Shuchun (6)
It had been a few days since I entrusted Shuchun to the Sun family. During that time, wary that some problem might rear its head in the city, I went about inspecting it from corner to corner. The odds of trouble were vanishingly small, I knew — but what if, just what if, Sun Ce proved unable to govern Shuchun properly?
It took very little time for me to realize the worry had been for nothing and to find myself nodding along as I made my rounds. Seen from one angle, was that even surprising? If Sun Ce had truly been nothing more than a man gifted at fighting, then even in the original history he would have been recorded simply as a capable general who served under Yuan Shu.
But the fact that he raised an independent power of his own, won the support of the people, and held dominion over the whole of Jiangdong was itself proof of a superb talent for ruling others. Hadn't even Zhang Zhao and Zhang Hong — the two statesmen of Wu famed as the Two Zhangs of Jiangdong — taken up office at Sun Ce's own request? Those stiff-necked old men had refused my summons on the excuse that their bodies had gone frail with age, and yet they chose to stand at Sun Ce's side. That was plainly not a thing to be dismissed.
Still, the real reason for my astonishment lay elsewhere: Sun Ce was keeping his ferocious temperament reined in without triggering a single incident. Whenever something difficult arose, he discussed it calmly with his sworn sister Zhou Yu, and the moment a matter looked even slightly beyond his own judgment, he filed a report to me with surgical precision.
Truthfully, I had half expected him to impulsively flatten the odd fool who got lippy with him without knowing his place, so this came as quite the surprise. How do I put this. The reason Sun Ce died, after all, was a defect of character. His hideous impatience, and the cruelty that spilled far more blood than any situation required, eventually came home to roost as karma in its purest form — he took a grievous wound from assassins who bore him a grudge.
The physician who treated him told him the wound would need a good few months to close, and that he was to rest quietly in the meantime. Sun Ce ignored the advice entirely, spent his days raging and tearing his chamber apart, burst the wound open, and died. When a doctor tells you not to do something, there is always a reason....
For the record, that really is from the official histories, not the novel. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, isn't there that occult turn where Sun Ce kills a Taoist named Yu Ji, and Yu Ji's vengeful spirit goes on tormenting him until he dies?
...Now that I actually stopped to think about it, I was growing a little uneasy. Surely he wouldn't kill Yu Ji here as well and then drop dead out of nowhere? A sudden worry seized me, and a man in my position had exactly one course of action.
"You are telling me not to lay a hand on the Taoist known as Yu Ji?"
"That's right."
When I nodded, Sun Ce — who had received me with such flawless courtesy — showed a moment of open bewilderment. So I told him:
"Do not envy a man whose name rings louder than your own, and do not move against him."
"...Surely you cannot think me capable of such a thing."
But Sun Ce, my friend — you really did, you know. The histories record it in broad daylight: he killed the old man out of sheer jealousy, because the very officers and people who should have been exalting him were heaping praise on some strange old codger instead. What was it he said to his own officers, exactly? Something along the lines of, "Am I so inferior to that old man that the crowds flock to him so?"
"The more chaotic the world becomes, the wiser it is not to lay hands on the old and the young."
I couldn't vouch for much else, but this much I could say with certainty: this was a world where the genuinely uncanny existed — mysterious beings and phenomena that reason could not explain. Act on your every whim, cross the wrong person, and you would vanish so completely that neither mouse nor bird would ever know. Naturally, the odds of that were astronomically slim. But the man who had died precisely from crossing such a person was standing right in front of me. Even setting that aside, leaving such people alone was simple common sense.
"This is not a request but an order. See that you do not defy it."
"Is there any doubt?"
When I delivered the words flat and firm, radiating an air that I would not budge an inch until I heard his answer, Sun Ce bowed low. ...I still could not be entirely certain it would be all right. Sun Ce was eerily docile toward me, but toward others his original temperament seemed to seep through at the edges. In the end, all I could do was trust the composure he had shown me so far.
Meanwhile, Zhou Yu had lately taken to ranging up and down the Yangtze through Jingzhou and Jiangdong, calling it training against the fiercest currents.
'You could well afford to take things a little easier — already planning large-scale exercises?'
'Surely I must be faithful to the duties the General-in-Chief has entrusted to me?'
So she had answered, favoring me with a serene smile while displaying a beauty that would not have yielded an inch even to Diaochan's. I remembered sipping the tea set before me and replying in a deliberately offhand voice.
