The Prince of Chenliu (2)
After the Prince of Chenliu — Liu Xie, that is — began participating in the banquet in earnest, nothing particularly noteworthy happened.
If anything, her standards had been raised by Zuo Ci's Taoist arts, you could say.
The old man had reeled fish bigger than a grown man's torso out of a simple water basin, coaxed plants to sprout from soil that had held nothing at all, and worked one dazzling feat after another — anyone watching would be strange NOT to have elevated expectations after that.
Which brings me to a genuine question.
What on earth did Zuo Ci come here for, anyway?
Was his real purpose just to liven up the banquet?
Zhang Jue answered my unspoken question in her usual calm voice.
"Taoists have always been prone to incomprehensible eccentricities. There is no need to dwell on it, Your Highness."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. They devote themselves to cultivation, severed from the mundane world for so long that their very personalities tend to be... peculiar."
That was a remarkably merciless assessment.
Then again, wasn't Zhang Jue, in a sense, one of those Taoists herself?
Just as that thought crossed my mind, Zhang Jue wore an expression of rare exhaustion.
"Whew..."
"..."
She looked like someone who had been through a great deal.
Well, an ordinary grandfather with a difficult temperament was tiring enough — how much more exhausting must a grandfather with actual sorcery be?
If Zhang Jue's past followed Romance of the Three Kingdoms faithfully, she would have studied the Taiping Yaoshu passed down by Nanhua Laoxian. Having a senior who'd learned the arts first — Zuo Ci, in this case — constantly hovering around offering pointers would grate on anyone's nerves.
Still, it was a relief that he was merely mischievous rather than fundamentally wicked at heart.
If he ever turned his arts to evil ends, some immortal would surely come sprinting over yelling "You scoundrel!" and crack his skull open.
Look at Zhang Jue here before me — in the original history, she had fallen ill and died not long after sparking the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
"...?"
I gazed at Zhang Jue and her amber eyes, sinking into thought.
What would happen if sorcery as outlandish as Zuo Ci's were used in war?
One scene from the Romance had always stuck with me: during the Yellow Turban Rebellion, Zhang Bao had worked a single spell and defeated both the General of the Center Army, Zhu Jun, and the volunteer commander Liu Bei.
A dark miasma had supposedly blossomed across the battlefield, and from it poured countless phantom soldiers and horses. The panicked men and officers had fled in blind terror, turning the field into utter chaos.
I also remembered what happened when they clashed with Zhang Bao again — splashed with the blood of pigs, sheep, and dogs, those countless phantom warriors turned back into paper dolls and straw, fluttering down like dead leaves.
How does anyone even make soldiers out of paper and straw? And by what principle does animal blood break a spell?
Come to think of it... wasn't that basically a cheat code?
The countermeasure was simple enough, sure, but the point was you were guaranteed to win the first time.
No ordinary army would think to carry around vats of pig's blood, after all.
Although — considering that Cao Cao had been toyed with by Zuo Ci, splashed him with animal blood, and even cut off his head, only for the old man to reappear unharmed and deliver an ominous prophecy, animal blood clearly couldn't shatter every spell in existence.
And Zhang Jue was unquestionably the superior sorcerer compared to Zhang Bao. So in the world of the Romance, perhaps Nanhua Laoxian had claimed her life precisely to stop this woman from doing anything too strange.
Indeed, in the original, Zhang Jue's story ends with a mere mention that she had already died just before her fated clash with Huangfu Song.
Barely a year after igniting the Yellow Turban Rebellion.
Wasn't that a suspiciously convenient death?
In the official histories you could wave it off as coincidence, but in a world stuffed to the brim with fantasy elements, it was nothing to brush aside lightly.
It likely explained a great deal, too — why the Yellow Turban army, which had crushed government forces time and again in the early days and swept everything before it, collapsed overnight into a rabble.
"..."
Of course, actually using sorcery to short-cut my way through wars had to remain a thought experiment and nothing more.
According to what I'd heard, the imperial army had suffered terribly from sorcery back when the Yellow Turbans first rose up and ran wild.
Not that I'd known — I was buried in Bing Province at the time, playing games with foreign tribes and the Black Mountain bandits.
What was it they'd said again?
No fake soldiers popping out of nowhere to cause confusion, apparently, but there had been incidents — a sudden fog rolling in that scrambled every man's sense of direction.
...But Zhang Jue distinctly said that even shifting the wind's direction was difficult.
So weather itself is merely 'difficult' to change, not impossible? Is that it?
Impressive.
That would mean she'd never have to suffer through a drought, at the very least.
And really, once you considered Yu Ji — another Taoist straight out of the Three Kingdoms, like Zuo Ci — none of this was surprising.
Before killing Yu Ji, Sun Ce had made him an absurd offer: make rain fall, and your life will be spared. And Yu Ji had actually made it rain.
