Kneel and Open Your Mouth
At the very moment Zhang Jue was turning ten thousand prisoners into living sandbags to brew an unseasonable yellow sandstorm in early summer, Zhao Yun stepped into the barracks of the Northern Colonel’s forces in Gulu, Jizhou, alongside the joint Cao Cao–Yuan Shu suppression army.
Yuan Shu squinted at the banner snapping above the command tent.
“Am I seeing this wrong? The flag clearly says ‘Dong.’ What is this? Did the old Colonel change his surname while I was gone?”
“Ah! Gonglu. I forgot to mention it.”
Cao Cao jumped in the instant the words left Yuan Shu’s mouth, as if she had been waiting for the perfect opening.
“A messenger arrived from Jizhou last week. They said Lord Lu Zhi was relieved of his post as Northern Colonel and a new appointee had taken over! I meant to tell you… but I was so busy personally nursing Zilong back to health that it completely slipped my mind! Yes! Feeding him, dressing him—quite the handful, I assure you!”
Dressing him?
Was this bitch openly bragging that she had seen a man naked?
Though she was an unfilial daughter who chased off her Confucian tutors with tantrums and spoke rudely to her own father, Yuan Shu had still been born into a Confucian society.
She might be the world’s most insufferable shrew, but as a daughter of the noble Yuan clan she still possessed a maiden’s modesty when it came to relations between men and women.
While she stood frozen in shock—unable to spit out the usual insults about lowborn behavior or suggest a eunuch’s knife for the girl—Cao Cao shot Zhao Yun a sidelong glance.
His expression was as calm as ever.
He was hearing for the first time that Lu Zhi had been dismissed, yet he remained utterly composed…
So he had expected this after all?
That was why he had fought so desperately to desert Liu Bei’s camp.
She really had been a loose thread from the beginning.
The moment Cao Cao’s suspicion hardened into certainty, another question arose.
Then why was Zhao Yun so reluctant to come under her command?
Did he believe he could not rise under her? Or did her abilities seem insufficient?
Or perhaps… did he also see her as nothing more than a treacherous minister or a hero of chaos, just like Xu Shao had?
A treacherous minister in times of peace, a hero of chaos in times of turmoil…
Though she had gained fame from Xu Shao’s appraisal, right now she found the man utterly detestable.
…It didn’t matter.
Whatever he thought of her, she would keep him close and prove it to him personally—whether this Cao Cao was truly a cunning woman or not.
They said Heaven helps those who move people with sincerity. How could a mere man be any different?
One day he would see her clearly.
At that moment, Zhao Yun noticed her gaze, turned his head, and flinched. Only then did Cao Cao snap out of her reverie.
“Lord Mengde?”
“Ah… I was simply reminiscing about the passionate week I spent with Zilong and lost track of myself! Truly~ they were exhausting yet incredibly rewarding days, you know?”
A passionate, exhausting, yet rewarding time between a man and a woman?!
Yuan Shu, already reeling, felt another wave of shock crash over her.
Cao Cao… that insane bitch really had used her body to steal her talent!
“What are you saying?! You merely nursed me while I was bedridden, Lord Mengde!”
“Merely nursed you? How cold! Didn’t I do everything for you so you wouldn’t be inconvenienced, Zilong?! Well, never mind. We can discuss this later. Zilong, Gonglu and I will report to the Northern Colonel. You return to the barracks with Yuanyang and the troops. I’m quite curious what the new Colonel will be like. Aren’t you, Gonglu? …Gonglu? What are you doing? Let’s go inside! I don’t know why this sandstorm is blowing so fiercely.”
The King in Yellow's Play
It was only after the two Commandants, Cao Cao and Yuan Shu, had entered the Northern Colonel’s quarters that Yuan Shu—finally emerging from her daze—began thinking with a grave expression.
“Reporting to the Northern Colonel! We, Cao Cao and Yuan Shu, have returned from suppressing the Yellow Turbans in Youzhou under the previous Northern Colonel Lu Zhi’s orders. We now report to the new Northern Colonel!”
“Ah, yes… I heard you two performed great service in Youzhou. Annihilating fifty thousand Yellow Turbans with only six thousand troops? It must have been grueling. Come, come—you must be exhausted. Don’t stand on ceremony; sit down at once!”
Dong Zhuo offered the two Commandants a deliberately benevolent smile.
Normally Dong Zhuo treated her subordinates without the slightest restraint, so the guards were visibly surprised to see her acting so cautiously toward these two women.
But to Dong Zhuo it was only natural.
The men she had brought with her were lowborn wretches who had grown up as roughly as she had in Liang Province… but these two girls came from completely different stock!
Cao Cao was the granddaughter of Cao Teng, the leader of the Ten Eunuchs whom Dong Zhuo was currently courting to escape the frontier.
Yuan Shu, needless to say, was the youngest daughter of the illustrious Runan Yuan clan—the most prestigious of all prestigious families.
Having rarely interacted with people of such noble birth, Dong Zhuo felt awkward around them. Moreover, since both were deeply tied to the Ten Eunuchs and the Impure Faction, she treated the pair with even greater care.
