Dangtugo (7)
Cao Cao, who had been wearing a thoroughly entertained expression while teasing me, seemed to decide it was time to get down to business, her voice turning serious as she asked,
"So we're the only ones attacking that idiot?"
"That's right. Everyone else trotted out every excuse under the sun for why they couldn't come."
"Hmm... Then dealing with the fallout is their problem to manage."
Cao Cao spat that out and pressed on without missing a beat.
"Now then, shall we hear what the General-in-Chief has to say?"
……
"Think of me as one of your own officers, and speak freely, without holding back."
Cao Cao delivered that enormous statement in a perfectly casual voice.
Think of her as a subordinate officer. She had seen straight through how I actually regarded her, and this was her way of saying so—stop fretting over nothing and keeping a pointless distance.
Honestly, Yuan Shu was hardly such a formidable foe that we needed to pool our strength, but moving together would certainly keep the damage down.
"I raised my army in response to the letter you sent, so surely it stands to reason that I follow your lead, does it not?"
Cao Cao, smiling at me as she said it, was undeniably beautiful.
...She really is gorgeous. The only trouble was that she spent every last one of those points the moment she opened her mouth.
"The plan itself isn't all that complicated."
I spoke up quickly, before Cao Cao—who had clearly read my mind—could come out with something else absurd.
"However Yuan Shu chooses to come at us, we simply smash him head-on. That's all there is to it."
"Hmm..."
Having heard my plan, Cao Cao asked,
"No scheme to shake them apart from within, like you did with Liu Biao?"
"None."
I gave a calm, matter-of-fact nod.
"Yuan Shu's faction is bound together far too tightly."
……
"Chances are we'd only be wasting our time."
Consider, for instance, how Yuan Shu met his end. Fleeing with a handful of attendants, he asked for a cup of honey water, and at the reply that there wasn't a drop to be had, he vomited blood and died on the spot. Taken at face value, it was a downright comical death—but exactly one thing about it nagged at me.
Even after being driven to the extreme of having not a scrap of food, the people attending Yuan Shu never betrayed him, striving to serve him to the very last. And judging by the later records of Sun Ce's forces clashing with Yuan Shu's remnants, their number could hardly have been small, either.
From all of this, it seemed Yuan Shu had treated the followers who stayed at his side exceedingly well.
Apparently, when word came that Sun Ce of all people had struck out on his own, the self-proclaimed Emperor took the shock so hard he lay bedridden for days. Why else would the histories record the ministers around him earnestly consoling him in his grief?
...Am I supposed to call that a hidden charm?
Not that I have any desire to learn about another man's hidden charm.
In any case, the long and short of it was this: unlike Liu Biao, Yuan Shu would never face a rebellion that cost him his head.
Looking at Cao Cao, I spoke up.
"Even Yuan Shu's remnants, scattered to the four winds after the Battle of Kuangting, didn't abandon him—they flocked to Shuchun soon after, didn't they?"
"Now that you mention it, that's true."
Cao Cao answered in a voice of understanding.
"If that fool had scorned the talents under his command, he never would have gathered his strength and risen again after his defeat at my hands."
Brilliant as she was, Cao Cao grasped at once what I was driving at.
So I offered her a supplementary explanation.
"Exactly. Which is why I intend to drive straight at Yuan Shu's weakness."
"And what weakness would that be?"
"You already know, don't you?"
I flashed a grin at Cao Cao as she asked.
"That bastard is absolute garbage in a fight, isn't he?"
……
If we couldn't bring them down from within, then we'd simply have to ram them head-on.
Theirs was a host enormous on paper, but its soldiers were in truth nothing more than young peasants forcibly conscripted to pad the numbers. Its roster of commanders was so thin that Zhang Xun and Ji Ling were the only names worth mentioning, and beyond them there was not a single strategist capable of sketching out any grand design. As it stood, Yuan Shu's faction was a frail force with nothing going for it but a convincing facade—puffed up for now on borrowed momentum, but certain to shatter spectacularly the moment a real fight began.
Then again, who could say—if he had kept a proper hold on the Sun family that once served under him, things might have gone differently.
But Yuan Shu, anxious lest the Sun clan amass power of its own, broke his promises time and again and never delivered the offices he had dangled. I suppose he had meant to keep the Suns close at hand and pamper them, but what of it?
Denied the position he had been promised, Sun Ce's heart drifted from Yuan Shu for good—and the upshot was that Sun Ce struck off the head of Li Feng, keeper of Nanyang Commandery, and surrendered to me then and there.
My sparing Sun Jian and extending him grace must have done its share to tip that heart as well.
