Xiangyang Castle (1)
Having gone to sleep without any unusual developments, as on any other day, I rose and stretched myself out to my heart's content. My body felt stiff and heavy, and I let out a sigh.
"Ugh..."
No matter how many times I did it, I never got used to this godforsaken business of sleeping outdoors. If only for the sake of a decent night's rest, I had to settle the Liu Biao problem as quickly as possible. There was a reason people said you were in for a dog's life the moment you left home. I craved nothing more than to be resting in the comfort of my own house.
"..."
"..."
When I turned my head, I found Seo Yeo settled near me, just as she always was. She blinked up at me in a way that was almost cute, and I looked at her and asked, worried.
"...Did you sleep well?"
"Yes."
"Hmm..."
I had never once seen Seo Yeo actually lying down and resting. By her own account, whenever I retired for the night she spread a blanket nearby and slept, and picturing that scene pulled a quiet laugh out of me. Apparently it was true, because whenever I woke partway through the night, there would be a steamed bun lying at my side. Even now, the memory of that bun swelling and shrinking with her breathing was thoroughly amusing... though it had been a little terrifying when, after watching her for a spell, she sensed my gaze and her eyes snapped wide open.
At the very least, her guard duty seemed beyond reproach. I had my private life to think of, so in the city she slept in the next room over, and when we were out in the field on business like this, she simply bedded down in the same room. She fell asleep later than I did and rose earlier — yet thanks to her transcendent physical abilities, I had never once seen Seo Yeo groggy or complaining of sleep deprivation.
Seo Yeo might never lie to me, but just in case, I gave her face a thorough inspection, every last detail. Her skin was as fresh and smooth as ever, and her hair gleamed with a healthy luster — nothing seemed wrong.
"...My lord?"
Watching me at it, Seo Yeo called out in a puzzled voice. She really had grown. In the old days she couldn't have managed even this much — she'd have just hung her head, too shy to get a single word out. I supposed I should be glad she'd left that hopeless social awkwardness behind.
"It's nothing."
Still chewing on the odd question, I rose from my spot.
"Let's go."
At my word, Seo Yeo silently moved to assist me. With her help I changed into my armor and stepped out of the tent.
"Oh, you're up."
The moment I showed myself, Lü Bu came trotting over in quick little steps, as if she'd been waiting for exactly this. She always appeared precisely at the hour I woke. Sharp instincts, maybe?
"Same as usual today?"
"Yeah."
Shaking off a brief drift into idle thoughts, I nodded at Lü Bu's question.
"Great! Then let's go put those muscles to work."
Lü Bu, satisfied with my answer, began loosening up and started toward the boulders — and that was when the anomaly struck. The gates of Xiangyang Castle began to grind open without warning.
RRRRUMBLE—
"Huh?"
Faced with the unexpected, Lü Bu stopped mid-stride and voiced her confusion. Opening the gates now flew squarely in the face of Liu Biao's sworn resolve to resist to the very last man. And what did it mean for such a thing to happen in Xiangyang itself — the very castle where Liu Biao resided?
Having pieced the situation together, I watched the gates of Xiangyang swing wide and spoke.
"So the inevitable has arrived."
Whether they had opened the gates behind Liu Biao's back, or over his dead body, I had exactly one job now. Lü Bu, still failing to grasp the situation, asked me with a dazed expression.
"Uh... do we charge in now?"
"No. First we watch how this plays out."
I shook my head at her question. If the gates had been opened without Liu Biao's knowledge, chaos would be erupting around the gate itself; and if Liu Biao — that self-proclaimed loyal servant of the throne — had become the late Liu Biao, then someone was bound to come outside. But if it were the former, they would have made contact first, by secret letter or by envoy, so the latter was the likelier story.
Gao Shun and Seo Hwang, who had already read the situation, were readying the troops. With the gates open, we could storm Xiangyang the moment we wished. Of course, there was always a third option: feign surrender while hiding an ambush inside the walls. But Liu Biao — a man who, even in the original history, chose only options so safe they verged on pathological — attempting a stratagem that bold? I couldn't picture it. A plan of opening your gates to welcome the enemy dies the instant the enemy sees through it. In other words, it was all or nothing, and whatever my own limitations, there was no chance the strategists around me would fall for such a trick.
"It's over, you know."
As I stood watching the gates open, a familiar voice spoke up beside me. I turned toward it — and simply stared.
"...Why are you looking at me like that?"
"No reason."
I shrugged at Sima Yi, who had somehow crept up to my side without my noticing, and asked what she meant.
"So what's this 'it's over' supposed to mean?"
