Fledgling Phoenix (3)
The day after Zhang Jue brought me word that Pang Degong had arrived, I made preparations for a banquet on a truly modest scale, then sent an invitation out to him along with an escort to carry it.
Pang Degong's family was currently lodging in a rather spacious mansion — one of several large residences I had set aside in advance in case notable families came calling. These were people who had trusted my word and traveled all the way to Sili Province despite having no ties there whatsoever. Until they were properly settled, this much courtesy was only fair.
Whether he had been waiting for my invitation all along or not, Pang Degong sent back a reply promising to call on me as soon as his preparations were complete.
And now, at present.
"..."
"..."
Why on earth are these two here?
I found myself staring at the two children who had turned up at my mansion on the excuse of having nothing better to do. Violet hair and white hair — a pairing rarely seen anywhere in this world. What more is there to say? Those very Sima Yi and Zhuge Liang had deigned to descend upon my residence from the crack of dawn.
Having yet to undergo their coming-of-age rites, Sima Yi and Zhuge Liang held no official posts of any kind. Well, of course they didn't. Appointing a child not yet fifteen to high office — a generalship, say — would have been a fine joke, wouldn't it? It wasn't that I couldn't have pushed the matter through if I'd truly wanted to... but why would I bother? Short of extraordinary cases like the Emperor herself, there was not the slightest reason to seat a child in a lofty position and invite controversy. Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi understood this well enough, and both showed every sign of being willing to accept it. Thank goodness for thoughtful children.
In any event, no duties were ever going to find their way to two children without offices, and the guardians responsible for them kept having to leave their posts for reasons of their own.
Zhuge Liang's elder sister, Zhuge Jin, handled official business while leaning on her gentle temperament to smooth relations among the bureaucrats, doing her utmost to keep conflict from flaring up within the administration. It let me see exactly why, in the original history, she had earned the deep favor of Sun Quan, the man who ruled the land of Wu.
Sima Yi's elder sister, Sima Lang, pursued lenient policies and basked in the praises of the common people; so skillfully did she govern her district that the people under her command were said to commit no crime whatsoever. Whenever Sima Lang stepped forward to accomplish something, the people rolled up their sleeves to help her along. Worthy of the name Eight Da of Sima, indeed.
Zhuge Jin and Sima Lang. In the modern era, both tend to be overshadowed by their younger siblings' towering names, but the two of them were gifted in their own right. This time, however, that very excellence proved a poison. Talent like theirs got them summoned from place to place, and with their frequent departures, they found themselves on the verge of neglecting the young children who actually needed their care.
So the two of them came to me with a proposal.
"Would it be possible for you to keep Yi at your side and watch over her, so that she doesn't happen to cause any trouble?"
"Hmm? What's that supposed to mean?"
When I voiced my confusion, Sima Lang went on with a faintly embarrassed look.
"As you are well aware, General-in-Chief... my younger sister has such a prickly disposition that she doesn't mix well with children her own age."
"I see."
I nodded along slowly. To me, that snappish attitude of hers was nothing short of adorable, but to children her own age, she must have looked like an insufferable little brat.
What would happen, then, if someone actually provoked Sima Yi? A spectacular brawl was the only outcome I could picture. She grumbled constantly even at me, and we were as close as anyone — was she really going to sit quietly while some stranger she'd never laid eyes on needled her? Of course, with the Sima clan's prestige being what it was, nobody would torment her to her face. They would simply write her off as someone best avoided and keep their distance. And since Sima Yi wasn't the sort to agonize over social ties in the first place, she would inevitably end up alone.
If even full-grown adults cannot conquer loneliness, what of a child in the very season of growing? Her mind may have soared far past that of most adults, but a child was still a child. Giving up on caring for her because her personality was difficult, because it wore you out — that was simply not something a person did.
Thinking of her, I had no choice but to nod at Sima Lang's request.
"Very well. Then while you are away, I'll take Sima Yi with me and teach her a thing or two about how official business is handled."
"I am humbled by the General-in-Chief's grace."
Sima Lang bowed deeply to me, and from that day on I dragged Sima Yi along in my wake, showing her how the work was done.