Then, as if some thought had occurred to her, Cao Cao looked at me and smiled her same smile.
"You were the same when we last met—the deeper I dig, the more charming a man you turn out to be."
……
What is it with her this time?
Quite unlike my flustered heart, Cao Cao closed the distance a little.
"How about it? If you desire it even now..."
"Stop."
In the end, it was Lü Bu who couldn't hold back and cut in.
"Do not test my patience any further."
"Hm?"
"You've been warned."
Her voice was low and pressed flat, like someone forcibly bottling up her rage. When Lü Bu let out a single growl, I could feel the air around us turn frost-cold.
...This is about to get ugly. The mood had just curdled out of nowhere.
"I expected as much, but that's quite the violent reaction."
Just as I hurriedly opened my mouth to defuse things, Cao Cao flashed a grin and stepped back.
"You know it as well as anyone, don't you?"
As she said it, Cao Cao's gaze stayed fixed on Seo Yeo and Lü Bu.
"That waiting alone will get you nowhere."
"That's..."
"Wait and wait until the chance slips away, and you're the only one who loses out."
Lü Bu tried to get a word in, but Cao Cao barreled on without hearing a syllable.
"Rather than regretting it when it's too late, wouldn't it be better to move now?"
……
"Look at the people around you. While you sit there squirming in your seat out of embarrassment, don't they charge in without a moment's hesitation?"
...!
At those words, Lü Bu's eyes widened a touch, as though something had just clicked.
"One of them seems to have made up her mind properly already, at any rate..."
Cao Cao looked toward Seo Yeo and let her lips curve into a graceful arc.
With the conversation suddenly transformed into some impromptu counseling session, I couldn't bring myself to butt in.
Cao Cao said, sounding thoroughly amused,
"I did stick my nose in rather shamelessly. So—am I to understand we simply crash into Yuan Shu head-on?"
"Uh... y-yeah."
I answered her question in a daze, then asked what had been nagging at me.
"What exactly was that conversation just now about?"
"...Pfft."
Cao Cao looked at me and laughed.
"Playing dumb when you understand every word—how utterly adorable."
……
"Is it embarrassment? Or is it fear?"
A question that seemed to pierce straight through to my heart.
"It makes no difference which. Sooner or later, the time will come to face it head-on regardless."
Having said that much, Cao Cao wheeled the conversation entirely.
"Act with boldness."
……
"Only then can everyone come to be happy."
Without so much as waiting for my reply, she walked off, and I could only stare after Cao Cao's retreating figure with a hopelessly dumbfounded look.
In other words—whatever comes, sooner or later, face it with your head held high?
...Okay, that one genuinely got me.
The meeting with the General-in-Chief over, Cao Cao was on her way back to her own camp when Xiahou Dun, trailing behind as her escort, cautiously spoke up.
"Mengde."
"Hm? What is it?"
"Why on earth would you do that?"
Xiahou Dun asked, plainly unable to make sense of it.
"One wrong step, and that could have turned into a genuine disaster."
Xiahou Dun was quick to read a room, and that was precisely how she knew Cao Cao had provoked them on purpose.
When that Peerless Under Heaven had shown genuine fury, how her own blood had run cold. Even the other general standing right beside the General-in-Chief had been nearly impossible to look in the face.
What would have happened if things had gone wrong in that moment? If they had heeded neither Cao Cao's words nor the General-in-Chief's?
She knew it was an empty hypothetical, yet she caught herself picturing what would have unfolded next—and Xiahou Dun's face went slightly pale.
"Ah, you mean that."
At Xiahou Dun's question, Cao Cao answered in a voice that made it sound like nothing at all.
"I simply found it suffocating, watching everyone hem and haw at one another."
At that answer, Xiahou Dun's eyes took on a sharp, knowing glint.
"...Is that really all?"
……
"Because I think I know exactly why you did it."
Cao Cao put on an expression of helpless resignation.
"Oh dear. Caught, am I?"
……
"The more rivals there are, and the more formidable each one proves, the sweeter the thrill of overtaking them all—wouldn't you say?"
"...Are you serious? Your life could be on the line here."
At Xiahou Dun's worried protest, Cao Cao gave a soft laugh.
"Which is exactly what makes it all the more enjoyable."
"...Unbelievable."
"You get one life and one life only. Isn't it meant to be lived exactly as you please?"
Hearing that, Xiahou Dun finally found herself at a loss for words.
So she meant to play matchmaker on purpose, then wedge herself in between them and reduce the whole thing to a battlefield? Purely because it suited her tastes?
Having seen through everything, Xiahou Dun's eyes trembled faintly.
Mengde. You really are...