“My, my~ To think the Northern Colonel would show us such consideration! We are truly honored! Isn’t that right, Gonglu?”
“Huh? Ah, yes. …We thank the Colonel for her kindness.”
“Oh come now, both of you! There’s no need to be so formal. If it were up to me I’d throw a grand feast right away, but damn it all… to be honest, the situation isn’t exactly favorable.”
When Dong Zhuo let out a small sigh and began to grumble, the faces of the two women—who had been listening attentively—hardened.
“By the heavens… so it’s true that the Yellow Turban leader uses sorcery?!”
“Exactly! I’d love to launch an attack, but how can I when every time we try, that bastard’s spells cause all sorts of strange phenomena and our morale collapses! …For some reason it had gone quiet recently. But yesterday this sandstorm suddenly kicked up and the soldiers are terrified. They say that Zhang Jue bastard is preparing something again.”
That fucking son of a bitch…
Dong Zhuo muttered and gulped down her wine.
So the unseasonable sandstorm really was caused by sorcery.
Both Cao Cao’s and Yuan Shu’s faces twisted with hatred for Zhang Jue.
Though the three of them had grown up in different places, they shared one thing in common: they had lived their entire lives inside a Confucian society.
Dong Zhuo, born a lowborn on the frontier, was slightly different, but Cao Cao and Yuan Shu were nobles born at the very heart of the Han Empire.
The Han was an excessively rigid Confucian state that despised not only sorcery but even magic, branding both as heretical arts.
Having been born and raised at the center of such a society, it was only natural that the two women loathed sorcery.
After they had each sat lost in thought for a long while, Dong Zhuo clapped her hands as if to dispel the gloomy atmosphere.
“Anyway, let’s not sit around looking so defeated! You’ve returned victorious, haven’t you? Let’s put the painful talk aside until tomorrow and share some fun stories instead, shall we?”
Seeing Dong Zhuo suddenly smile with clear ulterior motive, both Cao Cao and Yuan Shu looked up with curiosity.
“A rather interesting rumor reached me all the way out here. Commandant Yuan, you really… what was his name again? Zhao Yun? Yes? Hehehee… that expression tells me I’m right! You fell for the man, abandoned your fiancé, and took him as your husband?”
What a disgusting rumor!
Irritation flared inside Yuan Shu and she was about to throw a tantrum regardless of the fact that the woman before her was her superior—wait, husband?
A brilliant scheme to steal Zhao Yun away from Cao Cao suddenly flashed through Yuan Shu’s mind.
The suppression army’s barracks in Gulu, Jizhou, before dawn.
Zhao Yun had had a ridiculous dream.
Confucius and Laozi had been brawling.
Laozi had hurled a fireball that Confucius shattered with his bare fist before charging in.
Then suddenly Confucius and his disciples were lying unconscious, and instead of Laozi a single crow was flying away!
To wake up with morning wood after a dream like that—truly, a man’s body was always a mystery.
“Hey, hey! Ahem… I called you for quite a while but you wouldn’t wake up. You’ve finally opened your eyes.”
Hearing a woman’s whisper from the opposite side, he turned his head and saw—somehow—Yuan Shu.
“Commandant Yuan…!”
“Shh! You idiot, do you think I want to brag that I snuck into your tent at this hour? Keep quiet.”
She was the one who had crept into someone else’s tent at dawn, yet she was telling him to shut up…
As always, the woman had no shame whatsoever.
“Ahem… Anyway, the reason this young lady has graced this filthy place is to make you an offer you cannot refuse.”
When Yuan Shu puffed out her chest arrogantly, a small amount of sand slid from the wind-blocking cloth covering her head.
Good heavens, was that all dust?
It wasn’t even spring—why was there such a fierce sandstorm?
That wasn’t important right now.
“An offer I cannot refuse?”
He wasn’t some mafia boss.
“Before that… you’re only staying with Cao Cao because you owe her your life and can’t escape, correct?”
How did Yuan Shu know that?
Seeing Zhao Yun’s expression, Yuan Shu relaxed.
Yes, so he really was being held against his will.
Good—it was only natural! There was no way he would throw away the glorious chance to serve under her, Yuan Gonglu, youngest daughter of the Runan Yuan clan, just because that rag had spread her legs a little.
Utter nonsense.
“Hmph! Of course, this is an opportunity that will never come again for you. Listen well. You must have heard that absurd rumor, yes?”
The rumor that he and Yuan Shu were getting married?
Of course he had.
These people couldn’t even spread a rumor properly. Instead of the tale of the filial son Fang Ye who avenged his parents, it had somehow turned into Romeo and Juliet.
“Annoyingly enough, not only the commoners but even my father seems to believe it. How ridiculous… Still, wouldn’t a truly wise person turn crisis into opportunity? Fortunately for you, I, Yuan Gonglu, am exactly that kind of person. You should be kowtowing a hundred times in gratitude.”
What on earth was she trying to say that she was dragging it out this much?
The sun would rise at this rate.
After bragging about herself for a long time, Yuan Shu’s face suddenly flushed as she finally reached the main point.
