Crouching Dragon (4)
The instant I secured the Emperor's approval, I dispatched messengers bearing promises of official posts to every family of local magnates I could remember.
But the realm was, frankly, a rather spacious place.
Getting from Luoyang to Gangdong meant covering at least two thousand li on foot—some eight hundred kilometers—and in an era when the roads were barely more than dirt tracks, a single round trip for one messenger took well over a month. Even if my offer was accepted, hauling an entire clan's household, dependents, and property to the capital would swallow another three.
I did fret that someone might come to grief on the road to Luoyang, but I couldn't bring myself to believe the provincial magnates would fail to anticipate exactly that. I hadn't sent my proposals to fools; I trusted the lords of Gangdong to see to their own safe passage.
Besides, in truth the genuine article was to be found in Xuzhou.
Zhuge Liang and Lu Su.
If you had any interest whatsoever in the Three Kingdoms, these were names you could not possibly fail to know.
Zhuge Liang's fame spoke for itself; no introduction was necessary. And Lu Su was the civil official whose countless contributions from the very beginning had helped the Sun clan establish itself as the foremost power in Gangdong.
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, he tends to show up as Sun Quan's envoy, drifts through a handful of scenes between Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, and then quietly exits the stage—but in actual history he carried far greater weight. His signature achievement was playing peacemaker between Guan Yu, who made no effort to hide his hostility toward Wu, and Sun Quan, who was fuming over Shu's refusal to return Jing Province, thereby keeping the alliance between the two kingdoms from shattering.
When Liu Bei flatly refused to give Jing Province back, Sun Quan simply marched an army in and seized its southern territories by force, and Guan Yu mobilized in response—the alliance came within a hair's breadth of breaking. That Lu Su stepped forward at that moment and held everything together through a dramatic compromise tells you exactly how formidable a diplomat he was.
But Lu Su died young, in his mid-forties.
And the one who succeeded him was, of all people, Lu Meng...
Perhaps because he too hailed from Jing Province, Lu Meng was every bit as obsessed with the place as Sun Quan, and that obsession ultimately became the wedge that drove relations between Shu and Wu to their absolute worst.
And when Shu and Wu really did tear into each other hammer and tongs, which nation ended up reaping the reward?
Wei, of course.
You think Zhuge Liang stressed the alliance with Wu for nothing?
Lu Su happened to share that conviction of Zhuge Liang's, and that shared conviction was the only reason the alliance somehow held together.
Had Cao Cao not dropped dead right at that juncture and thrown Wei into turmoil, Wei might well have pounced on the two weakened kingdoms and unified the realm then and there.
I honestly wonder whether Guan Yu's severed head snapped its eyes open and laid a curse on Cao Cao—because sure enough, Cao Cao died of illness barely any time after Guan Yu did.
So there we have it: Wei feasted on a catastrophic defeat at Red Cliffs, and then Shu and Wu took their turns burning themselves at Yiling, didn't they?
Didn't Cao Cao himself lament, fleeing in rout from Red Cliffs, that if only Guo Jia had still been alive things would never have come to this?
In precisely the same fashion, after Yiling, people mourned for Lu Su. If only Lu Su had lived a little longer, Guan Yu would never have died, and the ties between Shu and Wu would never have ruptured—so the lament went.
What if, in the window of confusion following Cao Cao's death, Shu and Wu had joined hands and struck Wei together?
I couldn't say how it would have turned out, but there was no denying it would have been fascinating.
At any rate, I called in the household of Zhuge Liang from Langya Commandery in Xuzhou, and the household of Lu Su from Linhuai Commandery.
Zhang Zhao, one of the pair famed as the "Two Zhangs of Gangdong," had gone down to Gangdong to ride out the chaos of the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Zhang Hong was still in Xuzhou, but as I'd mentioned before, he had a proud record of refusing the court's summons time and again, so whether he would answer my call was anyone's guess.
Would I have to trudge over there myself and sob my heart out before he'd accept a post?
A few days slipped by on such idle musings. I was just starting to grow bored—Liu Biao still hadn't sent so much as a reply to my offer of surrender—when word arrived that a family of provincial magnates had come calling.
I asked the courier standing before me:
"Which family, exactly?"
"Sir! The Zhuge family, out of Langya Commandery in Xuzhou—they've arrived!"
"Oh?"
The very household I'd been waiting for. I shot up from my seat as if flung from a bowstring and had myself ready in record time.
"These are guests who traveled a long road to answer my invitation. Have a banquet prepared so we can receive them properly."
"At once!"
At my order to prepare a welcoming feast, the courier bowed crisply and withdrew just as briskly.
Sima Yi, who had been nearby, opened her mouth.
"Someone must be in quite a good mood? You're holding a banquet, of all things—something you almost never do."
"This much is only the courtesy they're owed, no?"
I replied as though it were obvious. And in fairness, she had a point; I rarely held banquets.
Weren't banquets supposed to be for resting and enjoying oneself?
Because I couldn't enjoy them at all.
The reason being...
whenever a banquet got going, things turned strangely chaotic.
Perhaps drink stripped away everyone's true nature, but every single time I'd end up besieged by the people around me, and it was nothing short of exhausting.
