Luoyang (3)
Today, as on any other day, I stood before the Emperor reporting officials guilty of corruption and sending their necks rolling.
"Your Majesty. I request that the aforementioned Kong Sun and his band of twelve be stripped of their offices..."
"Very well. Do as you see fit."
The Emperor nodded and approved my recommendation.
"Next item on the agenda. Recently, a certain group has been pinning their own crimes on me and using them for political scheming, and regarding that..."
"Utterly shameless wretches. We shall issue you an edict of authority—give them a sound flogging, then strike off their heads."
Huh? That was not what I meant.
The Emperor had heard my agenda item, then abruptly cut me off and handed down a savage verdict.
All I had intended was the same as always—strip their offices and punish them according to the severity of their crimes...
After a moment lost in thought, I continued speaking with my head still bowed.
"...My deepest gratitude, Your Majesty."
But come to think of it, handling it that way suited me fine, so I offered the Emperor my thanks.
They were clearly trying to shift their crimes onto me and drive a wedge between the Emperor and myself.
Best case, they'd shrink my political standing—and if things went their way and they could chase me out of Luoyang or take my head, so much the better.
As much as I preferred to smooth things over whenever possible, when it came to people who threatened my life, I had to respond without exception.
Especially when I watched the very people who used to grovel and watch their every step under Dong Zhuo now treat me like an easy mark and pull stunts like this.
This country had been rotting for centuries. No matter how much rotten flesh you carved away, fresh rot sprouted up somewhere else.
I honestly couldn't see the end of it.
When the water upstream rots, of course the downstream goes rotten with it—but when the "water" in question was an entire nation, the scale of it was no laughing matter.
In one Three Kingdoms game, as your territory expands, your taxes get slapped with a corruption penalty that gnaws away at your income. Luoyang's current situation was exactly that.
Everywhere else's taxes came in perfectly normal, but Luoyang alone might as well have been saddled with a 70 percent corruption penalty—the money flowing in fell far short of what its economy should have produced.
Still, word of Luoyang's recent transformation was drawing in eager, passionate new talent one by one, so if we kept at it, this was a problem that would eventually be solved.
"Raise your head, General-in-Chief."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
At the Emperor's command I lifted my head, and there she was, wearing a distinctly sulky face.
"General-in-Chief. Are you aware that of late, your visits to Us grow scarcer by the day?"
Ever since that incident, the Emperor had thrown her full, unwavering support behind me.
Thanks to that, she nodded along to every proposal I brought her, which made driving out corrupt officials no trouble at all.
"We grow anxious when We cannot see your face often enough."
The problem was that this Emperor of ours was... rather too dependent on me. That was the problem.
"...Your Majesty. As I have said before, it is Your Majesty who must stand firm upon the throne..."
"We know. Is that not why these days Our words no longer tremble, and We speak as an Emperor should?"
That much was true.
"Were all those promises to protect Us nothing but lies, then?"
"Of course not. How could I ever, toward Your Majesty..."
"Then see to it that you show Us your face more often."
Mmmm... when the highest sovereign in all the land put it that way, refusing felt like its own kind of rudeness.
I bowed my head slowly and spoke.
"I shall obey Your Majesty's command."
The Emperor sounded thoroughly satisfied.
"Good. Now raise your head, General-in-Chief."
"Yes."
"Come closer. Let Us look upon your face."
"...Yes."
As commanded, I stepped a little closer to the throne.
A small hand reached out and caressed my cheek.
"Do not abandon Us."
"..."
"The reason We draw breath today is thanks to you, General-in-Chief."
She wasn't wrong, exactly...
After stroking my face for a while, the Emperor suddenly broke into a smile.
"Is there anything you desire?"
"...What do you mean, Your Majesty?"
The Emperor answered with playful mischief.
"We mean to commend your tireless labors with a gift from the imperial vault."
"..."
It was, on its face, a perfectly innocuous offer. So why did it feel otherwise?
Something about it smelled like a pretext—like she was using the gift as a hook to keep me at her side even longer.
The Emperor hopped lightly down from the throne, took my hand, and began leading me away.
Mindful of every eye in the hall, I spoke up uneasily.
"Your Majesty, you really ought to observe a little more decorum..."
"It is fine. Even an Emperor cannot be expected to keep up her majesty every waking hour of the day."
Watching her like this, I had to admit—her overflowing confidence was actually a joy to see.
"...I-if it displeased you, then We apologize."
At my wry smile, the Emperor flinched and began anxiously searching my face.
Oh boy. Here we go again.
"Not at all. I was smiling because your confidence is a lovely thing to behold."
"Ah, I see! Then let us hurry!"
My compliment restored her smile in an instant, and off she went, tugging me along.
Old habits creeping back in without her even noticing, she stammered slightly as she led me toward the treasure vault.
But hold on—was it really acceptable for the Emperor to do this in the middle of state affairs?
"Your Majesty, forgive me, but do you not still have matters of state remaining?"
"It is fine. Lately, apart from you, hardly anyone comes to see Us at all."
Apparently it didn't matter, since there was hardly anyone to meet besides me.
The Emperor was still young—terribly young—and she had more than her share of difficulty properly overseeing the affairs of state.
And so, led along by that tiny hand, we arrived at the treasure vault, where the Emperor strolled up to the guard as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
"We have business within the vault. May We enter?"
"Of course, Your Majesty!"
The guard, ambushed by the Emperor mid-shift, snapped to attention with a bark.
I couldn't even blame him. In my past life, I'd shaken in my boots plenty of times whenever a general's inspection swept through my guard post.
The Emperor smiled at me.