“Anyway. If I break off the engagement with a fiancé I’ve never even met, and you want to escape Cao Cao… this method would solve everything, wouldn’t it…? If you and I enter a sham marriage for a while, all our problems would be resolved, no?”
A sham marriage? With Yuan Shu?!
…Was he insane?
Even if he escaped Cao Cao that way, the moment he said it was fake, the entire Runan Yuan clan would try to kill him that very day! It would be the same even if they actually married!
When Zhao Yun shot upright in shock at her nonsense, Yuan Shu’s already red face grew even redder.
“You lewd son of a bitch!!! I said it would be a sham! You really are vulgar, just like your lowborn father! The moment you hear the word marriage you go into heat?!”
Ah… morning wood…
It still hadn’t gone down.
Wait, did Yuan Shu not even know what morning wood was?
…She probably didn’t.
Right. In this world she was a woman.
“I’m already irritated enough because that bandit’s sorcery has brought this sandstorm in this weather, and now I have to look at your disgusting thing at dawn? Put it away this instant!!!”
Sorcery?
Zhang Jue really was using sorcery?
This sand was caused by Zhang Jue’s spell?
If so… this kind of sorcery was…
Before he had possessed this body—back when he was a hardcore player of the game—Zhao Yun had raised characters of many different concepts.
Naturally, he had played a sorcerer several times.
Which meant he knew exactly what this spell was.
Wind blew all day with sand gradually mixing in, growing stronger and stronger.
A sandstorm that intensified over time.
And finally the spell that turned it into a full sandstorm and drove everyone inside it to madness.
This was… The King in Yellow’s Play.
Fuck. If he just sat still he would go insane and start gouging out his own eyes.
Fortunately, unlike magic, sorcery was a cheap trick that could be easily countered if one knew how.
And Zhao Yun was a man who knew not only the sorcery of this era but even the sorcery that would appear in the game’s future.
In other words, he had already dismantled this exact spell countless times before.
He naturally tried to recite the counter-incantation, but…
“Khh…”
Strength left his body and a headache twisted his face.
This was… because his intelligence was too low.
Why hadn’t he thought of that?
Such a large-scale sorcery required high intelligence to cast without a sacrifice… Zhao Yun wasn’t completely brainless, but his intelligence was nowhere near high enough to use sorcery without preparation!
Still, the fact that his head hadn’t actually exploded meant it might be possible if he could raise it just a little… but was there any way to suddenly become smarter? Of course not…
“Z-Zhao Yun? What’s wrong all of a sudden…?”
His head was already killing him, and now Yuan Shu’s voice was making him even more irritated.
He was about to snap at her with a grumpy face when—ah!
That’s right… Yuan Shu was still a woman in this game, wasn’t she?
He suddenly remembered the method by which a male character could temporarily raise their intelligence by 2.
That method…
No choice. Survival came first.
“Commandant Yuan.”
“Y-yes?”
Overwhelmed by the sudden seriousness in Zhao Yun’s gaze and tone, Yuan Shu answered reflexively.
That face making such a serious expression! …It was attractive, but she wished he would cover that monstrous thing first…
Apparently unaware of her thoughts, Zhao Yun looked away and spoke.
“…I’ll explain everything later.”
“Explain what?”
“But we don’t have time right now… I’m sorry, but please kneel immediately and open your mouth. I’ll take care of the rest… I’ll handle everything.”
“Wh-what?!”
This man had truly gone insane!
Even though Yuan Shu had no sexual experience, she knew exactly why a man with an erection would demand such a thing from a woman.
“This is… I clearly said it would be a sham marriage, not that I would truly become your bride…!! Kyaa?!”
-THUD!!!
When Zhao Yun roughly struck her lower abdomen, Yuan Shu couldn’t withstand the shock and collapsed to her knees.
C-crazy bastard!
Refusing to yield to the pain in her belly, Yuan Shu tried to glare venomously at Zhao Yun as she lifted her head.
“Th-this…! Mi—later…?”
Zhao Yun had already taken off his pants.
And his massive cock was approaching her face.
“If you don’t want to die, open your mouth quickly.”
“H-how can I— no! I won’t— kyaaah!!”
-THUUUD!!!
Zhao Yun’s foot slammed into Yuan Shu’s lower abdomen once again.
“Fuck! We’re all going to die if you keep this up!”
“Hngh…. Hnnngh!”
Yuan Shu resisted until the very end.
Even as he tried to force his cock into her mouth, she kept her lips tightly shut and shook her head, so his member merely rubbed against her face.
…Of course the soft sensation against his cock wasn’t unpleasant, but that wasn’t the purpose of this!
Zhao Yun was anxious.
He had no idea when Zhang Jue would complete his spell.
“Fuck, just once! I’ll finish in one go!”
“I-I don’t want it in my mouth! …Not that! At least let me have my first kiss fir—!”
Yuan Shu desperately begged for something, but… she should have kept her mouth shut.
Zhao Yun did not miss the tiny opening. His enormous cock finally forced its way into Yuan Shu’s small mouth.
“Mmmph—!! …N-nooooo!!!”
And so the partner for Yuan Shu’s romantic first kiss… became Zhao Yun’s erect cock….