"...Why on earth do you handle things in such a roundabout way?"
"Hm?"
"Look. It's far simpler if you do it like this."
"...??"
There was even that delicious irony of me being the one receiving instruction.
Zhuge Liang's circumstances were no different.
"General-in-Chief, we entrust our Liang to your care!"
Zhuge Jin's request — so ripe for misunderstanding — left me flustered for a moment. Phrase it like that, and anyone within earshot might take it in a very strange direction, no?
With Seo Yeo's mood shifting a shade behind me, I hurried to open my mouth.
"...Explain that in a little more detail."
"Ah- ahh! My apologies!"
Only belatedly realizing how her words might be taken, Zhuge Jin hastened to apologize. She was an odd one, really — inexplicably tense in a way that seemed to happen around no one but me. Surely a fair amount of time had passed since she settled in Luoyang, so why did she still carry on like this? I couldn't shake the feeling that Zhuge Liang had a trace of the same air about her. A trait of the Zhuge family, perhaps?
While I was still puzzling over it, Zhuge Jin glanced at me cautiously and spoke.
"Do you happen to know how Liang spent her days, back when we were living in Xuzhou?"
"No. I don't."
"It's quite simple. She shut herself in her room and did nothing but read books and bamboo scrolls, all day, every day."
A bookworm, of all things. So Zhuge Liang was every bit the outsider too.
Watching my reaction, Zhuge Jin went on, her voice tinged with worry.
"She turned down every invitation to go outside, and unless it was me or our youngest, she balked at the very idea of meeting anyone at all."
"..."
"Going by what she shows me alone, you could call her a mischievous little imp without doing her any injustice — but she always keeps everyone else at arm's length. My worry knows no end."
With that, Zhuge Jin let out a long sigh.
What was that about, exactly? Geniuses are lonely creatures, and so forth?
Sima Fang and Zhuge Jin alike knew full well that pressing such requests on me was a breach of etiquette — and yet each had reasons to defy decorum and humble herself.
"When Yi is near you, General-in-Chief, she softens more than she ever does at home."
"Our Liang seems to absolutely adore the General-in-Chief!"
Children with slightly defective personalities, it seemed, turned docile only in my presence. Coming from the families of Sima Yi and Zhuge Liang themselves, it could hardly be wrong.
Was it possible I actually had a gift for childcare? Even back in Bing Province, the children had supposedly adored me. If I'd known I had this kind of talent, I'd have become a kindergarten teacher and raked in the money...
In any case, that was how things had unfolded, and whenever their guardians were away, it fell to me to look after Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi. ...Though when it came to paperwork, it was closer to those two looking after me. While I was off filming a domestic sitcom with Seo Yeo and Lü Bu, the pair of them blitzed through my workload at a frankly alarming pace. Hadn't it been exactly the same back when we were handling affairs in Jing Province?
And so the two little tagalongs who had barged in unannounced in the early morning took up their usual spots and settled in to pass the time.
"..."
"..."
Unusually, Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi showed no sign of snarling at each other despite being face to face. They exchanged a single look and then proceeded to pretend the other didn't exist. Was that getting along better, or getting along worse?
Strange as the scene before me was, something else was nagging at me, so I asked the two of them.
"You two came awfully early today, didn't you?"
At my question, Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi each gave a very different answer.
"I heard some news that concerned me, so I came to see for myself."
That was Sima Yi, feigning nonchalance.
"As one who serves my lord, ought I not to be prepared for any contingency that might arise?"
And that was Zhuge Liang, White Feather Fan in hand, wearing a placid smile.
I caught the meaning buried beneath both replies and gave a wry grimace. The words sounded plausible enough, but the truth of it was plain: they were simply wary that another child like themselves might come waltzing in. In other words, they looked for all the world like anxious children terrified of having their parent's love stolen away. Watching them carry on like this, there was no denying it — they really were just kids.
Although... if my memory served, Pang Tong was around the same age as Sima Yi, wasn't she? ...I could only pray she wouldn't lose her nerve the moment she came face to face with those two.