Changes (6)
The news that Guan Yu—who had shared my bed exactly once—was suffering from morning sickness left everyone unable to hide their shock.
"...W-wait, I didn't mishear that, did I? Right?"
"Nope. I heard it too."
Lü Bu asked with her eyes gone round as saucers, and I answered in a perfectly level voice.
"Guan Yu."
"...Yes, my lord."
I called her name and looked her straight in those azure eyes of hers. They were stern eyes that warned off anyone foolish enough to approach carelessly—but wasn't that its own kind of charm?
"How does your condition seem, in your own judgment?"
"That is..."
"I would have you answer honestly."
Later generations would debate plenty of things about her, but no one could dispute the loyalty that kept her following Liu Bei to the very end. To a woman like that, every single word from her lord was bound to carry enormous weight.
"If my guess is correct... then perhaps I am carrying a new life."
There you go. The moment I put a touch of gravity into my voice, she answers without a moment's hesitation. So this was why the Peach Sisters had seemed so eager lately.
By my reckoning, Guan Yu had to be the only one pregnant. If Liu Bei were, she wouldn't have been muttering that unsettling little vow to herself about pressing me even harder just a while ago—and if Zhang Fei were, she'd have turned down Ma Chao's challenge to guard against any mishap.
Having heard Guan Yu's answer and pieced together the whole story, I said in a calm tone, "Things are taking quite an interesting turn."
...
"And how did your sisters react?"
Guan Yu stole a glance at Liu Bei standing nearby, but only for a moment.
"...It would be difficult for me to describe in detail."
If it rattled Guan Yu this badly, she must have been stunned beyond words. And the tighter she tried to keep it hidden, the more curious I became.
...
Sensing my mood, Guan Yu sent me an earnest, pleading look. It was something she couldn't say aloud—not for the sake of her sworn sisters' honor(?), women who had vowed to die on the same day, at the same hour. But she had clearly realized that if the one digging for it was me—her lord and her husband—she would have no choice but to open her mouth in the end.
To see Guan Yu, a woman who seemed carved from the very words strict and solemn, so utterly at a loss...
For an instant, a mischievous impulse seized me—the urge to torment her just a little more.
"Answer me, if only for my sake. What did Liu Bei and Zhang Fei do?"
"Th-that is..."
When I leaned my face in close, the shy Guan Yu began to redden, just as she always did. So this was what they meant by a face red as a jujube. Look closely, and Guan Yu was every bit as hopeless in these matters as Lü Bu.
Liu Bei smiled softly as she watched Guan Yu flustered in a way you would never see from her otherwise.
"Uh, that is, um..."
Guan Yu started stammering as though her brain had overloaded. Push her any further and I had a feeling the switch would flip itself off entirely. Well—I was nothing but pleased to be treated as something so precious inside her heart.
I let out a small chuckle. "If it is too hard to answer, you may leave it be."
"Th-thank you..."
Guan Yu heaved a sigh of relief as though a great weight had lifted. Watching her ripen to a full tomato red, I moved on to another question.
"Have you decided on a name for the child?"
"...No. I have not yet thought of one."
"Is that so?"
At her answer, I lowered myself slightly and said, "Then I will choose a name for you later myself."
"...Yes."
Her face still flushed, the heat not yet faded, Guan Yu replied in a calm voice. "I shall await only that day."
Well, I'd said I'd name the child, but the truth was a name already sat set aside in my mind. Guan Ping.
Plenty of people know Guan Ping as Guan Yu's adopted son, but that was purely a fabrication old Luo Guanzhong cooked up in his Romance. In the official histories, Guan Ping was in fact Guan Yu's eldest son. I couldn't fathom why he'd felt the need to dismantle a perfectly sound blood relationship, but in this world at least, the child would arrive not as an adopted heir but as Guan Yu's own flesh and blood.
...Though here, might she arrive as an eldest daughter rather than a son? With most of the generals I knew having turned into women, there was nothing particularly strange about that.
I asked Guan Yu, "And what do you plan for the child's future?"
"...I intend to support whatever path my child wishes to walk."
Guan Yu, strict even with herself, appeared to have her plans for the child fully mapped out already.
"If my child says they wish to live an ordinary life, so it shall be. If they say they wish to take office and earn merit, then so it shall be."
"And why do you think that way?"
"That is..."
At my question, Guan Yu's voice trailed off, and for a moment she looked to be wrestling with something. I couldn't say why, but she seemed oddly hesitant. Was there some reason she couldn't bring herself to answer?