"Ah, well, you see..."
Sima Yi answered without a trace of hesitation.
"That Liu Biao fellow? He's dead."
At her confident pronouncement, my head bobbed in a hesitant nod.
"Then I suppose someone will be along shortly to offer the surrender."
"Probably."
Sima Yi conceded the point, then added in a lighter tone,
"Though if they refuse to surrender, that would be fun in its own way..."
Sima Yi was wearing a faintly frightening expression as she said it. What on earth was she imagining?
In the original history, when Gongsun Yuan raised his rebellion, Sima Yi won the battle that followed — then rounded up every adult male, put them all to death, and erected a jingguan. Not the jingguan of scenic mountains, rivers, and meadows, mind you — the jingguan raised to flaunt a military triumph. Slaughter people, then build a "jingguan" out of the results... doesn't that conjure up something deeply unsettling?
Yes. Sima Yi had, quite simply, killed adult men who happened to be passing through the Liaodong region and stacked a few thousand of their corpses into a tower of skulls. To be precise: heap the bodies, shovel earth over them, and shape the whole thing into a landform of its own. Barbaric by any measure — and yet such examples had been remarkably common throughout history.
There was Cao Cao, Xuzhou's own great filial son — presumably out of filial devotion — said to have buried the Yuan Shao troops who surrendered to him alive in mass pits. Cao Cao, you too, huh?
And it wasn't only China. The Xiongnu, forever tearing around the northern frontier on horseback raising hell, did it too — and Goguryeo, known to every Korean, built a jingguan out of the corpses of Sui soldiers after its famous victory at Salsu. The Aztec Empire technically did it as well, come to think of it... but that place is playing an entirely different sport, so let's leave them out of it.
Why did these people amuse themselves with skulls so much? Truly, with a modern sensibility, you just can't follow the way people thought back then. One glance was enough to tell you how cheaply human life was held — treated with about as much regard as garbage.
Unease stole over me before I knew it, and I walked up to Sima Yi and rested a hand on her.
"You're not thinking anything scary, are you?"
"I'm sorry?"
Sima Yi blinked at my abrupt words.
"Ahh."
Sharp as ever, she caught on at once to why I was acting this way and let out a little sound of realization.
"Don't worry."
Sima Yi looked up at me with her amethyst-violet eyes and said,
"As long as the enemy doesn't cross the line, I have no intention of doing anything of the sort."
"...So you have imagined it, then."
Caught squarely in the sore spot, Sima Yi let her gaze slide ever so slightly away. I went on staring, resolved to hold out until she could look me dead in the eye. A cruel streak like that needed curing while it still could be. Left unchecked, this Sima Yi might yet end up slaughtering innocent civilians, exactly as she had in the original history.
After meeting my stare for a good long while, Sima Yi — rarely for her — went red in the face.
"...A-anyway, look over there! People are coming out of the castle right now!"
It sounded as though she was forcing the words out to drag my attention somewhere else.
"...Right."
I replied with a sigh held deep inside. A person's nature doesn't change in an instant; all I could do was chip away at it, one step at a time.
Shifting my eyes to the gates as Sima Yi had said, I made out a group approaching with a small box in hand. The officer at their head was one I'd never seen before. Could it be the very one I was expecting?
Ordering the soldiers to hold their attack, I mounted my horse and advanced slowly toward the party. Seo Yeo and Lü Bu fell in behind me to guard my person, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. We soon closed the distance, and the two sides came face to face at arm's length. I addressed the officer at the head.
"Opening the gates and coming all this way to greet me, are we? Might our 'loyal servant of the throne' have had a change of heart?"
"So where is Liu Biao himself?"
The officer received my question with a bow of careful courtesy. And as the one at the head knelt before me, everyone behind her dropped to their knees in unison.
"I am Wei Yan, courtesy name Wenchang! The traitor against the throne has been put down, and I swear my loyalty to you, my new lord!"
My guess had been right on the mark. Wei Yan respectfully held out the box she carried.
"Herein lies the traitor's head! I humbly beg that you confirm it with your own eyes!"
"...Hmm."
At my nod, one of the escort guards took the box and lifted its lid. Inside rested Liu Biao's severed head, eyes bulging wide open — apparently he had died with plenty still left to complain about.
"Lord Liu, I trust you've been keeping well?"
I addressed the dead man in a tone of easy mockery. A man who, starting with nothing and no one, had wielded his considerable talents to seize an entire province for himself. Thus met his end Liu Biao, Governor of Jing Province — undone by a rebellion among the very officers who served under him.