Luoyang's Finest
Among the three finest high-class taverns in Luoyang stood Chwiwharu. True to its reputation, it was Yuan Shao’s regular haunt.
But today’s visit was nothing like a light drink to unwind after a long day at court. Behind a folding screen, he was holding a secret conversation with none other than Ding Yuan, Inspector of Bing Province.
“Hah… Then that gentleman truly is Yuan Benchu — the man who performed the three-year mourning rites twice and made his name known across the realm?”
“There’s no reason for Ding Yuan, Inspector of Bing Province, to be in Luoyang right now. The only person who could summon him is He Jin, and Yuan Shao has been heavily favored by He Jin of late. Weren’t you already thinking the same thing, Yu Bi?”
“Ah… I was only guessing vaguely from the rumors the customers kept repeating. Everyone said Yuan Benchu was the handsomest man in all of Luoyang.”
“…”
So it wasn’t some brilliant chain of deduction. Yuan Shao was simply so good-looking that no one else was even in the running?
“W-well, he was handsome, I’ll give him that. Even as a man, I had to admit it.”
“Not a single blemish on his skin. Tall, broad-shouldered, and that deep, resonant voice of his… aaah…”
“Yes, yes… I’ve heard more than enough about how magnificent Yuan Shao is. You can stop now.”
Yu Bi’s eyes have been heart-shaped for a while now, and every word out of her mouth is pure Yuan Shao praise. I’m a guy who likes pretty women myself, so I don’t have much room to talk — but when she does it this openly, it still stings a little!
“Hah… Then what do you intend to do, Do Yeop? You said Yuan Shu would want to know about this, didn’t you?”
Yuan Shu already knew Chwiwharu was Yuan Shao’s regular spot. He’d asked whether I’d ever seen him, and even requested that I report it if I did.
“No. Those two brothers get along about as well as fire and oil. What’s the point of telling him?”
“But will you be all right? If Yuan Shu’s subordinates come looking for trouble…”
Still, I don’t have a choice. I can afford to cross Yuan Shu. I cannot afford to cross Yuan Shao.
I need a fallback in case Cao Cao turns on me. If Cao Cao doesn’t work out, the next options are Yuan Shao or the Sun clan.
But Sun Jian is on good terms with Yuan Shu right now, so going that route is pointless. Yuan Shao is destined to lose to Cao Cao eventually, but if I pick my timing and jump ship, Cao Cao might even welcome me with open arms.
Which means I need to stay in Yuan Shao’s good graces as much as possible. Yu Bi asked again.
“But… what secret were the two of them discussing?”
“How should I know? I don’t know either.”
“…”
Yu Bi said nothing, only stared at me with glittering eyes. Clearly she suspected I knew something and was simply refusing to tell her.
And she’s right, so stop looking at me like that. Those pretty, kind eyes of hers don’t suit this situation at all — if I keep looking at them, I might actually spill the truth.
“Aigoo… It can’t be helped. You never tell me the important things, Do Yeop.”
“That’s really not it… Anyway, back to work?”
And so we returned to our actual jobs. But maybe it was just my imagination — I could have sworn Yu Bi was still staring at my back with those forlorn eyes.
An hour passed. At last Yuan Shao and Ding Yuan emerged from behind the folding screen.
Beep! Status windows bloomed into existence beside both Yuan Shao and Ding Yuan at the same moment. Just as I’d expected — recognizing the other party’s identity was the trigger condition.
Specialization: Politician
Special Skill: Narrative Spin
[Creation of New Political Frames (150)]
Special Ability: Six Years of Mourning
[Double acquisition of Fame, Reputation, and Intimacy]
Alias: Sacred Star of the Pure Stream
[Greatly increased success rate of political schemes]
Office: Colonel Director of Retainers
Stats so monstrous they made my pathetic average of twenty look like a rounding error. His skills and alias were all politics-focused, and his fame already outstripped Yuan Shu’s.
“Where is that girl from earlier?”
“Pardon? You mean Yu Bi?”
Out of nowhere he was asking for her. I called her out from the kitchen, where she’d been washing dishes.
“For what reason… have you summoned me?”
“…”
Yuan Shao closed his mouth and looked her up and down. Even that appraisal was so perfectly composed that Yu Bi’s breathing grew a little uneven.
“What happened to you?”
“I suffered a severe plague as a child. The scars are unsightly, so I cover them with bandages like this.”
“How pitiful. And yet a child with such delicate hands…”
“Ah… if you say such things so suddenly…”
Yu Bi’s hands were white and clear, without a single pockmark. Her fingers were so slender I sometimes wanted to hold them while she slept.
