Return (3)
Naturally enough, no bandits ambushed us on the road to Luoyang, nor did any calamity of heaven and earth interrupt the journey.
If I had to single out a problem, it was the prisoners — the ones who kept grinding away at my temper, straining with all their might to have their necks severed.... Except that in the end, it wasn't my mood they soured. It was everyone else's.
"I can't stand watching this any longer."
"Hm?"
"I won't kill them, so may I go teach them a little lesson first?"
When Lü Bu asked that, I nodded and said, "Just make sure none of it shows on the outside."
"And just who do you take me for! Don't you worry!"
Hearing my words, Lü Bu struck a suitably proud pose, then strode toward the prisoners, who were still bellowing at the top of their lungs.
Killing intent poured in a steady stream from her eyes as she glared at the gentry, but she was not the sort to break a promise made to me, so I did not worry.
For days on end, the procession toward Luoyang kept halting at intervals, and each time it did, the wails of prisoners being thoroughly worked over by Lü Bu rang out.
The prisoners seemed to have given up even struggling by now; they simply stared with glazed eyes at the scenery drifting past beyond the bars, as though it barely registered.
I have never bought the saying that the rod is medicine, but in this one instance, it seemed to be exactly that.
"They've finally quieted down some."
Wearing a satisfied expression, Lü Bu looked my way and asked, "Well? I really did beat them without leaving a single mark on the outside, didn't I?"
"...You did."
I conceded the point calmly.
Just as she had boasted, Lü Bu had pummeled the gentry in a way that showed almost nothing from the outside. With uncanny precision, she had struck only the places hidden by clothing, where no skin showed at all.
Guilty as they were, we were hardly going to strip them naked, so her judgment wasn't wrong. I was simply left wondering how hard she must have hit them to put eyes like that into their heads.
They looked exactly like the glassy stare of a pollock pulled straight from the freezer.
Their condition had deteriorated somewhat, but this much was acceptable. By the time we reached Luoyang, they would surely be right as rain again.
The cityscape of Luoyang, which I was seeing again after so long an absence, looked no different from before.
The streets bustled with citizens coming and going as they always did, and Luoyang's soldiers kept such meticulous watch over every corner of the city that even petty crime had grown rare here of late.
The capital of Han — the city that anyone living in the provinces in this era would have dreamed of seeing at least once in their life — welcomed us.
I passed the gate guards, who stood stiff as boards with tension, and moved out onto the great avenue.
Naturally, the enormous carriage carrying the prisoners rolled through the gates of Luoyang behind me, and the surrounding citizens came crowding in from every side to gawk at the rare spectacle.
The mere sight of the General-in-Chief returning from Jing Province at the head of a great army was marvel enough — but with a massive, impossible-to-miss carriage sitting in the middle of the procession, how could their curiosity not redouble?
The people fixed their attention less on my face, by now a familiar one, and more on the carriage trailing at my rear.
"What on earth did they do to end up locked away in there?"
"Aigoo, friend. You still haven't heard? Those are the scoundrels who got themselves caught trying to harm the General-in-Chief!"
"Eh? Don't tell me I was the only one who didn't know?"
"To think you alone missed the one piece of gossip every soul in Luoyang knows...."
The voices of ordinary-looking men trading remarks drifted into my ears.
Somehow or other, word that I had recently been plagued by assassination threats had apparently made its way all the way to Luoyang.
If even Luoyang knew, I could safely assume my name had spread to every corner of the realm by now.
Having abruptly become a man of public fascination, I began to foresee all the headaches that lay in wait.
The prisoners, who had kept their silence ever since their thorough thrashing at Lü Bu's hands, said nothing at all, only keeping their gazes nailed to the floor.
Being disgraced in broad daylight before a crowd must have been mortifying. If it were me, shame would have gotten the better of me too, and I'd have done exactly the same.
Leaving the murmuring citizens behind, I returned to the Luoyang military camp and gave the order to disperse.
I watched the soldiers who had finished their long campaign melt away in a great tide.
Now, while they took their rest, I would have to make my way to the imperial palace once more and present myself before Her Majesty the Empress.
...
Of course, with these bastards in tow.
At least I wasn't walking in there alone. Small mercies.
Just then, one of the gentry caged up inside quietly opened his mouth.
"...General-in-Chief."
Did these people never tire of it? Did they truly not understand, or did they understand perfectly well and simply pretend otherwise?
"That will be quite enough now," I said in an even voice.
...
"You know full well that you have already passed out of my hands."