'I hear that lately the soldiers in the camps, men and women alike, have taken to worshipping you like an idol. I believe I can see why.'
'...?'
At my sudden remark, Zhou Yu had tilted her head in puzzlement. So I said it to her face, plain as day.
'Ability, looks, temperament. You lack nothing — popularity is only natural.'
'...!'
Zhou Yu's face had flamed scarlet on the spot. In the original history, she had been an all-around talent truly lacking in nothing. Command, martial strength, stratagem — name it and she had it. The only trouble was that, like Sima Yi, she carried the strong impression of an eternal runner-up, forever eclipsed by Zhuge Liang. The single thing she never possessed was a long life. I did not know why Zhou Yu had met her end so young, in her thirties — but watching a woman so capable and so beautiful live out so brief a span was something I, as a man, could not bring myself to simply stand by and watch.
I asked her, her cheeks still burning:
'Come to think of it — have you been seeing the physician regularly?'
'Yes. Though I hardly know whether I am worthy of such indulgence....'
Even now, whenever her duties allowed a moment's respite, I summoned Zhou Yu to Luoyang and had her examined for anything amiss. The reason she had to travel all that way to Luoyang was, well — Hua Tuo happened to be there. Someone might ask whether any ordinary person could call upon the illustrious Divine Physician whenever they pleased. Of course it was possible. What was power for, after all, if not this? A mere stray cough from me sent people everywhere scrambling to read my mind; arranging a single physician for a single retainer did not even register as a chore. Seeing that, I could well understand how those who hold power come to rot. I was wary of it myself, which was why I seldom brandished my authority. Human greed knows no bottom. Knowing how to be content at the right measure — surely that was the most important virtue of all.
"...My lord?"
"Ah — forgive me."
I had evidently sunk rather deep into my own head, because Sun Ce, seated before me, wore a puzzled look. Gazing into his russet-brown eyes, I spoke.
"I intend to return to Luoyang now."
"......"
"Going by my own expectations, I won't be back for quite a long while." I continued in my usual tone. "If there is anything you wish to ask, ask it now."
If we did not set out soon, we would end up marching with the freezing wind in our faces. A winter campaign was misery itself: walking alone was agony, and even rest brought no true rest. In the heat of summer it was punishingly hot, and the moment you halted your steps, the sweat soaking your whole body began to freeze — that sensation was sheer torment. Even I wanted no part of such a skin-crawling ordeal, so move now we must. Lingering in Shuchun until winter passed was certainly an option, but if I wished to avoid the sulking wrath of my one and only superior in Luoyang, I could not let this year slip by.
Return late, and she would without question fix me with a wounded, sulky glare and say:
'...Yaongi. Claw him to ribbons.'
Threatening me, of all things, with the very cat I had once given her. Time had flowed on, and the cat was fully grown now — yet dangling from the Emperor's two hands, all it ever did was let out a languid cry.
'Ae-ong.'
For the record, despite being named Yaongi — Kitty, no less — the cat I had gifted never once said "meow." She cried "ae-ong." In which case, ought we not to have renamed her from Yaongi to plain Ae-ong?
Wallowing in such idle nonsense, I waited for Sun Ce's answer, and at last he replied, having clearly weighed something over in his mind.
"I have no questions."
"Then that is settled."
Nodding, I rose from my seat.
"Govern this place well until I come again."
"......"
"Depending on how things stand, I may yet look into granting you a reward."
"I will give everything I have."
The instant the word "reward" left my mouth, Sun Ce blazed with motivation. Truly, nothing in this world works like a prize. Forcing first-rate talent to run on passion alone was nothing short of begging to be smacked on the back of one's own head — a folly no one would commit short of a certain Honey Water Emperor, currently languishing in a cell somewhere.
Something occurred to me, and I asked Sun Ce:
"Do you have any thought of bringing your parents and siblings in Luoyang here to Shuchun?"
"...No."
As though the question were not worth a moment's deliberation, Sun Ce shook his head at once.
"It would hardly do for you, my lord, to place your trust in me one-sidedly."
"......"
"And should I ever stray from the proper path — do what must be done."
In other words: keep my family hostage. Just like that, Sun Ce had entrusted the future of the entire Sun household into my hands. What on earth was I to make of this man? For one blinding instant, his figure overlapped with Guan Yu's — the living byword for loyalty itself.