Stirrings (4)
Lost in one thought after another, I walked on alongside Sima Yi.
Liu Bei and her sworn sisters were waiting for me just outside the office, and no sooner did Liu Bei catch sight of me than she smiled and offered a bow.
"I trust you have been well, my lord."
"I have."
I regarded Liu Bei for a long moment before asking, "No trouble of any kind?"
"None."
At my question, Liu Bei gave a slow nod.
I let my gaze drift to Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, posted in a line behind her. The two of them stood escort as they always did, steady as stone. The Green Dragon Crescent Blade and the Serpent Spear caught the sunlight and flashed, fierce and merciless. Anyone who saw those weapons and still picked a fight with Liu Bei's party would honestly deserve my applause. Even had trouble found them, the Guan Yu and Zhang Fei at her back would surely have reduced it to a former trouble.
I turned back to Liu Bei. "And the Governor of Yanzhou's reply?"
"Here it is."
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, we got straight down to business. I took the letter Liu Bei handed over and unfolded it then and there.
The moment the paper opened, I was greeted by a hand so graceful it made my own look like chicken scratch by comparison.
Some people really are blessed with beautiful handwriting.
Every so often you meet one of them — someone whose penmanship is so stunning it gathers every eye in the room. Cao Cao was precisely that sort of person.
Hwahyeon —
So this is the first time we have exchanged letters, is it? I paused a moment over whether to address you as General-in-Chief, but as this is a private correspondence, I suppose we may dispense with titles.
Just as you never once addressed me as Colonel of the Army.
The sentences of Cao Cao's letter carried none of the heavy cadence of official documents; they read like light conversation traded between two people in private. Even a cursory glance made it obvious the thing ran long, and I scratched my head.
Now I felt guilty for having sent back, what, all of three lines.
Of course not. What are we to each other, that we should go on calling one another so stiffly by office?
That dawn in Luoyang, when the hazy moonlight came drifting softly down.
I have not yet forgotten the memory of you drawing me in with those fervent eyes of yours.
My guilt evaporated on the spot.
Draw her in? Drew in what, exactly?
Going by her face alone, she had the sort of cool, frosty look that would not have seemed out of place in a howling winter gale — so why was her conduct like this? I suppressed the sigh that threatened to burst out of me and kept reading.
Even now, that earnest expression you wore for me back then brings a laugh to my lips.
It was not as though I was running away — what could have made you so desperate?
"……"
Doesn't this border on sexual harassment?
Ought I to keep reading this letter at all?
As I read on, I found myself sinking, quite naturally, into grave deliberation. Whether I did or not, Cao Cao's prose marched on without pause.
I shall stop here, before teasing you any further makes you sulk.
Heh heh. I can see with perfect clarity just what expression you are wearing at this very moment.
True to form for no one but Cao Cao, the timing of the jab and the retreat was sheer artistry.
Still, judging from what she wrote, nothing serious seems to have happened over there. Thank goodness for that.
You wrote to me thus:
that you hoped I might walk forth at your side.
I gave a small nod as I read Cao Cao's letter. What I had wished for was that she would become not a 'Hero of Chaos' standing against me, but an 'able minister of a peaceful age' walking beside me.
To be honest, I possessed no particular patriotism or loyalty toward the Han. I had grown up in an era where such notions had grown comparatively faint; there was no helping that. And yet there was exactly one reason I strove to revive the Han dynasty.
Because the birth of a new nation inevitably brings suffering in its wake.
Countless histories proved that fact. Humankind does not advance unless it learns from history's failures. All I was doing was my best to keep such history from repeating itself before my own eyes.
I, too, feel the same.
"……"
As though answering those very thoughts of mine, Cao Cao's letter flowed on.
To walk together through this maddening age of chaos…
Would you believe me if I said those words set my heart fluttering?
What is this now?
The letter's tone was abruptly heating up, and its contents were beginning to turn oddly… suggestive.
I thought only of leading others. Never did I imagine I might walk the same road as an equal, shoulder to shoulder with someone.
Is that really how it's meant to be read?
I nodded in genuine admiration. It was a truth unknown even to the me who had written that letter.
One might ask, what about Yuan Shao? — but just as the two women's story had never ended well in the original history, Cao Cao appeared to have assumed it would end no better here.
Personally, I place a great many hopes in you.
And just what might she be hoping for?
Cao Cao had no doubt anticipated that I would wonder exactly that upon reading the line — and had declined to answer it anyway.
May you and I, just as we both wish, remain together until the very end.
On that line, brimming with expectation, Cao Cao's letter drew to a close.
"Hmm…"
I folded the letter neatly, tucked it away inside my robe, and set my thoughts in order. Her response had been far more positive than I had expected, and it genuinely caught me off guard.
