The Beauty Scheme
“I’ve got something on my mind.”
Liu Xie had returned to her chambers looking thoroughly depressed. I asked the reason at once.
“What troubles Your Majesty?”
“Could you come a little closer?”
“Well, that isn’t hard, but…”
With a sudden rush she threw her arms around me. I was glad she felt close enough to do it—yet every time she clung like this…
“Dong Zhuo says he will hold a grand banquet the day I ascend the throne. But how am I supposed to smile and pretend joy after driving my own brother out with my own hands?”
“Ah… so that’s what it was. I know this weighs on you, Your Majesty. Of course I can only understand it with my head; I can’t begin to imagine how it actually feels.”
“I’m afraid… My dead father will surely curse and resent me. And the whole realm will condemn me for selling my brother to a traitor just so I could become emperor.”
“People aren’t fools. The blame will fall on Dong Zhuo alone; Your Majesty will remain a victim of the age. And the late emperor would never resent you.”
“How would you know that? Did that Jesus fellow of yours say so as well?”
“You don’t need Jesus to see it clearly enough. No matter what anyone says, you will become emperor. What an emperor must do is not torment herself with her fate and self-reproach, but watch the people of the realm smile. To them the emperor is the sun itself—without it they cannot live a single day.”
Meaningless words tumbling out of my mouth just to fill the silence. But Liu Xie was a teenager in the full storm of adolescence; what she needed was not a solution, but empathy.
“Thank you for saying that… You’re right. There are people I must protect. For their sake I cannot afford to grow weak.”
“Yes, so now if you could just let go a little…”
Her arms only tightened around my waist. As if I were among those she had to protect—perhaps the foremost among them—she buried her face against me with the will never to release me.
Or maybe I really was the first.
More than twenty days had already passed since Dong Zhuo entered Luoyang. The dethronement proceeded smoothly; Empress Dowager He and Liu Bian, sensing their fate, reportedly spent every day in tears.
I, by contrast, still had not decided. Would I risk death, face Lü Bu, and attempt Dong Zhuo’s assassination? Or would I preserve my life and wait for another chance?
Honestly, I was already leaning toward the latter. My life was simply too precious.
I pitied Liu Xie, captive of Dong Zhuo, yet she would remain emperor for quite some time.
What truly troubled me was Chosun. By the calendar alone, more than two years remained before she would employ the Beauty Scheme.
Surely something would occur to me before then?
Just as I had completely banished the thought of assassination, Liu Xie greeted me with an unexpected remark the moment I returned to her chambers.
“Chosun wishes to see you.”
“…?”
I had been glued to Liu Xie’s side lately; Chosun must have found no other way to summon me. I headed at once for the secluded end of the corridor where I had met her before.
I glanced around repeatedly, checking whether that palace maid from last time was trailing me. Fortunately, no one stirred.
“You’ve come?”
“…?”
Chosun waited at the corridor’s end. One difference stood out: she was not dressed as a kunoichi slipping into the palace.
“Oh—why the outfit, Lady Chosun?”
“Does it suit me?”
Suit her? The dancer’s costume looked ready to sprout wings and carry her into the sky, and she had put real effort into her makeup.
Even the cultural shock of the night we first met paled beside this perfect presentation. This time there was no denying it: she was Luoyang’s foremost beauty.
“Why… did you want to see me?”
“I wished to talk.”
“If it’s about Dong Zhuo—”
“It is not about Dong Zhuo. We have known each other for some time, yet we know nothing of one another, do we?”
“…”
Of course we didn’t. But we had never been the sort to exchange light small talk.
Chosun brushed the hair that fell across her shoulder. Even that simple gesture was elegant and full of grace.
“Come closer. I want to look at you more carefully.”
“W-why are you acting like this? This isn’t like the usual you, Lady Chosun.”
“I drank a little. My true feelings must be slipping out without my noticing.”
“True feelings? What true feelings?”
“You already know, don’t you? How I have looked at you all this time—can you truly claim you do not?”
“…”
Jaw-dropping, ear-ringing flirting. Chosun bit her lower lip slowly, as if to drive the point home.
“Why so silent?”
“It’s just too absurd. How exactly have you been looking at me, Lady Chosun? I’m not even your type. You prefer the bold, martial sort of—”
“Bringing up Lü Bu again? How many times must I tell you that what existed between him and me was never what you imagine?”
“…?”
What was this soul-stirring claim? So something had happened with Lü Bu, yet it had been purely platonic?
I was so happy I didn’t know what to do. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t enough to outweigh the terror of death.
