Eastern Wu King of Virtue (4)
When you hear the word "march," what usually comes to mind?
What else could it be? Just walking on and on without end. Walking, and walking, and walking some more…. Ugh. Enough to make my skin crawl.
Humans may boast exceptional endurance compared to other animals, and a well-developed capacity for long-distance travel, but hard was still hard. I was on horseback, so my suffering ended at a mild full-body ache — but what about the rank-and-file soldiers, marching on their own two legs with heavy equipment to haul the whole way? They were going through pure hell.
"Adjutant."
After the long march, the moment we finally arrived at Shuchun, the first thing I did was call for my adjutant.
"Y-yes, sir! You called for me!!"
The one who answered, naturally, was Sun Quan, currently on campaign at my side.
"Have the soldiers rest for the time being and see that they recover from the fatigue. When the time comes, we cross the Yangtze."
"Understood!! Leave it to me!!"
Having only just undergone her coming-of-age ceremony and still small in stature, Sun Quan snapped to it and darted off with crisp military bearing.
Something about watching her reminds me of a squirrel. Cute.
…Wait, aren't squirrels rodents too? Hmm…. Then should I call her a hamster instead? No, hamsters are rodents too.
"Sun Quan…."
While I was lost in these strange thoughts, turning over Sun Quan's old nickname of Sun Jerry in my head, someone's murmur reached my ears.
"You've grown so much."
Sun Ce wore an expression anyone could read at a glance as nostalgia. As the eldest daughter of the Sun clan, the sense of responsibility she showed toward her younger sister wouldn't have disgraced the title of a second parent.
"Hahaha! It's been a while!"
"…Father."
Watching the scene unfold, Sun Jian strode up to his daughter with a hearty laugh.
Sun Ce greeted her father's approach with a smile that could strip paint from armor.
"What fortunate timing. There happens to be something we father and daughter need to discuss, isn't there?"
"Uh… hm?"
Sun Jian sensed something had gone terribly wrong at the sight of that murderous smile, but it was already far too late.
"'That girl's temper is so violent she'll live and die an old maid'…. And to whom, may I ask, did you dare say such a thing?"
"H-how did you—"
After one flustered beat, Sun Jian whipped his head around and fixed me with the expression of a betrayed man.
Under that gaze, I casually turned my head aside.
Nobody ever told me to keep it a secret, after all. Not my problem.
Watching my reaction, Sun Jian cried out.
"General-in-Chief! Why would you share the contents of our—!"
"You ought to be looking at me right now, shouldn't you, Father?"
Cutting his cry short, Sun Ce started walking.
"It's been a while since we last crossed blades. Let's have a match — I won't lose this time."
"Win or lose, haven't you been pummeling me since long ag—!"
It sounded like a man's dying words, so I tuned it out completely. No matter how I looked at it, that wasn't a quarrel I had any business joining.
"The faster we move, the more rest you'll get! Keep it up!"
"Yes, ma'am—!"
Sun Quan bustled about nearby, coaxing the soldiers along and urging them to keep up the pace. The soldiers, having caught on that rest time was near, naturally threw themselves into it all the harder.
"…Hmph."
Lü Bu, who under ordinary circumstances would have taken one look at those soldiers and started in on them for their sorry lack of grit, kept a quiet silence instead.
The reason was simple.
I'd given her a stern talking-to about exactly this sort of thing before.
Whenever I sensed that Lü Bu here at my side — or Zhang Fei, left behind in Luoyang — was driving her soldiers a touch too harshly, something stirred in me, and I punished each of them in my own way.
'Mmmrrrgh…!'
Lü Bu got her soft, squishy cheeks stretched out good and long,
'N-no! My liquor—!'
and Zhang Fei — after a quiet word to Liu Bei and Guan Yu — had her alcohol confiscated bit by bit.
…I did consider the knuckle rap, the punishment Guan Yu so often doles out, but I had a strong premonition that my own hand would be the only thing to suffer for it. And honestly, I had no stomach for striking a beautiful woman with any real force. Besides, even a full-strength knuckle rap would only earn me a bewildered blink from Zhang Fei, long since accustomed(?) to Guan Yu's.
Specifically, the sort of expression that seemed to ask, why is our dear husband acting up this time?
Anyone else who tried it would have been pounded into mincemeat before the knuckles ever landed, but Zhang Fei showed herself remarkably soft — only ever toward her sworn sisters and me.
Lü Bu was no different, of course. The only differences were that the list of people who could soften her had narrowed by exactly one — to me and me alone — and that anyone else who dared lay a hand on her uninvited wouldn't stop at mincemeat but be ground straight into paste.
…Then again, is there really much difference between mincemeat and paste? Still, "paste" certainly sounds the more brutal of the two.
Anyway, my reason for handing down small punishments to those two harsh drivers of soldiers was a simple one.