"Perhaps I'll meet her face to face before the banquet."
Just imagining coming before the one and only Zhuge Liang in person set my heart pounding. What would she look like? If this world ran true to form, the odds were awfully good she'd be a woman. I could only pray she wouldn't turn out to be some eccentric oddball like Sima Yi.
"...I'm coming with you."
"Hm?"
"That's allowed, isn't it?"
She looked ready to sneak along whether I approved or not, so I nodded, faintly bewildered.
"I don't mind, but..."
"Then I'm coming."
"...Fine."
Had she sensed something on instinct? Sima Yi wore the expression of someone with something persistently nagging at her.
The lodging where the Zhuge family was staying was not far away at all.
Then again, I'd been the one to order them quartered close by, out of my own impatience to see them an hour sooner, so it was hardly a mystery.
My retinue amounted to exactly two people: Seo Yeo and Sima Yi.
For protection, Seo Yeo alone was more than sufficient, and if any thinking needed doing, I could hand it to Sima Yi—no problem there. She was visibly growing more capable by the day, which meant fewer bothers dumped on poor Jia Xu, busy as she already was.
No sooner had I appeared before the building where the Zhuges lodged than the main gate swung open.
...?
An astonishingly swift response. I stiffened for an instant, staring at the gate that had burst open before I could even part my lips.
Apparently word of my visit had already made the rounds inside. No waiting required—less waiting was a good thing, I decided, and stepped forward.
Passing the family's servants and entering the courtyard, I was met by a woman whose striking white hair announced her first, offering me a formal bow.
"I, Zhuge Jin, have the honor of meeting the General-in-Chief."
To the woman greeting me in a voice lovely to hear and beautifully measured besides, I answered evenly:
"Courtesy is always welcome, but there's no need to fret over it so."
"Your magnanimity honors me, General-in-Chief."
Having paid her respects, the woman looked up at me with eyes of clear blue and went on.
"Please, come inside for now. I will show you the way."
"Right."
I gave an awkward little nod. Zhuge Liang would be somewhere inside that building, presumably. She would still be very young, but there was no helping the anticipation rising in me all the same.
Zhuge Jin walked ahead, ushered me into a spacious room, then slipped away for a moment, saying she would fetch her family.
"You're looking rather excited, aren't you?"
Sima Yi, who had been watching me the whole time, muttered it like a sulk.
"Who on earth could you be waiting for, that you carry on like this?"
"Uh..."
She must have studied me the entire way over, because her question dripped with suspicion. I answered it with a wry smile.
"See for yourself, and judge for yourself."
"...Well, I suppose I will."
Arms crossed, Sima Yi pulled a face that declared something deeply unsatisfying about all this. I prodded, playful:
"Don't tell me you're jealous?"
"...N-no, I am not!"
she shot back, cheeks flaming.
This really was entertaining. Poke her once and she jumped a foot in the air—a skittish little animal of a woman.
…
Seo Yeo, for her part, paid whatever went on around her no mind whatsoever; her whole world was me. I passed a short while beneath that gaze of hers—passionate in a way that somehow wasn't—before Zhuge Jin reappeared with a small child in tow.
"I hope we haven't kept you waiting long."
Zhuge Jin bowed at once to where I sat.
"To keep someone as distinguished as yourself waiting—I'm ashamed of myself."
"It's quite all right. Don't let it weigh on you."
"Thank you."
She dipped her head in gratitude. I turned my eyes to the girl with the limpid gaze, and the girl looked straight back at me, meeting my eyes with her pale white ones. Even at so tender an age, a striking beauty was already blossoming through—truly worthy of the name Zhuge Liang.
...This really was Zhuge Liang, then? Just to be certain, I put the question aloud.
"Is this child the last of them?"
"Ah—there is one more younger sibling, but he is still far too young..."
"Then that settles it."
The absent one, I presumed, was the third child of the Zhuge line, Zhuge Jun. Which meant the girl standing before me was beyond any doubt the second—Zhuge Liang herself.
Zhuge Jin shot her a meaningful glance, one that said hurry up and greet him. She looked coiled tight with anxiety, braced for the child to cause some catastrophe—a bearing not unlike a parent hovering over a mischievous toddler.
…
Everyone held their silence, watching Zhuge Liang and Zhuge Liang alone. In a moment where even an ordinary child might have been forgiven for trembling, Zhuge Liang simply bowed toward me, perfectly composed.
"I, Zhuge Liang, offer my first greetings to the General-in-Chief."
Hands pressed to the floor, she bowed with impeccable form, then raised her head and smiled.
"It is an honor to behold with my own eyes the General-in-Chief whose name resounds throughout the realm."
…
Good grief.
How long had it been since I'd laid eyes on a child this well-mannered? Standing before her, I felt like a scholar gazing upon a protected natural monument, and something ineffably moving stirred in my chest.
Faced with etiquette so flawless that not a soul alive could find fault with it, I couldn't stop the smile spreading across my face.
...?
Zhuge Jin beside me appeared to have gone thoroughly bewildered, though for the life of me I couldn't imagine why.