Preparations (3)
After weeks of being ground down by work, I was savoring a rare stretch of free time. It felt well earned — I had shoved every other task to the bottom of the pile and thrown myself into recruiting talent, and the effort was already paying off.
What was the point of some incompetent fool groaning over a mountain of backlog? It would eat up the hours anyway, and the results would be mediocre at best. Far better to bring in capable people and pile the work onto them, even if the stack grew taller in the meantime — better efficiency, better outcomes. My own job had shrunk to skimming the paperwork my new talents processed, nodding as though I understood roughly half of it, and stamping my approval. Done.
Professionally trained people really were a different breed. They would walk me through their reasoning, and my brain simply refused to absorb it. That wasn't me being stupid — it was them being brilliant. It wasn't as if I'd punched in a cheat code and maxed my stats at 100 like in a game; how was I supposed to stand on the same plane as these people? And saying it out loud, I realized I felt exactly like the owner of some sweatshop who dumps everything on his employees while lifting a finger for nothing himself.
This feeling... it carried a strange, guilty thrill of transgression.
"May I come in?"
I had been buried in my blanket, lazing the day away in broad daylight, when Zhang Jue's voice drifted in from beyond the door. Propping myself up, I answered.
"Come in."
"Pardon the intrusion."
Zhang Jue entered wearing the loose, wide-sleeved outer robe she had hardly touched since the Yellow Turban Rebellion. She knelt respectfully and seated herself before me.
"Haven't seen that outfit in a while."
Naturally, it only resembled the garment she'd worn as the rebels' supreme leader — it was an entirely different piece of clothing. Even I, no expert on the human heart, could tell how reluctant Zhang Jue was to put on anything of that sort. Whether it was to avoid leaving any hint that she was Zhang Jue, or because the sight of it stirred memories of the people who had died under her command, I couldn't say.
When I remarked on this, having studied her a moment, Zhang Jue answered from her respectful posture.
"It's a little embarrassing to admit, but when I work my craft, these clothes serve me better."
"Your craft?"
Zhang Jue looked sheepish.
"It may sound outlandish, but I've been using a bit of sorcery."
"Oh..."
I nodded along, genuinely impressed. Certainly, that ineffable feeling I'd had the first time I stepped into Zhang Jue's home had been far removed from anything reason could explain.
"I can set the general direction, but I never know what form it will take when it actually happens."
Her words sent me into a brief reverie before I spoke.
"So if I asked you to punish someone for me, it might end with them stubbing a toe — or they could get struck by lightning out of a clear sky on their afternoon walk?"
"Your analogy is a touch extreme... but yes. That's right."
So it's basically the prayer meta.
One thing had me curious, and I tossed the question out.
"Have you ever tried calling down lightning with that sorcery of yours?"
"No."
"Really?"
"Even if you asked, I don't think I could manage it..."
Shame. I'd half hoped to see Zhang Jue hurling down bolts while proclaiming, Behold the will of heaven! like some boss out of a game. This world was oddly fantastical, but even so, I caught myself shaking my head — no, that's pushing it. Then again, if she really could do that, it wouldn't be sorcery at all; it would just be lightning-element magic. I let it go, more or less convinced.
"So what did you actually use it for?"
"I merely..."
A bitter look crossed Zhang Jue's face.
"...I tormented Dong Zhuo's army."
"Tormented them?"
"Yes."
Still regarding me with those beautiful amber eyes, she went on.
"I built a small altar for my own use, and whenever I could spare the time, I would visit it."
So that was why Dong Zhuo's forces had seemed so strangely listless during the siege.
"I couldn't devote much time to it, and I had no proper offerings to give, and yet it worked all the same."
"..."
"Perhaps even Heaven wished to visit punishment upon Dong Zhuo's wickedness."
With that, Zhang Jue smiled faintly.
Sorcery. The art of working uncanny deeds through powers beyond nature. Even a well-educated modern person jumps out of their skin when something bizarre happens before their eyes — imagine, then, how the people of this era must have felt. For all its heavy randomness, Zhang Jue's sorcery was unquestionably a tremendous force, one more than capable of shaking the world.
"Is there such a thing as a luck charm?"
"Luck...?"
"You know. Like winning the lottery of fate."
Zhang Jue shook her head.
"It isn't impossible... but at best it would end with you picking up a few coins on the roadside."
"Oh."
"And once you weighed the materials and time it would cost, you'd likely come out at a loss."
"Ah."
So there's no such thing as a free lunch.
"Still," Zhang Jue went on, "when you are upon a battlefield, my lord, even one small stroke of fortune could make all the difference."
"?"
And with that, she smiled brightly.
"From now on, I will cast one for you each time you take the field."
"..."
Caught off guard by the unexpected assault, I opened my mouth again after a pause.