In the original history, weren't those two exactly the sort to treat their men like dirt? Lü Bu needlessly pressed a subordinate who asked whether he might drink, now that there was cause for celebration — and reaped his resentment. Zhang Fei, too, abused her men so routinely that they rose up and murdered their commander, and she paid with her life.
In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, old Luo Guanzhong dramatizes it all a step further. Lü Bu, caned over wine, was express-delivered to Cao Cao courtesy of a subordinate whose pent-up bitterness finally exploded. And Zhang Fei was cut down in her sleep by a subordinate she'd whipped for an impossible order.
Either way, one thing was certain: both had scorned their subordinates, and that flaw weighed heavily in the downfall of two commanders hailed as a Match for Ten Thousand. Ancient armies were strict with military law to a degree that seems excessive beside modern ones, granted — but when the abuse runs so deep that even subordinates hardened to that law can't endure it, you have a serious problem.
So when those two started quietly revving up their cruelty engines at their subordinates' expense, naturally someone had to slam on the brakes.
'O-okay…. I won't say mean things anymore….'
The instant Lü Bu met my firm gaze, her tail went straight between her legs,
'Nooo! I know I was wrong, so take anything but that! Do you have any idea how hard that was to get!'
and Zhang Fei, stripped of her cherished Dukang Wine — a treasure she'd coddled like her firstborn — hung right off my waist and begged most piteously.
…Only now, out of nowhere, does it occur to me — why does this girl carry so much liquor? She doesn't drink now that she's carrying a child, but before that, any search of her person was guaranteed to turn up at least a bottle or two. You could rightly have called her a walking liquor warehouse.
'Wh-why are you frisking me all of a sudden?! This is sexual harassment!'
'There you go with that again. Hold still. Just checking whether you've hidden any liquor…. Ah, here it is.'
'Busted?!'
Did she really think tucking it against her inner thigh beneath her skirt would keep it hidden? Someone of the same sex couldn't search her so freely, not with ugly misunderstandings lurking, but for a member of the opposite sex who had known her body intimately — someone like me — it was territory I could handle without a second thought.
'Yide.'
Smack—!
'Uwagh—!'
Guan Yu, having caught on that Zhang Fei had been about to sneak a drink in the middle of official duty, moved to punish her on the spot.
Life around here was never dull, that much was certain.
'You've gotten quite skilled at that.'
'I had a good teacher, after all.'
Liu Bei, the mastermind behind it all, merely watched me and smiled, calm as ever.
Funny how she never mentioned that back when she was the one whispering to me to go search Zhang Fei's body in the first place.
Sun Jian — perhaps dragged off by Sun Ce — had already vanished from his spot, while Sun Quan was hard at work absorbing lessons from my other adjutants.
Zhao Yun was among those other adjutants, incidentally. Even when I tried to grant her a general's commission, she flatly refused, insisting her current post suited her just fine. Honestly….
If this counted as peace, then I suppose it was peace. It was a scene of everyday life so ordinary you'd never believe this was a force on the eve of battle.
I watched the sight for a while, then turned to the woman assisting me nearby.
"Zhou Yu."
"You called?"
"Nothing hurting anywhere, is there?"
…….
At my question, Zhou Yu went rigid for a heartbeat, then swiftly recovered her composure.
"…Thanks to your care, my lord, there is nothing amiss."
"Really, now?"
"Yes."
Hearing her out, I shifted my gaze and studied Zhou Yu intently.
Hmm….
Clear, pale-blue eyes, and platinum hair bleached almost snow-white. And on top of that, a bob cut trimmed to exquisite length. Truly worthy of the name Meizhou Lang — strikingly handsome.
Put her in a butler's uniform or a tailored suit and it would suit her to a tee. Would that transform our frail genius girl prosecutor into a frail genius girl butler? Diaochan, all bright and graceful beauty, as the maid, and Zhou Yu, all pure and composed beauty, as the butler — a perfect pairing.
Of course, I could hardly squander Zhou Yu's talents on butler duty, so the fantasy ended as a fantasy. Besides, Seo Yeo already handled every little piece of my daily care — brushing my hair, helping me change clothes, all of it — so what would be the point….
That, too, was a staggering waste of ability, but Seo Yeo simply refused to stray from my side, so there was nothing to be done.
…….
"…You do look perfectly fine."
After studying Zhou Yu for a good long while, I concluded there was truly nothing amiss and gave a small nod. Just in case, I'd brought back a few medicines from Hua Tuo, so it was a relief they'd go unused.
I smiled at Zhou Yu.
"If anything ever starts to hurt, even later on, you must tell me. Understood?"
"…Yes."
She probably thought me strange for it, but what could I do? Still, this was no place for carelessness.
You tend to a body while it's healthy — start only once it's already ailing, and it's far too late.