Fledgling Phoenix (4)
Ever since Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi had descended on us first thing in the morning, the hours had kept slipping by, and with Bang Deok-gong not due to arrive for some time yet, I picked up a book with the intention of killing the hours in between.
…
Boring, as expected. This was exactly what was wrong with the old days. There wasn't a single pastime in this whole place that I could actually enjoy.
Aside from a select few, every book on the shelves was a sleeping draught filled with musty old platitudes, and as for the baduk board—somewhere along the line, without my even noticing, I'd gotten roped into playing it. I'd even sat down to full matches against Seo Yeo and Lü Bu in the past, and how should I put it... those two. They attacked and attacked, never once plugging the openings that were glaringly obvious even to my untrained eye. To be fair, it was a strategy that would absolutely work in a real fight. When Xiang Yu or Lü Bu came crashing in with raw force, who on earth could hold the line?
But baduk was another matter entirely. There was no such thing as a Go stone that swept the whole board clean. Stones that marched straight in got swallowed whole, every exposed weakness got blown apart, and the game ended in defeat. And yet they kept losing to me, match after match, forcing themselves to play along all the while as if terrified I'd come to resent them for it. Honestly, I felt a little sorry for them, and it felt like I was just tormenting innocent people for nothing, so these days I didn't play against those two anymore.
One remark Lü Bu had blurted out back then stuck in my memory.
"…I'm actually pretty confident at tanqi, though."
Oh, come now. Just where did she get off, trying to use cheat codes?
Tanqi was a fairly unfamiliar word, but put in simpler terms, it was this: stone flicking. In other words, a game where you snapped your Go stone across the board to strike your opponent's stones—the kind of game every child has played at least once. Ancient China's tanqi and the modern stone-flicking game differed in exactly one respect: in tanqi, merely striking an opponent's stone counted as killing it, even if the stone never left the board.
Of course, that was precisely why it was no fun, so I added a house rule that a stone only died once it had been knocked clean off the board, and played stone flicking against Lü Bu. As for the result...
"Got another one!"
"Yes! Two with one flick!"
I was utterly crushed. She really was good at anything that involved using her body. Watching her casually fire off shot after shot, hitting nearly all of them and sending my pieces tumbling off the board, was frankly absurd. It felt exactly like playing baduk against Jia Xu.
"One more game! Huh?!"
"…Fine."
Her eyes sparkled every time she won, and it was cute enough that I kept humoring her—until eventually, Seo Yeo, unable to stand the sight any longer, stepped in.
"…My lord. Would it be alright if I took your place?"
"Hm? Be my guest."
The spectacle of Seo Yeo and Lü Bu flicking stones at each other had been riveting, to say the least.
"No, hold on! How is this even possible?!"
"…"
Tak! Tok!
"Hey—!!"
There was always someone better, as they say. Gathering the likes of Xiang Yu and Lü Bu under one roof only to watch them play stone flicking—looking back on it, it was hilarious. I'd have to arrange a rematch one of these days.
Having taken that one stroll down memory lane, I finally gave up on enduring the boredom and set the book aside. Then I simply flopped backward and sprawled out right where I sat, and Sima Yi—who had been keeping silent, dignified watch in perfect formal posture—stared at me lying there without so much as a cushion, an odd look on her face.
"…No, what are you doing all of a sudden?"
"Lying down."
"I can see that—that's exactly why I'm asking... Haa."
At my glib reply, Sima Yi, who had been the one asking questions, clutched her head.
"Right. You've always been like this. Do as you please."
"I appreciate the understanding."
Honestly, the impressive ones were them—able to sit there for hours without moving a muscle, minding their etiquette the entire time. Staying seated without so much as wiggling a finger? Whew... that was beyond me. If I'd been born into a prestigious noble house, I'd surely have been written off as the family problem child. Thank goodness Mother was such a pushover the moment she set eyes on me. If I didn't want to do something, she never forced me.
Zhuge Liang, who under normal circumstances would have called out Sima Yi's attitude, simply watched me with an unbothered smile. The two of them didn't seem to get along, yet they didn't squabble either. Had they secretly struck some kind of pact behind my back?
Just then the door opened, and a familiar voice reached my ears.
"My lord."
A voice that could melt a man's heart on hearing alone. Only one person in this entire household possessed a voice like that. Still sprawled where I was, I turned my head toward the sound, and just as I'd expected, a woman with light chestnut hair stood near the doorway, looking my way.