“Hah… Lady Chosun, you’re running the Beauty Scheme on me right now, aren’t you?”
“How can you say something so hurtful? I simply can no longer hide my heart…”
“Don’t give me that nonsense! Ever since I stopped talking about Dong Zhuo you decided I’d given up, so you came with your last resort—did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”
“…”
Chosun’s expression hardened at once and her mouth closed. Shit…
I’d only probed on a hunch, and it turned out to be true? What did she even stand to gain by flirting with me?
“Knowing that, why have you still not laid a hand on Dong Zhuo?”
“Does it… really have to be assassination? If we take more time and bring him down politically—”
“So your life has become precious after all? Politics is something you practice with people who can be reasoned with. He is a savage who trusts only his own strength and picks a fight with the entire realm—how exactly do you plan to force him from power?”
“Hah… and yet you keep forcing this on me—”
“You were the one who first claimed you would assassinate him. If you will not do it, then I must do it myself.”
“I’ll do it! I said I’ll do it!”
Was she serious? I had managed to sidestep the Beauty Scheme, but there was no bargaining with a threat that put her own life on the line. Even so, Chosun’s suspicion remained.
“What do you intend?”
“Hah… Dong Zhuo plans a great banquet after the emperor’s enthronement. That day he will be drunk on becoming the man above all men; he’ll let his guard down. I’ll strike then.”
“And Lü Bu?”
“Honestly, isn’t this just you holding a knife to my back and ordering me to fight Lü Bu to the death? Sink or swim, I’ll try.”
“…”
Death terrified me. Yet the moment Chosun declared she would walk into hell herself, recklessness surged up unbidden.
She drew a single sword from her robes and held it out. Seven jewels set into the hilt in the shape of the Big Dipper—the famed blade of the realm.
Wang Yun’s Seven-Star Sword.
“Why… this?”
“It will help you deal with Lü Bu. This is all I can give you.”
“…”
So she had come intending to hand it over from the start. And surprisingly, her words held real weight.
As I had seen before, Lü Bu guarded Dong Zhuo in light armor with only a single sword—confidence in his own skill, no doubt.
The gap in Martial between us was four. But with the Seven-Star Sword’s +5 Martial in my hand, that gap reversed. Hope of beating Lü Bu actually appeared.
“Lady Chosun? If I fail, what happens to me?”
“You will be tortured without mercy and torn apart while still alive.”
“What kind of—right after I steel myself you say something like that and make me scared all over again?”
“Then I will give you courage.”
“How?”
Her lips closed over mine. It happened so fast I barely registered what was going on.
I could only focus on the soft sensation at the edge of my mouth. Eyes shut, I simply savored the moment.
Flesh met flesh; fluids met fluids. Soft, wet sounds gradually filled the desolate corridor, and soon her arms circled my waist.
How many minutes passed? Halfway to knocking on heaven’s gate, the path back to reality opened again.
When Chosun drew her lips away, moist tears traced down her flushed cheeks.
“Lady Chosun, why the tears…”
“If one is not moved by a loyal subject, can one still be called human? Take this.”
She handed me a small medicine pouch wrapped in plain cloth. Instinct told me at once it was deadly poison.
“You’re telling me to kill myself if it comes to that.”
“That sword was given by my father; therefore the only thing I can truly give you is this. In exchange, I will remember you for the rest of my life.”
“…”
With those words Chosun vanished. The lingering touch on my lips faded, leaving only a button I could press myself—a [Game Over] button—in my hand.
Yet she had been right. Small as it was, courage to see this through somehow took root.
Into a heart that had been shriveling in fear of death, she planted a will that was tiny yet firm.
I turned and walked back toward Liu Xie’s chambers. Only a few days remained until the enthronement.
I would spend the time settling the rest of my life—and raising the odds of success however I could.
That dream shattered at once. Because right in front of me stood that palace maid again.
“P-palace maid? Why are you in the palace at this hour…”
“Isn’t the palace exactly where a palace maid is supposed to be? And where has our emperor’s bodyguard been, unable to wait even a moment?”
“I-I was only making my rounds…”
“Sniff sniff! I smell a woman’s perfume. And it’s nothing those lowly maids could ever afford.”
“What are you talking about… You’re a palace maid yourself. I don’t know why you keep saying things like—”
I nearly screamed without meaning to. Her small, deft hand had seized the most precious part of me in a merciless grip.
“It’s this hard and you’re still going to lie? A eunuch with a cock—truly the country is finished, isn’t it?”
“…”
Shit. Just as I had finally made a momentous decision and was about to take the step of a lifetime, this woman had uncovered the secret I most needed to hide.