Nanman (7)
Zhang Jue's examination of Zhurong did not take very long. The moment she stepped out of the room, Meng Huo — who had been carrying on a conversation with me while her every nerve stayed trained on that door — immediately darted over.
"S-so, Doctor! Is Zhurong okay?!"
Meng Huo hurled the question out with the same total disregard for personal space she had shown me just moments before.
"No."
The instant Zhang Jue's blunt answer fell, Meng Huo froze solid on the spot. If this had been a manga, a dramatic dun-dun sound effect probably would have played right about then.
"It seems she pushed herself before her injuries had fully healed. The wound reopened, and the reopened wound has since swollen up and discolored."
"...It's that bad?"
"Yes. She's running a fever through her entire body as well, so this is not a good situation."
Zhang Jue heaved a deep sigh, the sigh of a physician watching over her patient.
"Normally, long before things reach this stage, the people around her would have nagged her into resting whether she liked it or not. What on earth have you all been doing...?"
"Ugh."
With their guilty consciences well and truly pricked, Meng Huo and Meng You could not manage a single word. What exactly had the very people who should have been hounding Zhurong into bed rest been doing all this time? She never let her pain show, so they had naturally taken her at her word and sent her straight back onto the battlefield. They really were hopeless at reading people. I had noticed something was wrong the moment I laid eyes on Zhurong, but those two idiot golden-sun sisters had been completely taken in by her forced act of being fine.
Zhang Jue, who had been studying Meng Huo with an unreadable gaze, spoke again.
"I have done what emergency treatment I could for now... but this is a situation my own skill dares not touch."
"You can't treat it..."
"No. The critical window has been missed, so all that remains now is to leave it to the will of Heaven."
Devastating news for those close to her. Watching the Meng sisters hang their heads, unable to lift them, I threw out a question of my own.
"...Would that physician I know be able to manage it?"
"Ah, you mean her."
Zhang Jue answered with an easy smile.
"If it's her, then I believe so. Her medical arts stand on an entirely different plane from ours."
"Is that really true?!"
At that, the deflated Meng Huo whipped her face right up close. Had she done that to me, Lü Bu would have cut her off just as she had a moment ago — but since she was shoving her face at Zhang Jue instead, no such intervention took place. Faced with a personal distance that was practically nonexistent, Zhang Jue nodded with a slightly flustered expression.
"Yes? Yes..."
"Then that's a relief! There's nothing to worry about anymore!"
When Meng Huo, having stepped back to a proper distance, cried out in a lively voice, Zhang Jue cleared her throat and corrected her.
"There is one problem, however."
"What?!"
Her face was a portrait of shock, as if to say, now what? Just as I was thinking that keeping a mood swinging that wildly couldn't be easy, Zhang Jue's explanation continued.
"The fact that she is, at this moment, very far away."
"..."
"Judging by the distance, even at the very fastest, a month..."
Having said that much, Zhang Jue let out a soft sigh.
"The crux of it is whether she can hold on until then."
"Sh-she'll be fine! Her body's tough as nails!"
So shouted Meng Huo, though there was no telling whether those words were meant for anyone else — or for herself.
Some instinct had told me something like this might happen, and I was glad now that I had sent that letter the very night I first faced Zhurong. Well done, me. For all I knew, that one act might have just changed Zhurong's fate. Emergency treatment had been administered, and the letter itself had gone out quite early, so all that remained was to pin our hopes on that. I had promised the man an extended vacation if things worked out, so the messenger I'd entrusted with it was surely riding without rest, day and night, even now. He would have worked hard regardless, but wouldn't a special reward serve as all the more motivation?
Now, how far had that messenger of the Mongol Empire been riding each day, changing horses along the way? Around four hundred li — a hundred and sixty kilometers — wasn't it? And this without a car or anything of the sort. What a staggering pace. And yet even at that speed, he still couldn't match half of what Red Hare could do. It was nothing short of astonishing.
Well, pitting fantasy against reality hardly seemed like a fair fight to begin with. In a world where superhuman strength and strange divine feats genuinely existed, I supposed the birth of a few mutants was simply unavoidable. Push things a few steps further, and we might well have witnessed the wondrous sight of Liu Bei unleashing Twin Dragons Ascending with her twin swords, or Guan Yu cleaving the heavens with Green Dragon Wave-Splitting Slash upon her crescent blade.
...Honestly, I did want to see that. A world where wuxia and reality coexist... If this were a game or an anime, it would be the perfect premise.
"Right now, the patient's rest comes above all else."
