The Magnates of Jing Province (5)
"I'm against it."
That was the reaction Sima Yi gave the moment I announced my intention to accept the magnates' invitation.
I studied her sullen expression and asked, "Why?"
"…I mean, you're talking about walking straight into a place crawling with people who want to do the General-in-Chief harm!"
"True enough."
The instant I conceded the point so calmly, Sima Yi looked ready to spring right out of her seat as she rounded on me. "You knew that, so why are you so calm about this?! Any normal person would refuse to go anywhere near a place like that — that's just common sense!"
Since I knew exactly why she was carrying on like this, all I could manage was an awkward grimace. How many people could watch someone dear to them walk into danger without trying to stop it? In that sense, what Sima Yi was showing me now was a perfectly normal reaction.
"Even if it makes things a little more cumbersome, moving forward safely would be far—"
"I'm sorry," I cut in, my voice firm. "But I believe this way is better."
I had learned this lesson once before. In the past, I had dragged my feet for the sake of my own safety, and the delay had birthed an enormous tragedy — Dong Zhuo's great fire of Chang'an. Even now, whenever I closed my eyes, the sight of that city reduced to ash sometimes rose before me. Ridiculous, really. I had steeled my heart never to mope over a past already gone, and yet some part of me still seemed tethered to that place.
Wondering how best to persuade her, I chose my words with care. "A cornered man will stop at nothing."
"…"
Some people hold fast to their convictions and never cross the line to the very end, but such cases were vanishingly rare. And what if the man backed into that corner happened to be a wicked one? Someone who, even in ordinary times, had done evil without a second thought whenever it served his interests? Short of being suddenly possessed by a ghost, he would — a hundred times out of a hundred — go flinging filth in every direction and kick up every manner of uproar. There would surely be those who lost their lives unjustly. I had no wish to witness such a sight.
"Wouldn't it be better for me to shoulder the danger myself?"
Sima Yi kept her silence, so I went on. "Don't worry. Do you have any idea who the officers guarding me are?"
Xiang Yu and Lü Bu were handling my close-protection detail, while the Peach Sisters led my personal troops and kept a wary eye on everything around us. No one in all of China could punch through that wall by force. Whatever schemes the magnates might attempt would amount to little more than insidious tricks — poison, most likely. That shifty-looking magnate who had presented the Five Minerals Powder the other day had probably harbored exactly that intention. Of course, to catch them red-handed, I would first have to notice where the poison had been slipped in… but if I could manage that much, everything would proceed smoothly enough.
"…Fine."
Having said it, Sima Yi continued flatly. "It's not as though you'd listen even if I tried to stop you."
"…"
"I'll be attending to my own duties in the meantime, so… off you go."
"All right. Thank you for understanding."
Those were the only words I had to offer.
Sima Yi exhaled as she watched the General-in-Chief walk off with his escort of officers. "…Haah."
Judging by his everyday conduct alone, the man could rightly be called a shiftless idler — and yet, in the strangest of places, he revealed convictions all his own. He was neither outstanding in personal martial prowess nor brilliant at sketching the shape of the whole board. What would have become of him, she wondered, had he not occupied the seat of a lord commanding his own faction? What if he had been nothing more than an ordinary officer campaigning under someone else's banner?
'He'd have lived out his days as just another unremarkable officer scattered here and there across the land.' A thoroughly forgettable man — worth his keep, perhaps, but capable of nothing beyond that.
"—Because a leader will not look upon people as human, how can filial piety stand firm, or benevolence take root?"
Those were words her father had spoken long ago, when he urged her to follow the General-in-Chief. He was a man who showed his true caliber not as a vassal attending a lord, but seated in a high place, leading everyone.
"—A tiger shut up in a cramped cage will, in the end, be unable to hold back its fangs and will burst free."
"—So judge for yourself whether this General-in-Chief of yours is merely a shackle that keeps you caged, or a world vast enough to hold the tiger."
It was a question her father had once put to her. And now, at last, Sima Yi could answer it with certainty.
'Viewed that way, he truly is a remarkable oddity.' Unfit to be a capable vassal, yet fit to be a capable leader.