As the half-convinced soldiers and commoners knelt and bowed to a being beyond their imagining, Sun Ce — who had been hunting for any pretext to execute him all along — branded him a wicked sorcerer, broke his promise, and cut off Yu Ji's head with a single stroke.
What came after, well...
His death, tormented by a curse like the one that haunted Lü Meng after she killed Guan Yu, was famous among Three Kingdoms readers.
In any case, the Zhang Jue sisters needed to stay far out of the spotlight until the front-line veterans who had fought the Yellow Turbans head-on had fully retired from politics.
I could use my own political standing to smooth over the backlash, but that would unsettle the interior I'd only just stabilized.
Better to keep them wrapped up tight like a hidden trump card and play them only when the moment truly demanded it.
If I begged sweetly enough, surely she'd work a large-scale spell or two for me at least once.
"...Is there anything else you're curious about, Your Highness?"
"No, nothing at all."
Zhang Jue shot me a puzzled look — I'd been staring holes through her face — but withdrew without complaint.
"...How have you been faring lately?"
"Th-thanks to Your Majesty's boundless magnanimity, I have lived in comfort..."
"...I see."
Over in their corner, His Majesty the Emperor and the Prince of Chenliu were exchanging the most painfully stilted conversation imaginable.
Neither Liu Bian nor Liu Xie was much of a talker, so the pattern repeated itself over and over: a thread of dialogue would somehow get going, then snap clean in two.
"..."
"..."
Look at that atmosphere. Just look at it.
They had grown a little closer, yes, but the road to becoming affectionate sisters still looked long.
As a handful of officials seated near the two of them traded furtive, sideways glances, I let out a long sigh.
Fine. I'll just have to be the stepping stone myself.
I rolled my eyes around the hall until I spotted a small ball of fur, then spoke to Lü Bu, who stood nearby.
"Lü Bu."
"Yeah?"
"Bring that little wiggly thing over here."
"Huh??"
Question marks practically sprouted from Lü Bu's head as she turned to look where I was pointing.
Spotting the furball sprawled out blissfully in an out-of-the-way corner, she said, "Oh, that thing?"
"That's the one."
"Right back."
With that, Lü Bu crossed the distance to the furball in an instant, her movements flowing as smooth as water.
"Ae-ong?"
The furball — whom no one had dared lay a hand on — regarded the approaching Lü Bu with a questioning look.
"Come here," Lü Bu said.
"Ae-ooong??"
And so the furball, who had been purring contentedly in the sunlight streaming in from outside — in other words, Yaongi, the Emperor's beloved pet — was apprehended by Lü Bu and escorted over under guard.
Yaongi, who was by nature never shy with strangers, sat docilely enough even tucked in Lü Bu's arms.
"Here you go."
"Much obliged."
Taking Yaongi from Lü Bu, I felt my mood soften at the enchanting little face and the impossibly soft fur beneath my fingers.
I met Yaongi's eyes and spoke.
"Time to do your part for your master."
"Ae-ong?"
Yaongi clearly had no idea what the human in front of her was going on about.
Doesn't matter. Just by sitting there looking adorable, you'll carry out your mission perfectly.
Holding Yaongi against my chest, I cut into the two sisters' faltering exchange.
"How about the two of you share what you each love? As a way of getting acquainted?"
"Things we love?"
"Yes."
When the Emperor asked, I nodded.
"Animals, for instance."
"Animals? Whatever do you mean—"
His Majesty's gaze, which had been fixed on my face, drifted slowly downward.
"Ae-ong."
Yaongi let out her usual cry as her master turned to look at her.
Go get 'em. I'm counting on you alone.
When I set her down, Yaongi padded lightly across the floor toward her owner.
Watching the scene unfold, I worried for a moment that Liu Xie might hate cats —
"Wow..."
— but judging by that reaction, there was nothing to fear.
If a single cat could vacuum the soul right out of a man whose rational side normally outweighed his sentimental one, what hope did a girl have?
As expected, weakness for cute things was a trait common to all womankind.
His Majesty, too, seemed to catch on to why I'd brought Yaongi over, and opened her mouth.
"Well? Isn't she simply adorable?"
"Yes! She's adorable!"
For the first time since entering the banquet hall, Liu Xie — who had done nothing but watch the room warily — changed.
"If you wish it, you may pet her."
"I am infinitely grateful for Your Majesty's grace!"
Grateful enough for THAT kind of outburst, huh.
Quite some time had passed since the banquet began, and no one was touching the food anymore, so a stray hair or two wouldn't be a problem.
Not that anyone short of the Emperor herself would dream of laying hands on that pampered cat in the first place.
I watched Yaongi diligently doing her duty, and gave a satisfied nod.