Just as I was beginning to wonder at her behavior, Liu Bei, who had been watching from nearby, spoke up.
"Wouldn't that be because Yunchang knows the reason herself?"
"Knows what, exactly?"
When I turned my head, Liu Bei wore her usual gentle smile as she went on.
"The worry, you see, that a child will be born with her very own brand of tremendous stubbornness."
"X-Xuande!"
Huh? So that was it?
Guan Yu cried out Liu Bei's name in a flustered voice, as if the arrow had struck dead center. But Liu Bei did not stop there.
"Once she fixes her mind on something, she hardly ever bends—even to me."
...
"And children take after their parents, do they not? Surely you can imagine what sort of temperament a child born of Yunchang might have."
Hearing that, I slowly pictured Guan Yu's child in my mind. A stern expression just like her mother's, and fierce eyes that seemed to proclaim an unbreakable will. She would no doubt be born with her mother's striking beauty as well. I smiled fondly at the image of a pocket-sized Guan Yu—Guan Yu 2.0.
And once my thoughts traveled that far, a new curiosity crept in. What would the children born to me someday actually be like?
...
First, there was Seo Yeo—whose every interest in this world was calibrated to me. Surely her child wouldn't take after her mother and aim every last shred of focus my way too? If so, that would be a touch awkward.
I started with the case of a son.
"I would like a woman whose temperament resembles Father's."
"What?"
"Just as Mother fell head over heels for Father, I too wish for a meeting that warms the heart."
...Why is that the scenario that springs to mind first? I was, by principle, a hands-off parent—provide what was needed, then step back—so I had zero intention of micromanaging my child's taste in partners.
No, hold on—if the son turned out like that, then the daughter would most certainly...
"I intend to spend my life at Father's side, serving him."
"...You don't have some other motive, do you?"
...
"Kiddo...?"
It felt as though a scenario too frightening to even imagine was about to unfold. If this were a work of fiction, I had a feeling one more content tag would get slapped on. ...Let me just pray Seo Yeo's child is born a son, with everything I've got. However deep a father's love for his daughter, no parent wants to keep their own child cooped up at home, unmarried, for the rest of their days.
Lü Bu's children, at least, seemed like they'd turn out a little better.
"I told you not to do that, didn't I?"
"I-I was wrong! So let go of my ear already!"
"No."
"Wife!"
Born a son, he'd probably pull some good-for-nothing stunt, get clamped down hard by his wife, and live out his days as a textbook henpecked husband. Judging by how Lü Bu couldn't so much as twitch in front of me even now, it was a certainty.
And in the case of a daughter...
"Nope. I'm not getting married."
"...Then go pick out one man you fancy and bring him home yourself."
"Oh, come on! I keep telling you, not a single man in this world catches my eye?!"
...This one had problems of her own too, didn't she? Why did it feel like every hypothetical daughter came with her own built-in issue? Personally, I'd never understood the old preference for sons over daughters, but for just this one moment, I felt I could sign on to it. Yes—rather than a daughter arriving and giving me migraines over her love life, a son who fetched home a sensible bride all on his own sounded far better. It would be a genuine blessing if all of this ended as nothing more than my worthless daydreaming...
Turning my head, I looked at Seo Yeo and Lü Bu with a faint trace of unease in my eyes.
...
"...Why are you staring like that?"
Seo Yeo, having caught my gaze, simply held my eyes as she always did, but Lü Bu pulled a puzzled face and asked. I answered her with a wry smile.
"Just looking."
"Doesn't seem like it..."
At my reaction, Lü Bu cocked her head once—then an exclamation mark practically lit up above her head.
"Ah! I've got it!"
She declared, looking thoroughly triumphant, "Don't you worry! I've got my whole plan for children laid out too!"
...
"One son and one daughter—that'd be perfect, wouldn't it?!"
...You can call that a plan?
Before my doubt had even settled, Lü Bu went red in the face and added, "A-and of course, if you want more, I can bear more!"
"I see. Thank you."
Smiling at an answer so utterly her, I ruffled her hair to my heart's content.
...
And Seo Yeo, who had been watching the whole scene, shyly offered up her own head as well—which was, frankly, adorable.
...Why did I feel like I'd forgotten something?
And then, just for a heartbeat—
BOOM—!
The thunderous crash from nearby snapped me back to my senses. Come to think of it, Zhang Fei and Ma Chao were in the middle of their sparring match. Something so staggering had happened right beside me that, somewhere along the way, my attention had drifted clean away from it.