Ye Province (9)
A sudden question, if I may — just how many people pass through Luoyang, capital of the Han Empire, in a single day?
How many? A staggering number, obviously. Why else would a place be called a capital in the first place? It's called a capital precisely because the roads converge there and every scrap of commerce and consumption piles up there.
Unless a nation has been thrown into chaos by foreign invasion or internal fracture and its people are fleeing for their lives, a capital almost always bears those marks. Which naturally means laborers beyond counting streaming to and fro, and merchants pouring in by the day.
And so the soldiers inspecting them at the city gates were, quite literally, living through hell.
"Halt! ...I'll need to verify your identity!"
Look at him. Hardly any time had passed since shift change, and already the weariness was written all over his face. So many commoners sought to come and go from Luoyang that the inspection procedure itself had been pared down to the bone, but even that had its limits.
"G-General-in-Chief! What business brings you all the way out here?"
"Ah. That?"
As I settled into a convenient spot and gazed steadily at the gate, a man approached me with meticulous courtesy. One glance at the rather luxurious cut of his armor told me he was the official in charge of Luoyang's East Gate. Call it roughly the same post as the Northern District Captain of Luoyang — the office in which Cao Cao once clubbed a relative of the Ten Attendants to death. In any era, in any region, the office controlling military comings and goings carries considerable authority. In the worst case, its holder could shut the gate in the Emperor's own face and tell him to come back tomorrow.
And that is no exaggeration. There really was an incident in which the officer watching a city gate barred the Emperor himself from entering, citing the curfew.
...Granted, a man of lesser mettle would never have survived the reckoning, but since the Emperor in question was Emperor Guangwu, founder of the Later Han, the by-the-book captain who held faithfully to his duty without fear or favor rose to higher office. The officer who recognized the Emperor and opened the gate was demoted instead. Even for an Emperor, the law admits no exception... I suppose it's the kind of anecdote that teaches exactly that lesson.
Looking at the official, I spoke in a perfectly offhand tone.
"Nothing much. There's just something I need to verify."
"Verify... you say."
At my answer, the man went white around the gills, as though he couldn't decide whether he'd been doing his job too well or whether I'd come to conduct a sudden audit of his faith. Hmm... how would that look in modern terms? A whole constellation of generals suddenly planting themselves in your guard post, I suppose. The entire country would be trembling.
"What, so it's business after all."
"Close enough."
Lü Bu, who not long ago had demanded to know what I'd come here for, grumbled on with a disgruntled look.
"Hmph. What kind of wishy-washy answer is that supposed to be?"
"It's business, in a sense... but if you asked whether it's something I strictly had to do, I couldn't say that either."
I had come for no grander reason than that: half my own curiosity, half official duty.
The people will come to Luoyang before long.
A letter from Zhang Jue, who even now was surely hard at work beside Zhang Liao in Ye Province.
Ah — along the way I discovered an herb called huang, which I have enclosed with this letter. As it is an herb with severe side effects, I beg you to use it only as a physician prescribes.
Enclosed with that letter had been an herb called huang.
An amount so small I caught myself thinking, just this much?
The letter was so out of nowhere that I went to ask Hua Tuo, whose medical knowledge surpassed anyone else's, and learned the herb was known as ma huang.
"It is a sweat-inducing herb — one I prescribe fairly often to those suffering from colds and chills."
"...Is that so."
"Used in too great a quantity, it is dangerous enough to kill... but an amount this small is no cause for concern."
Far more dangerous than I'd imagined, then. It isn't as if the world is full of drugs without any risk, but carelessly misused, this one would send a man keeling straight into the afterlife. A genuinely frightening thing.
Which left one question: why had she written huang rather than ma huang? Zhang Jue might be no match for Hua Tuo, but she was hardly a physician so clumsy as to fumble the name of an herb. Hadn't Hua Tuo herself assessed the sample with perfect calm as measured to precisely the correct dosage?
...That was how I reasoned it, though in honesty I had a fair idea already. The remark that her people would come before long — and the single character huang, "yellow," deliberately fastened onto it. Turn it over as many ways as I liked, it could only be a message meaning the Yellow Turban Army. Zhang Jue had wound her words into circles out of fear that some other pair of eyes might steal a look at the letter.
"..."
Should I call that thorough? I doubted anyone alive had the nerve to peek at a letter bound for the General-in-Chief, but there was no harm in being careful.
So while the officers and soldiers at the gate toiled over their inspections in cold sweat, I addressed Lü Bu.
"Lü Bu."