Still, if there was one thing she regretted…
'…It would have been nice if he had just a little more ambition.'
The General-in-Chief showed an utter distaste for accepting additional offices that would shore up his own power. Had he not, the reigning Empress would doubtless have invented posts that didn't even exist just to press them into his hands. Had he not even declared that he would lay his offices down once peace arrived? The very fact that he could say such a thing proved he was no man starved for power — never mind whether the people around him would ever quietly let him resign in the first place.
Wasn't it a truly absurd state of affairs? In an age when every petty scoundrel was scrambling to clutch at power amid the kingdom's chaos, the one man who ought to hold it was turning his face away from the seat.
"It seems you think so too?"
Just then, an unreadable, maddeningly smug voice slid into Sima Yi's ear. She turned her head to find the white-haired girl who had addressed her.
"…And how, exactly, would you know what I'm thinking?"
When Sima Yi asked with a scowl, Zhuge Liang answered with an air somehow even more infuriating. "There are, as it happens, a great many ways to glean information from the way a person carries herself."
"…"
Sima Yi couldn't stand that know-it-all tone of hers. Zhuge Liang, for her part, simply smiled on, entirely unbothered, and kept her gaze fixed on Sima Yi.
"…Fine, let's say that's so. Do you happen to have a better method, then?" A battle of nerves would win her nothing, and Sima Yi knew it; a faint edge of irritation crept into her voice.
"It's quite simple. Care to hear it?"
"…"
Sima Yi nodded, and Zhuge Liang opened her mouth to explain, unhurried. "All it takes is for word to reach Her Majesty the Empress that the General-in-Chief intends to resign. That is the whole of it."
"That hardly sounds like a method at all." Sima Yi arched one eyebrow. "You really think that would work?"
"Oh dear. You mean you don't know?"
"…"
The tone needled her pride so smoothly she barely felt it coming, and Sima Yi's eye twitched.
"Recall how Her Majesty has behaved toward the General-in-Chief all this while, and the answer comes at once." Watching her reaction, Zhuge Liang raised the White Feather Fan she had received from the General-in-Chief, half-hiding her lips behind it as she laughed. "At times, the right answer is not to wind through complications, but to advance by the simplest path there is."
Honestly, that insufferable little brat. The way she deliberately let the corner of her mouth peek out — just enough to show off her smile — was genuinely infuriating.
"Haah… Very well. If the chance arises, I'll try it your way."
Certainly, judging by the string of privileges the Empress had lavished on him — privileges fit for a Chancellor or better — she would never, ever approve the General-in-Chief's resignation. She was holding herself in check for now, but the moment rumor of his stepping down reached her ears, she would move to confirm it at once. Sima Yi disliked the sight of the Empress clinging to the General-in-Chief, but on this occasion alone she could look upon it kindly. And how would the General-in-Chief himself react, she wondered, when he saw the Empress's response? He would probably wear an exquisitely troubled expression — or so she thought, standing there stiff and unyielding.
"I'm glad we see eye to eye."
"Hmph." Sima Yi gave a scornful snort.
Everything she had observed told her that girl's ability was genuinely outstanding — outstanding enough that even she acknowledged it. Enough that she could understand why the General-in-Chief bickered with her so endlessly. …Truly, truly loath as she was to admit it, she refused to become one of those people who did nothing but pointlessly guard their pride. Sima Yi despised that breed above all others.
Zhuge Liang spoke. "My lord has gone in person to a dangerous place, so it falls to me to attend him, doesn't it?"
With that said, she tossed a question back at Sima Yi. "And what do you plan to do now?"
"…"
"You aren't thinking of lazing about, I trust?"
Needled to the very last, Sima Yi snapped back flatly. "I'll see to my own duties myself, so kindly keep your nose out of them."
"My, but I only asked because I was so very worried."
To tell such a barefaced lie. Sima Yi narrowed her eyes at Zhuge Liang, then turned on her heel.
It was only in the General-in-Chief's presence that the two girls refrained from quarreling; whenever their paths crossed otherwise, they still growled at each other like cats and dogs. Had the General-in-Chief known, it would have been enough to make him clutch his head in despair.