"So — what did you actually come here to tell me?"
"Ah. You do know that I can read the secrets of heaven, if only faintly?"
I nodded. She had told me once that, interpreted skillfully, her readings could offer glimpses of things yet to come. Like that old staple of every Romance of the Three Kingdoms adaptation — a great star falls, and somewhere a man dies. Something along those lines, I assumed.
"If you have the time, take a stroll through the forest near Luoyang before long. Bring your guard."
With that, Zhang Jue glanced toward Seo Yeo, who knelt in attendance behind me. Whatever I happened to be doing in a room, Seo Yeo never moved from her post nearby, watching over me. Only her eyes tracked me this way and that — at times she looked less like a person than a machine.
"Is there something out there near Luoyang?"
"Yes."
Zhang Jue nodded, firm.
"Is some disaster about to befall us?"
"Ah — nothing bad. Of that much I am certain."
"Well, that's a relief."
"You may well be in for quite a surprise, though."
What on earth could it be, to make her talk like that?
Once Zhang Jue had finished her business, risen, and taken her leave, I sank into a long bout of pondering.
The day after Zhang Jue left her cryptic words behind, I was up before dawn, resolved to do exactly as she had said: to walk the forest near Luoyang from end to end with Seo Yeo at my side. She had promised it was nothing bad, so I had set out with a light heart...
"What is that?"
I stared straight ahead. From the far end of the forest, a black horse that looked absolutely livid was glaring us down. Look at the eyes on it. One glance was enough to feel the filthy temper rolling off the beast. If anything it gave Red Hare a run for its money — it certainly didn't look one bit inferior — and it kept pawing the earth with one foreleg as though it might charge at any moment.
Try as I might to think otherwise, the "something" Zhang Jue had spoken of was clearly this horse. And given that she had gone out of her way to name my guard — the one who never left my side — the beast was plainly connected to Seo Yeo rather than to me.
Hm... a black horse, and Xiang Yu...
Turning the memory over slowly, I worked out what horse this was. Isn't that Ochyma? Its master had been born later than in the original history, so I supposed the horse had arrived late as well.
The historical records mention the horse Xiang Yu rode only in the briefest passing. He rode a horse called Zhui. That is genuinely all they say. But people reasoned from there — if even Red Hare, the mount of Lü Bu, was that magnificent, then how much greater must the steed of Xiang Yu have been! — and so all manner of embellishments got attached: that it was a black dragon from a mountain stream reborn in a horse's body; that it was so savage no one dared even attempt to master it; that when its master died, it plunged into the river to follow him. Every last word of it later invention.
But seriously, how long did that thing intend to keep glaring at us? I shuffled backward to open a little distance, and Ochyma whinnied its displeasure, then trailed after us at the same remove. Its whole attitude said: we settle this today, one way or another.
"Seo Yeo."
"Yes."
"It doesn't look like it means to let us pass."
"So it seems."
We had done nothing but walk by and happen to meet its eyes — what was there to take such offense at? What a foul-tempered beast.
"So what do we do?"
"I will cut it down."
"Hold on—stop."
I hastily stopped Seo Yeo as she moved to draw the Chu Heaven Sword. She turned to me with a puzzled look.
"...?"
"One look is enough — that's a far greater horse than Red Hare."
"..."
"Doesn't it make you want to ride it? Even a little?"
"No."
One tough nut, this woman.
Well, if that was how it was going to be.
"Honestly? I've always thought Lü Bu looked beautiful riding Red Hare."
"...!"
Seo Yeo's eyes went round, and she started visibly. It wasn't an unreasonable thing to say, really. The sight of Lü Bu carving through a battlefield astride Red Hare had a way of holding anyone spellbound.
"You'd look every bit as stunning on that black horse, Seo Yeo."
"...Understood."
Words improvised on the spot — and they had landed perfectly. Having abandoned the idea of drawing her sword, Seo Yeo turned her gaze on the black horse that still had us pinned in its stare.
Did that foul-tempered brute have any idea it had just come within a hair's breadth of death? If it did, it might bolt — so I resolved to take that secret to my grave.
After a long while studying the black horse, Seo Yeo spoke.
"...I will simply cut it down."
"Why, though?"
What's the problem now?
"If it comes down to a trial of strength, it will take some time — and until it is finished, I cannot protect you, my lord."
"..."
It was an argument I had never seen coming. Seo Yeo delivered it in her usual expressionless monotone, but I understood at once: in this state, nothing I said would reach her. If I'd known this would happen, I would have brought a second guard along...
"Well, what do you know. Zhang Jue was right — there really is something out here."
Just then, a familiar voice reached me from behind. I turned.
"Lü Bu?"
"Huh? What are you doing here?"
Lü Bu was staring at us from atop Red Hare.