"Well then! Let us go in at once!"
"Yes."
"...??"
The palace guard watched the two of us—Emperor and subject, hands clasped tight—with a thoroughly bewildered look.
Inside, the vault was packed with even more wealth than I had imagined.
"...Whoa."
The previous Emperor. Just how much had that greedy bastard raked in?
True to form for a money-crazed, foolish merchant of an Emperor, the treasure had been piled sky-high, floor to ceiling.
"So Dong Zhuo never got his hands on it."
The Dong Zhuo I knew would have scraped the place clean without leaving so much as a copper behind.
"Because you saved Us before he ever could."
The Emperor replied with her eyes closed.
For a while she stayed like that, lost in thought, and then she smiled.
"Now! Take whatever you wish—as much as you like!"
"...As much as I like?"
"As much as you like!"
What was this.
I felt like some silver-tongued charmer who'd bewitched the Emperor into letting him drain the nation's coffers dry.
Different circumstances aside, I wondered—was this how Yang Guifei had felt? Or Daji?
"Your Majesty. You must not go handing the imperial treasury over to just anyone."
"...Do you truly believe We do this for just anyone?"
The Emperor narrowed her eyes in protest at my words.
"It is because it is you that We do this."
"..."
Why did it feel like...
Why did I get the sinking feeling that once the Emperor was fully grown, I was going to end up as the Gukseo—the Emperor's husband—sooner or later?
"May I use everything I take from here exactly as I see fit?"
"Of course. Spend it on the state, give it away as gifts to others—We will not mind either way."
Having said that, the Emperor gazed at me with an unreadable look in her eyes.
"For Our property is, after all, as good as yours."
...Surely not.
...There's no way.
The moment my audience with the Emperor ended and I had walked a short distance, Seo Yeo glided soundlessly up behind me.
Even Seo Yeo, who stuck to my side at every waking hour, could not accompany me into an audience with the Emperor.
Well, the woman was the Emperor. Some things couldn't be helped.
So every time I met with the Emperor, Seo Yeo would hide herself somewhere out of sight, smother her presence entirely, and stand watch.
According to her, this posed no obstacle whatsoever to guarding me—but how, exactly, did one guard someone from all the way over there with "no obstacle whatsoever"?
Asked that very question, Seo Yeo gave her answer.
"If I focus my senses, I can roughly make out what is happening."
"And how do you 'make out' what's happening?"
"By feeling the sounds and the vibrations."
"...?"
She sounded like she'd walked straight out of a martial arts novel, and I gave her a very strange look.
"So in short, no problems?"
"Yes."
She was probably only saying it because she really could do it.
This was Xiang Yu, after all. I didn't have it in me to doubt her.
If Lü Bu could chew through entire formations single-handedly, what chance did common soldiers ever stand against Xiang Yu, who was worse still?
I handed over to Seo Yeo the treasure I'd walked away with thanks to the Emperor's generosity.
"Here. A gift."
"...!"
Seo Yeo's eyes flew wide open in astonishment.
The truth was, the moment I stepped into the imperial vault, this was the very first thing I went looking for.
"I hoped it might be here—and it actually was."
A single sword.
History had bent a little here and there—Xiang Liang had seized the place that should have been Xiang Yu's, and this timeline's Xiang Yu had only just now been born—but aside from such things, the broad strokes of history remained exactly as written.
"I hear you refuse to part with the sword you're using now."
Seo Yeo babied that sword—honing it on a whetstone, feeding the blade oil, keeping it immaculate down to the last smudge.
But no amount of loving care could change what it was: the plain, ordinary sword she carried was a consumable.
One day its lifespan would simply run out, and that would be that.
Even so, Seo Yeo stubbornly clung to it and refused to change weapons.
At my words, she answered in a very small voice.
"Because it is the first sword you ever bestowed upon me, my lord."
"..."
I was a little moved, honestly.
I smiled and spoke.
"Well, good news—this one's also a sword from me. So no problem, right?"
"..."
"Take it, quick. This thing is heavy."
Even holding it two-handed, it was seriously heavy.
How in the world is anyone supposed to swing this thing?
Seo Yeo sank to one knee and received the sword with both hands.
"You've probably already guessed what it is, but let me explain anyway."
"Yes."
The sword Seo Yeo now held was a monstrous blade, nearly as tall as she was.
"It's the sword the Hegemon-King of Chu was said to have wielded."
"..."
The Chu Heaven Sword.
They say the swords of old Chu were short, thick, and heavy—this blade was long and thick, as if to laugh in their faces.
By all accounts, Xiang Yu's Chu Heaven Sword and his Chu Zhen Spear together came to a good 150 jin.
Even in the Romance itself, Guan Yu's Green Dragon Crescent Blade is given as 82 jin. This thing was a hundred and fifty.
Good lord.
Truly, terrifyingly absurd.
How much was 150 jin by Han standards, you ask?
Roughly thirty kilograms.
And for reference, by modern measures, that same figure comes out to ninety.
Heavier than I am.
Normally you'd assume the chroniclers had puffed the numbers up like rice in a hot pan, but the world I now lived in was oddly, stubbornly fantastical—so odds were good the man really had swung thirty kilograms of steel around like a switch.
I had no idea where the Chu Zhen Spear had gotten to, but the Chu Heaven Sword had been resting in honored silence inside the Han imperial vault.
"Do whatever you like with the first sword I gave you. From now on, use this one."
"...Thank you."
Seo Yeo strapped the great blade onto her back without so much as a grunt and carried it about as if nothing had changed at all.
Seeing that, I had to concede it—she really was Xiang Yu.