Commotion (2)
"You know what's truly hilarious? Watching folk of the very same clan squabble over who gets to kill whom."
Crouching down to bring herself to the seated man's eye level, Zhang Fei asked it with pure mischief. "Wouldn't you say?"
It was a color bound to stir ugly memories in anyone born to the Dong clan. Red eyes, so like Lü Bu's, stared the man down.
As though he could grind the fear away between his teeth, the man clenched his jaw and roared. "Silence! How could the likes of a lowly wench like you ever hope to understand this grudge!"
"Oh my? So you've still got the wind left in you for shouting."
Recking nothing of whatever reaction she might show, the man went on bellowing. "Even you would know it — were you human at all! No man may live under the same sky as the fiend who destroyed his family!"
"I see."
Zhang Fei, who had listened to his tirade in silence, murmured, "Under normal circumstances, your head would have left your shoulders long before you ever managed a sound like that."
"What did you—?!"
"Just thinking out loud, just thinking out loud. Pay me no mind."
And she flashed a grin that said it was truly nothing at all.
But the man could tell. Behind that smile lay mockery and contempt in equal measure — a level, unhurried tone of questioning sitting worlds apart from that smirking face. The instant it dawned on him that the woman had meant to play with him from the very start, fury turned his face scarlet. "You wretched bitch...!"
"Hm? What's this all of a sudden? Are you angry?"
Still staring him dead in the eye, Zhang Fei drew the corners of her eyes into crescents. "Not that I see what you could do about it from in there. Does being angry make you stronger, maybe?"
"Shut uuuup!!"
"If you want a little peace and quiet, you'll need to start by getting out of that cell, won't you?"
Guan Yu let out a sigh at the sight of Zhang Fei carrying on like a spoiled child. "Yide. That is quite enough."
"Huh? Why?"
"Carry on with such frivolity, and you will deal a wound to our lord's dignity."
"Ah..."
One glance into Guan Yu's eyes and Zhang Fei knew, instinctively, what would follow: if she did not fall in line right now, that dreadful fist would come sailing into her once more. Reckoning that if she ever woke up one morning mysteriously dim-witted, Sister Yunchang's knuckles would almost certainly be the cause, Zhang Fei withdrew without a murmur.
Watching the scene unfold, Liu Bei asked, "Have you satisfied all your curiosity, then?"
"...More or less?"
Vague as the answer was, Zhang Fei nodded all the same. "Well, one thing's for sure — this man here is a first-rate fool."
"Wha—!"
"Not that I'll be explaining anything. I doubt a word of it would get through to you anyway."
Prodded and needled to the bitter end, the man's face burned redder still.
Thud. Thud. Just then, the sound of footsteps — several sets of them — carried over from far down the corridor.
Guan Yu, who had not stirred so much as an inch from where she stood, spoke in a voice of perfect calm. "It would seem they have arrived."
"...Who?"
"Observe, and you shall see."
Not long after that brief exchange between Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, a column of figures emerged into view. Even a passing glance marked the soldiers as elite troops — and at their head marched a woman of lovely, gracious beauty.
"...Ladies."
Diaochan.
"Might you have some business with the prisoners?" she asked, in a voice so beautiful that even a fellow woman would have marveled at it.
The man, who until that moment had been sitting in a daze, snapped his eyes wide and flung himself against the bars. "You... you bitch...!" he roared with everything he had. "You traitorous bitch!! What face could you possibly have left to come showing up here!!"
"Huh?"
Something about the turn of events felt decidedly off, and puzzlement crossed Zhang Fei's face. In her mind, only one person fit the word this creature was spitting. "...Traitor?"
As though in confirmation of that hunch, a girl stepped into view at the man's bellowing. She had the tender looks of one fresh from her coming-of-age rite, and hair bleached a flawless white to her shoulders. Having seen that much, Zhang Fei gave a slow nod. There she was — the girl at the center of every whisper since yesterday. By all accounts, she had floored the entire lot of them before the Grand General's own guard commander had so much as stepped forward. And knowing full well what manner of person that guard commander was, Zhang Fei judged it a remarkably wise turn of events. Had the woman taken to the field herself, it would not have ended at a mere life or two.
The girl fixed the man with a prickly glare. "You're the traitor, blockhead."
"What did you say?"
"Because of what you did without thinking, other people's necks could have rolled for it."
Whether it was a foul mood or simple nature, the girl pressed on in a voice sharp as a drawn blade. "A man who's seen his rite of adulthood — why does he carry on like some sniveling brat?"
"...So one may spout whatever one pleases, so long as one's mouth happens to be open. How novel."