Strange, though. In this era most commoners start laboring young — shouldn’t their hands be rough and full of cuts?
Clink.
Yuan Shao drew a coin from his pouch. Not a copper wuzhu — a silver tael.
“It isn’t much, but use it for bandages.”
“I-I am most grateful…”
Yu Bi accepted the silver in a fluster. Then — just the briefest brush of fingers — and she flinched with a start.
Yuan Shao clicked his tongue as if in pity and turned away. Yu Bi stood there for a long time, staring blankly after him as she saw him off.
What is this wistful atmosphere? Yuan Shao was just being charitable because Ding Yuan had snapped at her for no reason, and he felt bad on his behalf.
So why are you standing there grinning by yourself?
“Yu Bi? Snap out of it, please?”
“Ah… I was merely a little startled. I have never met anyone who would show such kindness…”
“…”
I’ve been plenty kind to you, haven’t I? Kind enough that people already suspect I’m the slave of that bottomless stomach of yours — and you’re swooning over a single silver tael?
Granted. One silver tael is more than my entire net worth. Still, does she have to discriminate this openly?
And it didn’t end there. Yu Bi drew the silver Yuan Shao had given her against her chest as if it were a family heirloom, then closed her eyes, savoring whatever warmth of his still clung to it.
I don’t even need to look. Under those bandages her face has gone red as a radish. Well — she’s a woman too. When a man of Yuan Shao’s caliber hands out that level of fan service, of course the floodgates open.
“Ahem… Don’t get too attached, Yu Bi. Once you find out what that man was just discussing with Ding Yuan, you won’t be able to take it so happily.”
“And what is that supposed to mean? Did you not say you knew nothing, Do Yeop?”
“More precisely, I’m still at the inference stage, so I can’t go blurting it out. Think about it. Why would Ding Yuan, Inspector of Bing Province, suddenly appear in the capital at a time like this? And hold a private talk with Yuan Shao, of all people — the man most obsessed with purging the eunuchs? What do you suppose that means?”
“I… do not know.”
Yu Bi tilted her head, genuinely lost. Fine. Time to recite the true face of that bastard Yuan Shao, one piece at a time.
“As you know, the Empress Dowager protects the eunuchs, so He Jin can’t remove them without a proper pretext. Those two are trying to manufacture that pretext for him.”
“How so?”
“You’ve heard that the Black Mountain Bandits have been appearing frequently in Henei lately? But no matter how bold those bandits are, causing that much trouble this close to Luoyang doesn’t make sense. Now imagine, in that climate, Mengjin Port suddenly goes up in flames in the distance. Don’t you think the court would panic?”
“W-what are you saying? That sounds as if…”
“Exactly. In reality, Ding Yuan will disguise his own men as Black Mountain Bandits and stage the attack. The court will declare a state of emergency and pin the blame on the eunuchs, who have always been soft on bandit suppression. Even the Son of Heaven’s own mother won’t be able to shield them after that.”
That’s the truth of it. Yuan Shao is colluding with Ding Yuan to invent a phantom enemy, then drive the government into a kind of emergency martial law so he can cut down the eunuchs.
Yu Bi’s body trembled like an aspen leaf under the weight of a conspiracy that outrageous. See? Being handsome isn’t the end of the story.
“That cannot be! We cannot simply stand by and allow it!”
“Right? Yuan Shao isn’t the sweet man you imagined him to be— wait. What did you just say we can’t do?”
Her reaction was nothing like what I’d expected. I’d leaked a top-secret piece of information because her crush on Yuan Shao was getting unbearable — and instead of being disappointed, she was refusing to accept the plot itself?
“Innocent commoners who have done nothing wrong will be sacrificed. It must be stopped at once!”
“Stopped? What power do we have to stop anything?”
“If you will not stop it, Do Yeop, then I shall go to Mengjin myself!”
And with that she really did fling off her apron and bolt out of Chwiwharu. What is wrong with you all of a sudden?
“Yu Bi!”
I rushed after her, but she was already gone from sight — faster than I would have believed. I’d known she had a quiet interest in politics and a strong sense of justice, but this kind of sudden ignition?
The thought struck me that she might actually go to Mengjin. Of course it was tragic that innocent people would die — but she didn’t need to add herself to the body count as a plus-one.
I had to find her. If I didn’t track her down and stop her somehow, by tomorrow she’d be burned to ash still wrapped in those bandages.
“Hey. You.”
“…?”
