters in Word or Hangul. The one that became the national average. I never imagined those calligraphy classes I was half-forced to take in elementary school would come in this handy.
Organizing the haphazardly submitted documents and formatting them according to the military templates I’d used in my previous life wasn’t all that difficult. Moreover, the civil administration of this ancient China that hadn’t even reached the Middle Ages was… well, simple compared to the civil-military operations I’d run back in Afghanistan. At least here I didn’t have to worry about someone shouting “Allahu Akbar” on the street. The worst I’d face was a sword or arrow. No IEDs or anything like that.
Wait… when was gunpowder first invented in China again? I should look for a saltpeter mine later. Where was it… Yunnan? Sichuan? Shaanxi? Shandong? Gansu? I was sure about Sichuan, but the others were fuzzy. Besides, the geography of this era—with places like You Province and Bing Province—was completely different from what I remembered, which made it even more confusing. I’d heard it was somewhere in the north, around the Shandong Peninsula, and some mountainous region in the southwest… but I had no idea. I’d probably find it once I had the connections.
If only I could get my hands on a proper atlas of the Thirteen Provinces. But the maps of this period were garbage. They weren’t real maps—they were just lists of nearby mountains and roads written in sequence. There was no way to determine actual locations. Since You Province where I lived was in the north, I figured I might be able to reach the saltpeter mines in Shaanxi… but then again, a low-level clerk in the city hall secretary’s office couldn’t just disappear for years to go look for rocks.
I’d only gain real freedom of movement once the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out. If I could find saltpeter and make black powder and improvised explosives, I could gift them to someone like NTR-too-good Marine-nim or the 1,523,125th imperial official and secure my own safety. That rat bastard? If he really was such a great ruler, would people have called him a rat?
“Since the harvest in Ji Province has been bountiful this year, I recommend we proceed with rotating the stored grain.”
The fact that I could have these idle thoughts while giving a report showed just how relaxed the Scribe position really was.
“As expected of my prospective son-in-law. Truly impressive.”
“You flatter me.”
The man had slightly thinning hair and a gentle face. His brown eyes shone softly between kindly curved lids. The slight paunch and emerging wrinkles couldn’t hide the long years he’d lived, but they still failed to completely erase the strength of his younger days. This was Hou, the Administrator of Liaoxi Commandery. In this era where it was considered proper to use courtesy names unless speaking to family, it wasn’t unusual for someone to avoid giving their personal name. But it was actually quite rare for someone to hide it as thoroughly as this man did.
In this primitive ancient Chinatown, any public official worth his salt built political power by spreading his name and reputation. Anyone who had risen to a reasonably high position would naturally want to make their three-character—or two or four-character—name known. Yet this gentleman was… strangely sincere about concealing his name.
“So, when do you plan to hold the wedding with my daughter?”
“I am still inadequate. She could surely find a better husband.”
“Baigyu… haven’t you heard people say you’re completely oblivious?”
“I’ve never heard anything of the sort.”
“…Of course you haven’t. What can I expect from someone who doesn’t have a single close friend…”
It was strange enough that an Administrator—basically a mayor—would form a marital connection with the son of a concubine. It wasn’t unheard of, but it was definitely not common. How should I put it… it felt like the only daughter of a Grade 3 civil servant marrying the neighborhood construction worker. I could joke about it, but the moment I actually accepted, I knew a 6.9-femtosecond marathon scolding would begin with “Are you comfortable these days?” And if I openly refused, I’d get the 6.9-picosecond version asking what was wrong with his daughter. It was the same principle as the great Korean tradition of the preemptive strike—King Yeongjo’s specialty.
After racking my brain for a polite yet firm refusal, Administrator Hou frowned slightly, then leaned back in his work chair (it was a recliner—someone had taken a rather nice piece of leather from the market and made something similar with cotton and wood, though it had been confiscated from me) and waved me off. It wasn’t a “come here” gesture. It was a “get lost” gesture.
“…Leave for now. I’m rather tired.”
“Understood.”
Well, it was already almost lunchtime. This year’s bountiful harvest had brought a lot of extra work. But if I could aim for the position of Inspector of Province next year, wouldn’t that actually be a good thing? A few months ago in Luoyang, that gatekeeper kid named Cao Aman I’d met while accompanying Administrator Hou had said that the tax-skimming-friendly Administrator position paid more than Inspector of Province… Maybe he didn’t like the idea? Did I make a mistake? He seemed like the kind of person from a prestigious family who wouldn’t engage in corruption… or would he? Surely not?
My head was spinning for no good reason. After lunch, I should get some exercise to clear my mind. This was one of the few advantages of being a Scribe. Since the job involved organizing and copying documents, if the office ran out of paperwork, I was free to do whatever I wanted. Free time was truly free.
Of course, I couldn’t just play around. I didn’t know exactly when, but the Yellow Turban Rebellion would happen soon. I couldn’t take the primitive ancient record archives at face value, so I filtered out at least half of what they said, but it still seemed like it would involve tens of thousands of people. An army in the tens of thousands… even if they were just a bandit horde with no proper training or discipline, that many people alone would be a disaster.
After the Yellow Turban Rebellion, there was that… what was it called? The Ten Eunuchs or something? Anyway, then the Indian eunuch rebellion would happen, and Dong Zhuo would kidnap the shotacon emperor and raise him… ugh. The Peach Garden Brothers and that rat bastard would somehow clean up the mess, so I planned to live out my days as a civil servant with a guaranteed rice bowl, never worrying about starving. I’d read on some community forum once that even the almighty rat bastard hadn’t actually destroyed the Han dynasty, so if I bought myself a decent official post with money before I turned thirty and just lived comfortably, there shouldn’t be any problems.
Who the hell would come all the way to this godforsaken northern backwater anyway?
I was just about to start my usual workout with the dumbbells I’d made myself (stone and wood; I had no idea what the exact weight was) in the backyard of my office when a woman’s voice came from behind me.
“Oh my, Sir Baigyu is exercising again today?”
“Of course. Physical strength is national strength, after all.”
Surprisingly, this primitive ancient Chinatown was quite progressive. It wasn’t uncommon for women to hold official positions. What was it again… they said that Liu Bang, the founder of the Han, had been a woman? Female monarch Liu Bang… what a lewd name, I’d thought at the time.
Wait. Again?
The only person who knew I exercised was the old Administrator Hou. Who…?
I set the dumbbell down and turned around. There stood a girl I had never seen before, smiling brightly at me.
Her black hair, which carried a slight brownish tint, swayed softly as if it had been oiled. Her gentle eyebrows drew smooth arcs above eyes that resembled those of a young cow, shining with an even lighter brown than her hair. Below her straight nose were small cherry-blossom-colored lips forming a beautiful smile. She wore a yellow silk robe.
The moment our eyes met—her brown eyes and mine—lightning seemed to strike from the top of my head all the way down to my tailbone.
She was beautiful.
She looked like an idol you’d only see on music shows on TV. This was ancient China with no cosmetics or dermatology clinics, so compared to the celebrities of my previous life her appearance was plain and without makeup. Yet that very fact made her look even more pure and delicate.
She reminded me of the visual member from the best idol group of my previous life… No. In my personal opinion, she was even more beautiful.