"Oh my — and the one flapping his lips just because they're open would be you, wouldn't it."
With that, the girl let her expression harden into frost. "A selfish little wretch who thinks of no one but himself."
"......"
Quite the sharp tongue on her. Zhang Fei had roughly expected as much from those fierce, catlike eyes, but the subject of the rumors seemed to be quite a handful herself.
Pressed flat by the girl's momentum, the man's mouth clamped shut for an instant — and Diaochan seized the moment to issue her orders. "Escort them to the execution grounds."
"Yes, my lady!"
With crisp, disciplined movements, the soldiers began transferring the imprisoned criminals one by one. At the sight of them dragging out figures still dead to the world, Liu Bei asked, "What is to become of those men?"
"They are to face the extreme penalty."
Diaochan recited it evenly, her voice stripped of all warmth. "An attempt upon the Grand General's life is no light matter to be brushed aside."
"......"
"And as this child says, they did, in truth, repay the kindness shown them with betrayal."
Hearing the answer, Liu Bei turned her gaze upon the condemned. Perhaps it was for the best, she thought, that the Grand General had vested this authority in Diaochan. Had time passed and the matter made its way before Her Imperial Majesty, those men would not have met gentle ends. It was already an open secret that the more a case touched upon the Grand General, the crueler the Emperor's hand became. At the very least, She would never have granted them the mercy of a single clean stroke. She had shown as much to the landed magnates of Jing Province — and had she not done the same to Yuan Shu, who had spent his days clutching at the Grand General's ankles over every trifling matter?
"Twenty years of age at the outside — barely that, even being generous," Liu Bei murmured as she looked over the group locked within the cell. "Young blood got the better of them, and they went and committed a crime far too great for their years."
At that, Zhang Fei spoke up. "Well, hey — at least one of the things they wanted came true."
"...And what manner of talk is this?"
Guan Yu dreaded whatever nonsense this human whirlwind would spout next.
"They won't be living under the same sky as their enemy anymore, will they?"
"......"
"Good for them. At least they'll get to close their eyes in pea— OWWW!"
Even as Zhang Fei spoke, Guan Yu's knuckles came down upon her head once more. The blow was weightier than usual, and the shriek rose to match.
"And did I not bid you refrain from such rash conduct?"
"Uuurgh..."
Perhaps aware that she had quipped one time too many, Zhang Fei offered no further word.
While Guan Yu and Zhang Fei traded words, Liu Bei had turned her head back toward Diaochan, lost in some grave thought of her own.
"......"
Diaochan's composure was oddly, almost unnaturally serene. Liu Bei, whose gift for reading the hearts of others was nothing short of exceptional, murmured under her breath. "...It seems taking the leap really was the right answer after all."
"Hm? Sister Xuande, what's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing at all, dear."
She had been back for scarcely any time at all, and already a new challenger had entered the race. Liu Bei could only wear a wry smile.
"Every last one of them, beheaded?"
"That is correct."
At the report that all the servants who had tried to take my life had been put to the extreme penalty, I gave a slow nod. "I expect I'll be getting summoned to the Imperial Palace rather frequently for a while."
I let out a long breath at the thought of the varied questions Her Imperial Majesty would have for me. The gist of it I could predict without difficulty — She would surely have some chilling remarks about how excessively merciful my punishment had been.
Having settled the matter, I turned to the girl who was observing protocol in precisely the same bowing posture as Diaochan. "In any case — you took down, single-handedly, the servants who tried to assassinate me?"
"It was nothing worthy of note."
She answered as though it were nothing at all, but it absolutely was something. A girl only just past her coming-of-age ceremony had floored a whole crowd of grown men.
Dong Bai — that had been her name, if I wasn't mistaken. And as my memory served, she was that Dong Zhuo's granddaughter.
"Hm..."
I studied the girl with her prickly, catlike features, sinking deep into thought. "From what I hear, you knocked them cold with a table you happened to find about the house..."
"Nngh."
At the mention of the undignified feat she'd pulled off, the white-haired girl flinched hard. I stared at Dong Bai for a long moment before opening my mouth at last. "Come here a moment."
"Yes."
At my word, Dong Bai closed the distance, and I craned my neck out to give her snow-white hair a thorough examination.
"...?!"
"Hmmmm..."
White eyes the very same shade as that hair. Locks that reached her shoulders with the faintest natural wave. Do her hair up in a pair of dumpling buns, and she'd be a dead ringer for that one character, no two ways about it. They said she had the strength to match, too — hand her an iron mace, and the picture would be complete.
"..."
So utterly absorbed in that all-too-familiar appearance was I that I failed, entirely, to notice the reactions gathering around me.