"Hm? What is it?"
"From among those people, could you pick out the ones who look like they can handle themselves in a scrap?"
"People who can scrap...? Ah."
Lü Bu tilted her head for a moment, then seemed to grasp my meaning and tossed a question back.
"You mean the ones who can really fight, right?"
"That's right."
"Heh-heh! Now that's a pointless question!"
Lü Bu blew a derisive snort through her nose, her expression and posture brimming with confidence.
"Who do you think I am?! At my level, I can tell them apart by their walk alone!"
"Oh ho."
What else would you expect from the woman they call Peerless Under Heaven?
In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, when Cao Cao failed to assassinate Dong Zhuo, he had the quick wits to present the Seven Star Sword he'd received from Wang Yun and bolted out of the city at a gallop. Watching the whole scene, Lü Bu saw straight through him: no matter how you looked at it, that man had clearly been trying to kill you. Dong Zhuo, who had suspected nothing at Lü Bu's word, put Cao Cao to the test by ordering him to return; and when Cao Cao instead fled the city on horseback, Dong Zhuo realized he truly had meant to kill him, flew into a raging fury, and issued a warrant for his arrest.
After that came his meeting with Chen Gong, then the Lü Boshe incident that laid Cao Cao's character bare for all the world — a whole cascade of events, but none of them ever happened here, so let's give them a pass.
The point being, Lü Bu's eye is formidable enough to have caught all of that.
So I asked one favor of her.
"In that case, watch the crowd and point out anyone unusual for me?"
"...Unusual?"
"Say, someone whose martial skill is suspiciously outstanding."
"That much is hardly difficult."
Lü Bu nodded at my request. "But I'm only pointing them out? I don't need to seize them?"
"I merely want to watch from a distance."
"Hmm... You really are a strange one."
Lü Bu muttered, as though she couldn't make head or tail of my intentions.
"..."
I considered asking Seo Yeo, who stood close by, for the same favor, but she took a dim view of my slipping out of her field of vision for even a moment, so the odds of refusal were overwhelming.
"..."
The real problem was that Seo Hui, nestled in my arms at this very moment, had inherited her mother's temperament in full. Just look at the two of them, trading glances. For all the world as if they were about to fire lasers at me.
"Aba-bah!"
"M-My lord... forgive my presumption, but..."
Guan Yu, her face still being squished by her own daughter, sidled discreetly up to me. I took in the sight of Guan Ping beaming up at me and let out a chuckle.
"All right. Hand her over."
"I-I am utterly ashamed."
There I stood, abruptly cradling two infants in my arms — less the General-in-Chief than the very portrait of a father ground down by the demands of childcare.
...At least I was spared any worry about arm exercises for a while. The babies weren't heavy, but the dread of dropping them kept every muscle clenched, and there was nothing to be done about that. Still — for these warm little wigglers, what wouldn't I do?
"Buuuhhh..."
"Oh. Yeo Hwa's sulking."
Lü Bu, Yeo Hwa in her arms, made that observation, but my hands were tied. I could cover two, just barely — three was beyond me. Even that swordsman from the pirate manga carries one of his three blades in his teeth.
"..."
And handing Seo Hui back to her mother would only end with my clothes seized and stretched out of shape again, so that option was closed as well. What if she got hurt roughhousing out here? I would sooner die than witness such a thing.
"...Hm?"
Zhang Fei, shading the sunlight from her eyes with one hand as she stared hard at something, let out a puzzled sound. "See that person over there? Suspicious at a single glance."
"Really?"
"Yep. Over there."
At her words I whipped my head around toward the direction Zhang Fei was pointing.
And I saw it.
"Er... what business brings you to Luoyang?"
"Hrrmmm—! Can you not see these muscles?!"
A hulking mountain of muscle, flaunting his own physique for all the world to see.
"I am the Great Good Ma— no! I have come to volunteer as a soldier, to offer up my loyalty to this realm!!"
"..."
"What's with those looks! Do you not trust me?!"
The unknown man with a straw hat perched atop his head blazed his presence outward in every direction.
"...They are rather unusual characters, aren't they."
"That's a bit past 'rather.'"
That was all I could answer Liu Bei, who attended me close by. Brazenness on that scale almost stops registering as suspicious at all.
"This crazy bastard..."
"..."
The woman presumed to belong to the muscle-bound one's party spat out the curse, while yet another man simply held his peace, arms folded.
What was I even supposed to call this?
Zhang Jue. She really had gathered some genuinely singular characters under her banner.