The General Star (4)
"My apologies. No matter how widely I cast the net, not a single physician will come."
Yuan Shu spoke in a voice of regret to the person standing before him.
The woman with the auburn hair answered, her face gloomy.
"...Whether it will do any good, who can say. That you make the effort at all is more than I could ask."
"I am grateful to hear you say so."
That was what he said — and yet Yuan Shu wore the expression of a man who considered such thanks nothing more than his due.
"I shall do everything within the reach of my power, so set your heart at ease and await my glad tidings."
"...Understood."
Sun Ce offered Yuan Shu the barest of bows and whirled on her heel.
At the sight, one of Yuan Shu's civil officials jabbed a finger in her direction as though beside himself.
"The sheer insolence of that wench...! Lord Yuan took those people in with his own hands when they were starving to death for want of grain — and does she dare bite the hand that fed her and behave without a shred of courtesy!"
"......"
Sun Ce stopped dead in the middle of the hall and turned to look at the official.
"H-have you some complaint?!"
So the official cried out the moment Sun Ce's frosty gaze settled on him — though for all his bluster, his face had drained white and he trembled like a leaf, a sight almost sorry enough to pity.
Just as a chill settled over the government office, Yuan Shu abruptly burst into a booming laugh.
"Hahaha! Come, Yuan Yin — General Sun's mind and body have been sorely wearied of late. You must make allowances!"
"Y-yes, my lord."
Yuan Yin, the official at Yuan Shu's side, hastened to agree and averted his eyes from Sun Ce.
To Sun Ce, whose exhaustion showed plain even at a glance, Yuan Shu addressed himself kindly. "And you, General Sun, sheathe your temper. My cousin's devotion to me runs so deep that he stumbled into discourtesy without ever meaning to."
"...Yes."
Sun Ce understood full well that trading blows with them here would win her nothing, and she throttled her fury down as far as it would go.
Seeing it, Yuan Shu continued with a deliberate, kindly smile.
"Then withdraw for today. For a child to nurse an ailing parent is only a child's duty, no?"
"I thank you for your grace."
Unlike before, Sun Ce bowed with proper ceremony and took her leave.
The moment she stepped out and the door closed behind her, Yuan Shu's officials opened their mouths as one body.
"My lord, Sun Jian is past recovery now. Might we not absorb their forces while the moment is ripe?"
"If the generals under Sun Jian were folded into our ranks, even the contest for hegemony would not be beyond our grasp."
They seemed to believe, in their own minds at least, that Sun Ce could not hear them.
But Sun Ce's ears, quickened by a body far beyond the ordinary, caught every word without fail.
She ignored the infuriating chatter flowing at her back — words that would have set a thousand Buddhas grinding their teeth — and kept walking.
The instant she passed through the gate of the mansion where Sun Jian's own soldiers stood guard, her rigid face twisted into something vicious.
"Those miserable, gutless bastards...."
Yuan Shu had done nothing but perform benevolence; practical help, he had offered none. He had promised to seat her in a governor's chair should she render him merit in the days to come, but Sun Ce was hardly so naive as to mistake that for anything more than talk.
The shabby treatment that had gone on since her father's day. The contemptuous glances that flew her way, noticed or not, from the men of Yuan Shu's faction.
If it were left to her heart alone, she would have stormed the government office sword in hand this very moment — but Sun Ce knew better than anyone how reckless that would be.
With Yuan Shu's schemes having shaved Sun Jian's forces down bit by bit, the mighty prestige of the once-vaunted Tiger of Jiangdong could be found nowhere under heaven. The people in this mansion were the whole of what remained of her father's army.
"Haa...."
A sigh escaped Sun Ce before she knew it.
She felt she would never vent this anger short of smashing something to pieces — but with her ailing father lying inside this very building, her hands refused to move.
Having wrestled her temper down by degrees, Sun Ce said with bitter self-mockery,
"Keep this up and I'll make myself sick."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Zhou Yu, who had come out to meet her at the news of her return, wore a puzzled look.
Despite the abruptness of her appearance, Sun Ce was not the least bit startled and answered flatly.
"Look at where we stand. Who wouldn't feel suffocated?"
"Hmm...."
Zhou Yu fell briefly into thought.
Sun Jian, the pillar around which the entire Sun family turned, had yet to regain consciousness, and the officers and men shaken by it were slipping away from the Sun army one by one. It was true that only a vanishing few were going — but for the Sun army as it now stood, even that handful was a loss they could ill afford.
Ever since Sun Jian had marched out of his home base at Changsha to answer the coalition's call, the number of soldiers who followed the Sun family had done nothing but dwindle. They had fought on with support of every kind from Yuan Shu, but it was impossible for the Sun family's soldiers to pass through battlefield after battlefield unscathed. The losses piled up as the army advanced, and with every mile their force shrank, Sun Jian's footing inside Yuan Shu's faction grew narrower.
And just as Sun Jian had finally resolved to break free of Yuan Shu, calamity had struck out of a clear sky.
