Lu Bu Joins (1)
The night wind on the plains was fiercer than the day's. Razor-sharp gusts that flayed the skin swept across the wasteland, felling dry grasses with their screams. After the sun had fully set, the earth plunged into pitch-black silence, impossible to pierce even a foot ahead. From afar came only the harsh snorts of horses and the chilling scrape of metal as sentries shifted their spear tips.
Overhead, stars crowded the sky as if ready to pour down, but Kang Minju's heart—borrowing Zhang Fei's body to stand in this spot—could find no peace.
'He should be showing up any minute now.'
Minju stared into the darkness, loosely gripping the reins. Sweat slicked his palms, dampening the leather.
He was balanced on a knife's edge. Only a handful of elite soldiers—fewer than ten—remained at his side. Guan Yu had escorted him only to the agreed rendezvous before turning back at their lord's command. Minju had deliberately brought an even smaller force, pushing right up to the enemy's doorstep. It was a mad gamble, one no one could call sane.
But Minju knew the man called Lu Bu Fengxian. He would value a lone warrior staking his life to enter the tiger's den far more than some pompous envoy approaching with a grand army. For one who lorded over the world through martial might, only matching audacity earned a seat at the table.
And at last.
Crunch, crunch.
The thud of hooves crushing dry earth tore through the silence. The vibrations rumbling through the ground were no ordinary tremor. This was no mere cavalry unit. An oppressive pressure, as if the air itself were being crushed, bore down from ahead.
"General!"
His guards tensed reflexively, tightening their grips on spears. The horses shied back from the murderous aura. Minju quietly raised a hand to hold them.
"Stand down. Don't touch them."
Moments later, dozens of cloaked riders emerged from the shadows like specters. At their center stood a man whose presence cut sharp even with the moonlight at his back. Armor tinged with a red glow. A frame vast as a mountain. Eyes that looked down on men not as equals, but as insects he could crush at will.
Lu Bu (Lü Bu, Fengxian).
Behind him trailed a single black cart, rolling slowly. Through its thin canopy fluttering in the wind, the faint silhouette of a slender woman flickered.
Diaochan.
'He's here.'
Minju smiled inwardly.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
As the distance narrowed to the length of a single arrow shot, Lu Bu spoke first. A sardonic sneer curled his lips.
"You really came, Zhang Yide."
His voice was low and heavy. On the battlefield, it could shatter the eardrums of ten thousand men, but here it slithered in like a viper—quiet, piercing.
"Never thought you'd actually seek me out."
"I never had any intention of just spouting pretty words and vanishing."
Minju let out a scoffing laugh. Zhang Fei's coarse beard fluttered in the wind.
Lu Bu's thick brows twitched. Wariness surged among his encircling cavalry. They bristled as if ready to strike at any moment—but Lu Bu only burst into booming laughter, as if intrigued.
"Ha! Your tongue's as rough as ever."
Minju didn't dismount. Neither did Lu Bu. Both remained mounted, facing off, instinctively sensing that setting foot on the ground might cede ground in their invisible clash of wills.
Minju drew a silk pouch from his bosom, carefully preserved.
"A letter from my eldest brother."
Lu Bu didn't reach for it. He nodded to a general at his side. The man approached cautiously, took the letter, and presented it. Lu Bu tore the seal roughly and read slowly by moonlight.
In that brief span, Minju watched every flicker in Lu Bu's eyes. First, blatant suspicion. Then mocking disdain. But as he passed the midpoint, as Liu Bei's concrete terms took shape, a faint tremor rippled somewhere in that gaze.
'He's hooked.'
Minju was certain. Lu Bu had nowhere else to go. Under Dong Zhuo, he was forever the outsider, the watched one. And rumors swirled of an anti-Dong Zhuo coalition forming. Lu Bu would sense, in his bones, that Dong Zhuo's era was barreling toward its end.
Yet he showed no warmth toward Zhang Fei. Lu Bu finished the letter and crumpled it roughly.
"Pingyuan."
He murmured low.
"You think the unparalleled Lu Bu will come at the call of some petty frontier scrap of land? Is that the measure of Liu Xuande's ambition?"
"Even a small patch of dirt is better than wandering like a vagrant with no place to lay your head."
Minju's retort held no hesitation.
"We're no longer drifters. We've raised our banner in Pingyuan, stockpiled grain, and gathered more men than you imagine. If you come, you'll have a place of honor—and the lady Diaochan a safe haven to hide. Above all, battlefields await where your blade won't rust."