"O-okay..."
I turned my gaze to the Meng sisters, who had tried to enter Zhurong's room only to be stopped by Zhang Jue.
"I trust you won't be sneaking in there and making matters worse."
"But..."
Meng You, Meng Huo's younger sister, tried to say something, but Zhang Jue's smiling explanation was faster.
"And if the patient suffers a setback because of it, would you be prepared to bear that?"
"...No."
Watching the two sisters clamp their mouths shut and bow their heads in perfect unison, I marveled inwardly. So Zhang Jue's personality transformed completely whenever she was treating a patient. When the smallest careless act could decide whether a person lived or died, a certain sharpness was entirely understandable.
"I don't dismiss your worry — but right now is the time for everyone to do their part."
"Yes, ma'am."
Having soothed the Meng sisters as though calming small children, Zhang Jue turned to look at me and flashed a little smile — for what purpose, I could not say. It was only natural that Seo Yeo and Lü Bu, who had caught that, sprang into action.
Seo Yeo said nothing, simply watching how I would react to Zhang Jue's smile,
"...What? Is she coming on to you right now?"
"..."
"Don't you dare fall for that sort of act. Understood?"
while Lü Bu growled, offering me advice that wasn't really advice.
Perhaps because of their recent pent-up frustration, the two of them seemed far more jealous than usual. In fairness, Zhurong's condition had kept me running around in a frenzy. Hmm... There was nothing left to hold back on now, though. Maybe it was time to give them some relief.
"Anyway — how's the weather looking today?"
"...!"
The instant the question left my mouth, Seo Yeo and Lü Bu whipped their heads around to stare at me in perfect sync. On the surface, it was a question that could hardly have seemed more out of the blue. But my reason for asking it just then was simple. Well... how should I put this. It would be most accurate to call it a euphemism concerning, shall we say, one's mental readiness.
"...I am fine, my lord."
"Same here! Absolutely no problems on my end!"
Seo Yeo and Lü Bu opened their mouths in a flash, as if afraid to miss the moment. I had expected as much, but their reaction time was truly first-rate.
"...?"
Watching the two generals brighten instantly at a single magic question, the people around us looked baffled. After all, this being a land where rain fell constantly, the actual weather was thoroughly dreary. For now, everyone seemed to have concluded that the two simply liked overcast skies — but if I ever explained what that sentence really meant, I had a feeling the entire camp would be turned upside down on the spot.
"Those two, who never spare the slightest attention for their surroundings, are suddenly in high spirits over the weather...?"
"..."
"There's absolutely no way..."
The Toddler Strategists had closed in on the correct answer in an instant — but fell just one step short. Still pure at heart, after all. I was moved.
"..."
Zhuge Liang, holding her silence while covering her mouth with her White Feather Fan, did nag at my attention — but I pretended not to notice and let it slide. That unreadable, meaning-laden smile of hers was honestly terrifying. In that respect, she and Liu Bei could be called two of a kind.
Anyway, we had things more important than that back-and-forth to attend to. I looked around at the assembled officers and spoke.
"It seems there are no other unusual matters to report."
"..."
"Then rest. We will be remaining here for the time being."
"Yes, sir!"
Once the Zhurong situation was resolved, we really needed to get out of this jungle, and fast. The climate was so poorly suited to human life that it was no place for an outsider like me to linger long. So this was why people warned about endemic diseases — illnesses born of a region's peculiar climate and soil. I felt as though my store of knowledge had grown another layer deeper.
"..."
Which is to say — would you three kindly stop shooting those suspicious looks my way? The Toddler Strategists' gazes were so piercing that I couldn't even manage to turn my thoughts elsewhere.
Time continued to pass after that. Zhang Jue came and went from the room at all hours to check on Zhurong's condition, while Meng Huo, told that rest came first, stamped her feet in place, at a complete loss for what to do.
Perhaps thanks to Zhang Jue's desperate care, given without regard to day or night, Zhurong's condition did not worsen any further. Thank goodness I had brought Zhang Jue along to counter King Mulu's sorcery — otherwise, who knew what might have happened. Truly, the ways of the world were impossible to fully fathom.
How many days had passed like that?
"...General-in-Chief. I hear you have a patient."
"Huh?"
I stared at the woman standing before me, my face full of surprise. A blue-eyed woman, her white hair neatly pinned up with a hairpin. The legendary master physician — hailed as the Divine Physician — had arrived far earlier than anyone had expected.
What on earth. Did she use the Shrink-the-Earth technique or something?