The Banquet (5)
Zhang Jue murmured in a level voice. "It is strange, though. I'd assumed you never showed yourself at gatherings like this unless mischief was on your mind."
"Quite the tongue for such a green little whelp."
Gruff as the words were, the shabby old figure did not look the least bit offended. "I only came to see how you were faring. Think nothing of it."
"Then I'm glad."
The woman drew the divination sticks from their holder and, without so much as a glance at what they spelled, laid them on the table. The old one gave them a rough once-over by eye, then spoke.
"Qian — Heaven, is it. You've drawn a truly staggering one."
"What does that mean?"
"Don't ask questions you already know the answer to."
Qian, the sign of the first of all things, was a hexagram that ordinarily symbolized great advancement. But Heaven has never concerned itself with the petty circumstances of men, so the omen did not carry purely auspicious meaning. It was the purest and most exalted of signs — and precisely for that reason, the one that demanded the greatest effort.
Clicking her tongue once at the woman's coolly delivered question, the old one went on. "Whose fortune is this you've drawn, Zhang Jue?"
"Who indeed... I wonder who it could be?"
"Tsk tsk. A destiny beyond one's strength to bear summons nothing but ruin."
The moon wanes once full; water overflows once brimming — such is the way of things. Would the one in question truly soar as high as the character for Heaven implied? Or lose everything and come crashing down to earth?
The old one let out a sigh. "So this time, it seems, you've no intention of running rampant in the open as you did before."
"...I repent of that to this day."
The country had been torn asunder, and the wars had never ceased. She had risen with the ideal of building a better world, yet judged by results alone, she had done no more than usher in another tragedy. Perhaps there had been a better way after all.
Sensing Zhang Jue's mood darken, the old one spoke up. "Tsk. There you go thinking strange thoughts again."
"...?"
"Have you forgotten why the unified empire Qin Shi Huang built could not last so much as a few years?"
"That is..."
So cried the people who rose up when they could no longer endure the state's oppression. The one who actually led the rebels was a mere farmer, conscripted by force onto a construction site.
A tenant farmer who, knowing the merciless laws would show him no mercy, had moved simply to go on living.
And that cry came true like a prophecy. The Qin, which had seemed beyond shaking by any mere popular revolt, staggered; and before it could even contain the aftershocks, warlords rose in every quarter to rock it once more. In the end, the army of Chu under the Hegemon-King of Western Chu crushed Qin at the Battle of Julu and brought about its ruin — history had flowed exactly as the people declared it would.
"Who would dare reproach those people, who cried out only because they wished to live?"
...
"Even had you never stepped forth, it was a thing bound to happen someday."
"Wherever you go, it's the ones at the top who are the problem," the old one lamented. "And those who look only at the outcome and pronounce it all wrong? Ask them for another way, and not a word comes out of them."
The old one went on, "The talk of those who do nothing but strike weighty poses and spout armchair theories isn't worth a moment's thought."
"...Thank you."
"If you're thankful, then answer this question of mine."
Barely had Zhang Jue finished giving thanks before the old one began probing at what puzzled her. "You defied an immortal's warning, came down into the mortal world, and stirred up a fine calamity — so how are you still alive?"
"...I really couldn't say?"
The truth was, Zhang Jue didn't know either.
There had been a time when, sensing the Han had rotted through and through, she had abandoned all thought of official rank. Then one day, as she gathered herbs on a mountainside, a small child came up to her and said:
"Stop wasting your time on useless things and study this instead."
...?
"You have obtained this book, and so it falls to you to enlighten and deliver the people in Heaven's stead. Do you understand?"
Watching the child rattle off its piece and nothing more, Zhang Jue spoke in a calm voice. "Little one, have you lost your way?"
"Do not treat me as a child! I may look a touch younger than my peers, but I have lived long past counting!"
At the sight of the girl flying into a temper, Zhang Jue realized she could not abide being treated as a child, and smiled. "I see. Shall we walk down the mountain together, then?"
"Hiek...! You simply will not listen, will you! Fine! Whether you study this or not is your own affair!"
With that cry, the girl vanished before her eyes like a gust of wind.
"Remember this! Should you ever harbor another heart, heavenly punishment will fall upon you!"