Lu Bu's gaze flicked, just for an instant, to the cart beyond the canopy. That fleeting waver. Minju read him perfectly: what tormented him, what he feared.
Lu Bu spoke slowly.
"You're not wrong. But..."
He trailed off, gazing at the distant night sky. A bitter shadow ill-suited to the mad war god's back.
"Dong Zhuo was my father."
Minju's eyes narrowed sharply.
Lu Bu gave a self-mocking laugh.
"The world already brands me the traitor who slew his father. For beheading Ding Yuan and going to Dong Zhuo. If I abandon Dong Zhuo now, what will they say? That I'm an unfilial beast worse than a dog, spitting on me. Tyrant or not, the world's tongues always swing the sword the easy way."
Behind him, Zhang Liao quietly lowered his eyes. He knew his lord's dilemma of legitimacy. From within the cart, Diaochan held her breath behind the canopy, listening.
Minju fell silent. Not from doubt. Then, calmly—but with bone-striking weight—he asked:
"Then let me ask one thing, Lu Bu."
Lu Bu's gaze returned.
"Even if Dong Zhuo tries to take Lady Diaochan, you're fine with that?"
In that instant.
The night air froze solid. The raging wind seemed to halt, the pressure so thick it choked the atmosphere.
Lu Bu's eyes spasmed wide. Even Zhang Liao jerked his head up at the unforeseen fastball. The silk canopy quivered ever so faintly.
"...What?"
Lu Bu's voice sank to bedrock. A volcano on the verge.
Minju pressed on, thrusting the dagger deeper, straight to the heart.
"If it's all about heavenly principles, legitimacy, the world's judgment—fine, I get it. But tell me. If Dong Zhuo lusts after the woman you treasure more than your life and tries to ravage her, will you stay by his side playing the dutiful son to the end?"
"..."
Lu Bu's lips twitched in spasm. He tried to retort, but no words came. It wasn't mere hypothesis—it was the very reality he dreaded most.
Minju seized the gap, unleashing a barrage.
"Dong Zhuo's mad for power. He already sees the realm as his pocket trinket, believes he can claim any man's loyalty or woman at will. Maybe not today. Tomorrow? If not tomorrow, the day after?"
Veins bulged on Lu Bu's hands. His grip tightened on the Fangtian Halberd, metal grinding.
"Zhang Yide."
He ground out through clenched teeth.
"Don't spout nonsense. Taking your head here would be nothing to me."
"Nonsense? No. I'm staking my life to give you this careful advice."
Minju's eyes gleamed coldly.
"While you cling to notions of duty and honor, Dong Zhuo will use you like a hunting dog to the end. Frontline fodder when needed, discarded without mercy when inconvenient. And the moment he touches your woman—that's when you'll finally rage and draw your blade? By then, it'll all be over."
Lu Bu was speechless. Not from anger. It was the helplessness of truth he'd buried deepest, his rawest wound pierced clean through.
Minju exhaled low, driving the wedge home.
"Soon, a massive anti-Dong Zhuo wave will rise."
Zhang Liao's eyes flashed. Minju's prophecy, backed by future knowledge, rang with certainty.
"The realm can bear his tyranny no longer. The lords may scheme differently, but they'll merge into one unstoppable current. The Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalition. No one can halt that heavenly mandate."
Minju hammered each word into Lu Bu's chest.
"Lu Bu Fengxian. You must choose. Perish miserably with Dong Zhuo in that devouring tide."
Minju's gaze pierced to the depths of Lu Bu's pupils.
"Or survive—and with your overwhelming might and name, scheme for the world. In the end, only the survivor claims the strong legacy."
A long silence stretched. Amid tension so taut the plain's wind vanished, a frail voice leaked from the cart.
"Lord Fengxian..."
Diaochan. Not a tearful plea or earnest beg—just a trembling call, compressing countless emotions, fears, and one slender hope.
Lu Bu slowly closed his eyes. A storm's eve stillness cloaked the plain.
When he opened them again.
That gaze was utterly transformed.
"...Very well."
Lu Bu finally spoke. His voice cleaved the night, resounding gravely.
"Zhang Yide. Just this once, I'll trust that insolent tongue of yours."
In the darkness, the corner of Minju's mouth curved faintly upward.
The massive gear of history had veered from its track, grinding into motion with a thunderous roar.