Apparently my invisible Luck stat was at rock bottom. A familiar voice called from behind me; I turned, and of course it was Qi Ling standing there.
“Q-Qi Ling?”
“Since when do you know my name? Never mind that — Yuan Shao was just here, wasn’t he? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I… was going to. But the shop got so busy I never had a free moment to go look for you…”
“Shut it. I’m taking you to His Lordship. You’re going to tell him every single word you overheard, without leaving anything out.”
“I have someone I need to find right this second, so that might be a bit difficult. If you could kindly tell Lord Yuan Shu that I’ll come myself on my next day off…”
“Grab that bastard!”
Qi Ling had no intention of letting me walk away. The instant the order left her mouth, her subordinates closed in from both sides.
If they catch me here, Yu Bi is in danger. To hell with it — I spun and ran the other way.
Huff… huff…
The chase dragged on for a long time. The one mercy was that Qi Ling had split her men; she herself wasn’t the one on my heels.
“Stop right there!”
Even so, one of them stuck to me with stubborn persistence. If my Martial had been even fifty, I might have tried fighting back…
No. Forget the stat gap — how was a modern civilian like me supposed to beat an armed thug? I spotted a massive old tree and ducked behind it.
“Damn it, where’d that bastard go?”
Fortunately the man ran straight past me. I was just about to let out a breath of relief when something tapped me on the back — and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“P-please spare me! I’ll tell you everything, just don’t—”
“Do Yeop…? Why are you acting like this all of a sudden?”
“…?”
It was Yu Bi. She looked even more startled than I was, her already prominent pupils blown wide.
“Yu Bi? Weren’t you going to Mengjin?”
“Ah… so you came looking for me? I was going to Mengjin, but something urgent came up and I had no choice.”
“Something urgent? Well, there are no houses around here, so if you just pick a spot and—”
“Eugu… it is not that sort of thing. I found a lost girl, and the hour was far too late, so I was trying to escort her home.”
“…”
Does that make any sense? A minute ago she was possessed by the spirit of justice and ready to sprint to Mengjin — and one lost child later she’s completely changed course?
Just as she’d said, about five paces from her stood a girl whose face was covered by a large cloth veil. She was a little shorter than Yu Bi, and even without seeing her face you could tell from her slight frame that she was quite young.
But the clothes she wore, and the fine silk embroidered into the veil, made it clear she was no ordinary household’s daughter. More than that — even standing still, an invisible air of nobility poured off her in waves.
“So where does she live?”
“She would not say. Only that she lives near the palace, and asked to be taken that far.”
“Haa… Yu Bi? I think this is a bad idea. Going to Mengjin is out of the question, and wandering the streets right now is dangerous too. I just ran into Qi Ling — she already knows Yuan Shao came to Chwiwharu. That’s why I was being chased.”
“Hah… Then what are we to do? We cannot send a child home alone in the middle of the night!”
“…”
And then all three of us end up dead, is that it? Today of all days, Yu Bi’s stubborn denseness was starting to grate. Then the veiled girl spoke.
“Enough. I shall go alone.”
“Ah— you cannot! You look so young. Big sister will walk you all the way home.”
“Big sister? Do you have any idea who you are speaking to, using such words?”
“…?”
How would we know? And even if you are the child of some high minister, Yuan Shu doesn’t care about that kind of thing.
“Over there!”
But it was already too late. The man who had run past me earlier had come back — and he’d brought a friend.
Shashak!
The two of them had us surrounded in a single move. Whether three people can truly be “surrounded” by two is debatable, but both of them were armed, so the disadvantage was not in doubt.
“Ah… you must not do this. We should resolve this through conversation first…”
“Stay out of it, leper! You coming quietly, or do you want an arm or a leg cut off first?”
“…”
No choice. I’d have to beg them to let Yu Bi and the girl go, then follow along myself.
At least that should kill any remaining urge she has to run off to Mengjin…
Thuk!
And then it happened. From the chest of the man who had us cornered, a blade burst out as cleanly as if someone had painted it there in CG.
“Hhk—”
It was so sudden that all any of us could do was gasp. The man never even managed a proper scream before he crumpled forward.
“W-who’s there!?”
His companion whirled and leveled his sword at the darkness. Then — ssrrk — a shadow no one present could have expected stepped out of the dark.
“Do you have any idea who that person is, that you dare point a blade at her?”
A woman. The moment the faint moonlight touched her face, a single thought rose unbidden.
If Yuan Shao is the handsomest man in Luoyang — then this woman is, without question, the most beautiful woman in Luoyang.