Faced with something no reason could explain, Zhang Jue understood: the figure who had appeared moments before was the immortal she had known only by rumor.
Zhang Jue asked, "Might I... ask your honored name?"
"Hmph! I am Nanhua Laoxian! Remember it well!"
The air shuddered once, and with that the immortal was gone. Dazed, Zhang Jue stared at the book lying before her — the Taiping Yaoshu — then gathered it up with care and carried it home.
That was a memory of the past.
"Even I don't know why I've lived this long."
Hadn't it been said that heavenly punishment would fall the moment she strayed from her true purpose — the deliverance of the people — and harbored a different heart? After a moment's thought, Zhang Jue spoke with an untroubled look. "Perhaps you simply judged that, for now, it was still permissible?"
"My, my. What a comfortable assumption."
The old one shook her head. "Peculiar creature, as ever. Immortals who meddled too deeply in mortal affairs have never once lived long."
"Coming from someone who moved in person during the Dong Zhuo affair, that isn't very persuasive."
The old one answered with a derisive snort. "Hmph. That was an exception — that swine committed evils too vile for words."
Dong Zhuo Zhongying — the arch-traitor who had burned hundreds of thousands to death in agony in the space of a single night. And the one who had thrown his army into disarray on its flight from the burning of Chang'an all the way to Tianshui was none other than the old one herself.
Day after day she loosed ominous prophecies, feeding the army's dread —
and, taking the shape of every beast imaginable, she slipped serenely through their pursuit —
and right up until the day before the General-in-Chief's army arrived, she whipped up every manner of pandemonium, denying the men so much as one proper night's sleep.
Thus the army of Dong Zhuo, harried by every manner of uncanny phenomenon, collapsed far more feebly than a force that had clamored to fight to the bitter end.
In her scraggly guise, the old one stroked her long beard. "He was a man who'd be caught and killed soon enough regardless. What harm is there in clipping his thread of life a little shorter?"
"Yes. If you say so, I suppose that's how it is."
To an answer so utterly certain of itself, the woman could only offer a smile.
"That old one over in Gangdong is the same. Nothing but odd creatures, the whole lot of them."
"You say that as though you weren't one of them yourself..."
"Quiet!" the old one barked, her voice brusque. "I've not your gift for reading the heavens, wench, but even I know there are several stars up there that should never have existed."
...
"You, who mutter about heavenly signs from morning to night — you would know."
The old one fixed Zhang Jue with a grave look. "Do you truly believe the stars that should not exist will throw this world into turmoil?"
At the question, Zhang Jue smiled. "I am no prophet, but... so long as no calamity befalls a certain someone, all should be well."
"What calamity?"
"One mustn't leak too much of heaven's secrets."
"Bah! Another vague answer."
The old one had long since noticed the heavenly signs growing tangled, and had already washed her hands of trying to read them. But did the woman before her know something after all?
"Enough. The wine's lost its taste — I'll be off."
"Ah — one last thing, just in case..."
"Hm?"
Half-risen, the old one looked back at Zhang Jue.
"Do not, out of sheer boredom, go sidling up to the General-in-Chief without a word of warning."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"That, too, would be leaking heaven's secrets."
"This time it feels less like heaven's secrets and more like you simply don't care to answer."
Zhang Jue didn't trouble herself to deny it; she simply took a sip of the tea before her.
"A strange temper, as ever. Now I really must be going."
"Yes. Do take care."
And with those words, the old one limped on a lame leg and faded from sight.
Zhang Jue watched the space where she had been for a long moment, then let her gaze drift toward the General-in-Chief. Not a soul at the banquet had spared the old one a glance — but one person had been different.
...
A girl in black, an enormous sword of murderous mien strapped across her back, had watched the old one from beginning to end with eyes devoid of all feeling.
Gazing at the girl who guarded the General-in-Chief, Zhang Jue murmured to herself. "Ahem... he does look after his own hide well enough. He should be fine."
The old one's love of mischief sometimes ran too hot, and she took particular delight in tormenting the powerful. Someday soon, Zhang Jue hummed to herself, it would be great fun to watch the old one jolt upright in fright, drenched in cold sweat.