Beyond her aspect as a ruler, Cao Cao's face as an artist shone just as brightly — her writing was said to stride far past the countless celebrated literati of her age. They say she composed prose even inside her command tent, in the thick of directing a war, which tells you precisely how earnest Cao Cao was about her art.
She wrote fiction and military treatises alike, but above all, her poetry was superb. Grounded in experience she had won with her own hands while pacifying the realm, and carried by her exceptional gift with words, her verse married realism and artistry in a single body. That is why Cao Cao had been hailed as an outstanding writer since antiquity.
And writing a letter to a woman with that reputation… my confidence had taken a sudden nosedive, I'll have you know. Not that I could simply not send one, so I wrung out whatever words came to hand and kept it as plain and spare as I could manage. I could see that if I wrote at any length, the vocabulary and syntax would scatter every which way and turn strange.
My judgment had been sound — keeping it simple definitely made the thing look a touch better.
…Then again, that may have been pure self-deception.
Even so, I had managed to squeeze a compliment — one line of it, anyway — out of Cao Cao, a woman praised as a brilliant literary talent, so my mood was a good one.
When I let a faint glow of pleasure show after reading the letter, Liu Bei spoke up.
"You seem pleased, my lord."
"I am. It says some very satisfying things."
"……"
When I answered with a light smile, Liu Bei held her silence for a moment.
"…I'm glad to hear it."
"…?"
Why does she look a little put out?
I shifted my gaze to Guan Yu and Zhang Fei standing behind her.
"……"
"……"
Shake, shake.
When I stared at them, the two of them also gave small headshakes, as if they couldn't make sense of it either. Seeing as these were the very people who had accompanied the party to Cao Cao, it didn't seem they had quarreled with her.
Nursing my own puzzlement, I addressed Liu Bei. "You look worn out. Go and withdraw for the day and get some proper rest."
"Thank you, my lord."
Liu Bei bowed and slowly withdrew from my side. I watched her go, then turned my head.
"Sima Yi."
"Yes?"
Sima Yi looked up at me with an expression asking what it was this time.
What else would it be? Question time.
"Do you think our faction and Cao Cao's can truly stay on good terms with one another?"
"Hmm…"
At my question, Sima Yi pondered briefly, then opened her mouth.
"It isn't impossible to maintain friendly relations. Managing diplomacy well is essential if you mean to grow a faction's power."
"……"
"But what you're asking about is something far more binding than that, isn't it?"
She saw straight through my intent as though I'd scribbled it on my forehead, and I gave her a nod. Not a truce or an alliance — the kind that really means you'll bolt when the time comes — but a relationship in which two sides walk forward together to the very end. I was asking whether Cao Cao and I could reach that kind of relationship.
"Oh, that one's simple. If the person in question can cast aside her own ambition, you can walk together."
"Ambition?"
"Yes."
When I prompted her, Sima Yi nodded.
"Go all the way to the end, and it concludes with being granted a high office by Her Majesty the Empress and bowing your head. That is where it has to stop."
"……"
"Whether that person can truly be satisfied stopping there — that's what matters, isn't it?"
She was absolutely right. Unless someone intended to go to the trouble of stabilizing all under heaven only to raise the banner of revolt a second time, that was where the road had to end.
"I've never laid eyes on the Governor of Yanzhou myself, so I'm in no position to judge what manner of woman she is."
Sima Yi continued.
"So allow me to put a question to you in return, General-in-Chief."
Her eyes, the very color of amethysts, met mine as she spoke.
"What did this Cao Cao look like to you, General-in-Chief?"
"……"
At Sima Yi's question, I quietly called the woman named Cao Cao to mind.
— My name is Cao Cao Mengde.
— Let us get along well from here on, shall we?
Her greeting at our first meeting in Luoyang. There had been a mischievous lilt to it, yes — but in that moment Cao Cao had unmistakably displayed the bearing of a leader overflowing with majesty. And time and again afterward, Cao Cao had shown herself the very picture of a protagonist of the Three Kingdoms—
— I really do find you interesting.
The very picture of a protag…
— If we suit each other well, then rejoice, no? Why make that face?
The very picture of a… what?
— Beats me.
…
— I was listening in, by the way.
Why, of all things, is it only this junk that surfaces?
…Ah.
Come to think of it, the only time I had actually met Cao Cao face to face and exchanged words with her was back in Luoyang.
This is bad.
I hadn't the faintest clue whether this was a woman capable of casting aside her ambition. I felt a thin chill of sweat break out on my skin.
"…Um, my lord?"
With the silence stretching on, Sima Yi simply regarded me with a bemused expression.