The physician had said his time was near, and Sun Ce had heard it with her own ears — so surely it was certain.
But what if Yuan Shu had been a man of grander spirit? Would Bofu's father ever have set his mind on striking out on his own at all?
Zhou Yu could not yet say for sure.
While Zhou Yu sat sunk in thought, chin propped on one hand and head bowed, Sun Ce — who had been watching her — remarked, "Honestly. A painting, that's what you are."
"...There you go again."
Platinum-blonde hair so pale it looked half-bleached, one long strand left loose at the left of her face while the rest was cropped short in a bob. And eyes of clear sky-blue, as if they cradled a cloudless heaven.
Mei, the word for "beautiful." Zhou, her family name. And lang, the old word for a fine young man. Woven together: Meizhou Lang — the Beautiful Zhou Lang. A beautiful youth... no, a beautiful woman. Such was the byname of the one called Zhou Yu.
The yu in her given name meant fine jade; the jin in her courtesy name, Gongjin, meant beautiful jade besides. Hers was a peerless beauty, without equal under heaven.
Even beneath Zhou Yu's withering glare, Sun Ce went on with a smile playing at her lips.
"There's a reason our Gongjin ended up with the name Beautiful Zhou Lang, you know."
"And you're called Son Rang yourself, aren't you, Bofu?"
Zhou Yu spoke true: Sun Ce, too, had a byname bearing the lang of handsome youth — it simply lacked the word beautiful.
Faced with the counter, Sun Ce only laughed as though it were nothing.
"I'll grant I clean up decently, but I'm nowhere near Gongjin's league."
"......"
Zhou Yu sighed, her gaze drifting over Sun Ce's auburn hair where it spilled down to her waist.
"Oh, right — good timing, actually. Our Meizhou Lang is the clever one. You've got some scheme to break us out of this mess, don't you?"
"No."
Zhou Yu answered instantly, without so much as a heartbeat's deliberation.
At a reply that cut her expectations off clean at the root, Sun Ce asked back, a touch glum.
"Really?"
"Yes."
Zhou Yu nodded, flat and unhurried, and went on.
"If everything were as it should be, we might simply slip away under cover of night. But as it stands, we have an invalid on our hands."
"Mm...."
"To get from Wan to anywhere beyond Yuan Shu's grasp would take days of hard riding — and your father, in his present state, would never survive that kind of forced march."
Sun Ce could not bring herself to deny it.
Even she, who knew nothing of the physician's art, could see how grave her father's condition was.
Perhaps it had been moving too violently after taking the arrow — whatever the cause, the wound had torn wide open, and the gaping gash had begun to turn uglier by the day.
There was no telling how many more days he had in him.
"Whatever else we do, Bofu, your father's wound comes first. Only then can we afford to think of anything else."
At Zhou Yu's words, the cheerful face Sun Ce had worn — forced though it had been — crumpled once more.
She flung away even the barest pretense of dignity and dropped onto the floor, legs sprawled beneath her.
"What on earth am I supposed to do?"
she muttered, her voice worn down to pure lament.
In Nanyang Commandery of Jing Province they had summoned what few physicians remained, paying for their services in fortunes — but one and all had shaken their heads at the sight of Sun Jian's wound. Declaring the matter beyond any skill of theirs, they returned every coin on the spot and departed, and Sun Ce had not had the heart to hold them there by force.
Then she remembered the words one of those physicians had let fall in lamentation, having just finished his examination of Sun Jian.
"If only that person were here... perhaps it might have been possible."
"That person?"
"One whom even we physicians reckon the foremost among our number."
To think someone of such caliber even existed.
Clutching at straws, Sun Ce had asked where this person could be found, and the physician had answered in a troubled voice.
"He changes his dwelling so often that only a very few in this world know his whereabouts."
"......"
"Forgive me for failing to meet your hopes."
"No.... Thank you — that is a valuable thing to know. There is no need to return the payment. Keep it."
That such a person existed was, in itself, enough for Sun Ce to nurse a hope.
The physician had offered a slight bow, done what he could for Sun Jian with the skill he had, and gone on his way.
Sun Ce had never believed in notions as outlandish as the Mandate of Heaven or the Fortune of Heaven — but if ever there was a moment to believe in such words, it was this one.
That Heaven which countless souls under heaven cried out to — would it truly hear her prayer?
Or must she harden her heart, take the Sun clan upon her shoulders, and ready herself to stand tall against the world?
Just as Sun Ce found herself utterly at a loss, Zhou Yu — silent at her side until then — received something from a soldier and spoke.
"...Bofu."
"What is it?"
"They say a guest has arrived."
"Another of Yuan Shu's goons, here to cluck and coo, is it?"
Honestly — didn't those people ever tire of it?
Before Sun Ce could tell her, with a face full of disgust, to send them packing, Zhou Yu spoke first.
"They say it's a physician."
"A physician?"
Then there's not a reason in the world to turn them away.
Sun Ce sprang up from her seat and was already moving.