The moment I laid eyes on Diaochan, I froze. ...What? She looked like she'd put even more effort into her appearance than usual. Studying her face closely, I could clearly make out the differences: a faint flush now glowed on cheeks that normally showed no such color, her lips gleamed with extra luster, and her brows were darker than usual. On top of all that came a sweet fragrance that set a man's heart racing—it was enough to make me grasp, firsthand, what a beauty capable of toppling kingdoms truly meant.
She seemed to have done her makeup before coming. Just when I'd finally gotten used to her looks, she had to go and raise the difficulty another notch? Even a celestial fairy draped in her heavenly robes would be no match for the beauty Diaochan displayed at this moment. I mean, how do I put this—I'm a man too, so of course I like a pretty woman, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why Diaochan was going to all this trouble now. Then again, she must have had her reasons; she wouldn't have dolled herself up like that for nothing.
Still wearing a dazed expression, I asked her, "What is it?"
"Bang Deok-gong has arrived."
Even confronted with me sprawled out like some idle layabout, Diaochan delivered her report without batting an eye. In the early days, she used to hesitate and steal nervous glances whenever she caught me like this... Well, fair enough—imagine how taken aback she must have been, seeing the General-in-Chief flopped flat on the floor without a shred of dignity. By now, Diaochan seemed thoroughly accustomed to the sight.
In any case, at the news that the man I'd been waiting for had arrived, I pulled myself upright and said, "Anything else unusual?"
"He says he has a talented person he wishes to recommend, and he has brought one member of his household along with him."
"Hm... I see." Could it be the very person I was expecting? I had slipped a line into the invitation saying that if he had a worthy talent to recommend, he was welcome to bring them along and introduce them—but I hadn't expected such an immediate response. I'd assumed he would at least take the measure of what sort of man I was before bringing anyone. I gave a slow nod of assent. "Tell the servants to prepare food and drink, and since he's an honored guest, see that he's shown every courtesy."
"As you wish."
Diaochan bowed once and withdrew. The moment she slipped out of the room to carry out my orders, that mysterious fragrance which unraveled a man's heart vanished along with her. ...Seriously, what was that? It felt like some natural disaster had swept through and passed on its way.
Sima Yi, who had been watching the whole scene, clicked her tongue.
"Tsk. So she's finally gotten serious, has she."
"...Serious about what?"
"You don't need to know."
Sima Yi grumbled on and on, clearly displeased, and Zhuge Liang, much like her, murmured in a very small voice, "...And I haven't even reached the starting line yet." Her tone had changed, and she was gripping her White Feather Fan tighter than usual. There was something eerily bleak in Zhuge Liang's voice, and the atmosphere felt anything but ordinary.
…
Seo Yeo was looking at me with the air of someone deliberating over something. Meeting those eyes sent a slight chill down my spine. Her expression itself was exactly the same as always, but the mood... something about it was off. The look Seo Yeo was sending me right now resembled—how to put it—that of a predator sizing up its prey, and for a moment I went cold. Since when had she been giving me looks like that?
...Right.
"—Judging by your reaction, it seems I may soon set things in motion."
Part of the conversation I had shared with Her Majesty the Empress after returning to Luoyang. Ever since that exchange, Seo Yeo had begun sending me those looks. I could, of course, have asked her why she was looking at me that way. But I had the distinct feeling that the moment I did, something irreversible would occur. I had no idea what Seo Yeo was agonizing over, but I could tell it involved me—and I could also sense, instinctively, that the instant I poked at that worry myself, it would go off with a bang. To put it in a metaphor: it felt as though the timer on a time bomb of unknown detonation had begun to tick. Needless to say, defusing the bomb was a fantasy I wouldn't even dream of. It explodes the moment you touch it—how was I supposed to lay a hand on it? All I could do now was pray to the heavens and hope the thing would hold off for as long as it possibly could.
"—We shall save that delight for another occasion."
My conversation with Her Majesty the Empress. What part of it had lit the fuse on this bomb? ...Honestly, I had a fairly good idea. The feelings the Empress harbored toward me. The feelings Seo Yeo harbored toward me. Weigh the two together and the situation practically answered itself.
…
Faced with Seo Yeo, still silent, still watching me, I couldn't help but break into a light sweat.
"—It's good for a man, so you make sure to eat it all! Got that?!"
Mother. Did you somehow sense that your son would end up in a situation like this before long? A mother's intuition was clearly not to be underestimated.
"—I'm rooting for you every step of the way!"
I found myself nodding along as those words from my mother came back to me.
"—Doesn't matter how many daughters-in-law you give me!"
"—You are rooting for me, right?"
To that question of mine, Mother had only kept on beaming. ...I had a really, really bad feeling about this.