Only then did the gentry close his eyes, as though at last surrendering everything.
The moment I set foot inside the imperial palace, a woman who appeared to be a high-ranking official approached and addressed me with practiced courtesy.
"Her Majesty awaits you."
"Right. Then let's not keep her waiting."
I nodded and quickened my pace. The sooner this was over, the sooner I could go rest.
The atmosphere of the palace, which I had not visited in over a month, still carried something I found stubbornly hard to acclimate to.
Even before departing for Jing Province, I had never gone anywhere near the palace unless Her Majesty summoned me.
A General-in-Chief poking around the palace grounds without a royal summons was behavior practically engineered to breed misunderstanding.
There was an old idiom for exactly this — the melon patch and the plum tree.
Never stop to adjust your sandals in a cucumber field, and never pause to straighten your hat beneath a plum tree.
In plain terms: never take an action that invites suspicion.
I already wielded far too much power as it was, and those loyal to the Empress regarded me with no small measure of unease.
Given that I stood in a position from which, if things ever went wrong, I really could overturn the entire board, their reaction was only natural.
Short of losing my mind, I would never do such a thing — but from where they stood, it could not help but look very different.
If you were standing there empty-handed while the other man held a gun, of course you would feel anxious.
The history books are full of rulers who governed perfectly sanely, right up until the day they abruptly went off the rails.
Her Majesty surely knew all of this as well — and still she insisted on giving me far too much.
Did that mean she would accept anything I did, whatever deed it might be?
...That was honestly a little terrifying. Her affection weighed far, far too heavy.
In any case, thanks to Her Majesty's habit of showering me with power, I had ended up in a position where I had to tread more carefully than ever.
I mean, how are you supposed to refuse when your superior suddenly hurls something at you with a "here, this is yours"?
If she had at least given me a hint beforehand, I might have found a graceful way to turn it aside. Instead, she simply pressed authority into my hands as though I had happened to pick it up off the street.
In the end, all I could do was decline with the utmost courtesy — "It cannot be so, Your Majesty." "I beg you to reconsider." "This burden is far too heavy for one such as I."
But the moment the Empress decided to push, even that was useless.
The instant I dug in my heels and openly objected to the Empress's decision, it could be read as the General-in-Chief standing against the throne.
And if that happened, the internal stability I had worked so hard to settle could come undone all over again.
It was like a local who keeps shoving a spoon at a foreign visitor who has already politely declined, insisting, "Just one bite, come now."
I have eaten plenty already, so please, enough.
As I followed my escort through the palace, these stray thoughts trailing on and on, the audience chamber drew abruptly near.
"This is as far as I may escort you."
"Right. You've done well."
The woman stopped before the door, looked at me, and bowed with deep respect; I acknowledged her with a level expression.
Turning to Seo Yeo, I said, "Wait here for me a moment."
"...Yes."
Seo Yeo's face was as expressionless as ever, but a faint note of reluctance colored her voice.
If anything happened inside that chamber, she was the sort who would smash the door to splinters and come charging in — so there was no need to worry for my safety.
I made my way toward the audience chamber, and the guard posted at the door reached out and drew it open for me.
Only a single person occupied the room within.
"Ah, so you've finally come."
In this world, where even ordinary people announced their presence in vivid, clashing colors, here stood a figure with plain, unassuming black hair.
Paradoxically enough, that black was the very color that symbolized the most exalted bloodline in all this land.
Obsidian eyes — the mark of the imperial blood, just the same — turned toward me.
Having confirmed my condition with her own eyes, the Empress came hurrying toward me at a quick trot.
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
"Your Majesty, I implore you to observe proper court eti—"
"I sent everyone away precisely because I knew you would say that."
Cutting me off flat, as though she would entertain no further protest, the Empress had somehow already closed the distance — and with gestures wholly unbefitting a sovereign, she turned my body this way and that, inspecting me.
"Hmm.... By some stroke of fortune, you seem to have escaped without a scratch."
"I hardly know where to place myself before Your Majesty's concern."
"Still that stifling formality, I see."
The Empress grumbled once at my response, then pressed on. "General-in-Chief. I have but one question for you."
"Speak, Your Majesty."
When I opened my mouth with due respect, the Empress arched her eyes into crescents and asked:
"Is tearing them apart to your taste? Or boiling them?"
...
"Nothing else matters. Just tell me."
Confronted with a conversation straight out of the tyrant King Zhou and Daji's playbook, my mind briefly went white.