Meizhou Lang (3)
Zhou Yu, having shoved her face up close to mine only to sway dizzily, drew back again, muttering to herself.
"I-I'm going to die... Uweeeh..."
"...Good grief."
There she was, looking for all the world as if she would faint at any second, yet somehow managing to cling to consciousness. Naturally, I heaved a sigh at the sight of her.
Desperate she certainly was. So how, then, was I to respond?
Truth be told, when I turned the problem over in my head, only a single outcome presented itself: either I pounced on her first, or I got pounced on. It would be one of the two, no doubt about it. And my reasoning was simple.
"Mmmhnn..."
Was there not, at this very moment, a certain tigress watching the whole scene from over there with reddened cheeks? If I ignored Zhou Yu's plea, she would come charging straight at me while muttering something like, 'Unbelievable! So even you needed courage, my lord!'
What would happen next... well, I could roughly imagine. She wouldn't force liquor down my throat the way she had with Zhou Yu, but she would still try to rouse me by other means. There are countless ways for a woman to arouse a man, after all — and the male of the species, so faithfully devoted to its own propagation, is a sadly helpless creature in the face of such stimulation.
Common sense might ask what woman would go so far as a threesome for the sake of her friend's love — but having watched Sun Ce for a long time now, I knew full well that this woman was more than capable of actually going through with it.
From the very beginning, the look in Sun Ce's eyes whenever she regarded me had been anything but ordinary. Her outward manner and speech were impeccably courteous, yet whenever she let slip the gaze of someone eyeing a succulent cut of meat, an involuntary chill would run down my spine.
When exactly had Sun Ce started looking at me that way?
"I mean to entrust Shuchun to you. What say you?"
"I will hold this place even if it costs me my life."
Yes. It must have been from that day — when we spoke face to face and I bestowed an official post upon her — that she began to act this way.
A woman who made nothing of my shameful past, who stood firmly at my back and believed in me...
...Now that I thought it over, it seemed there might well be a reason for it after all.
And so, for the beast of prey that had been biding its time, the moment had come to snatch up the game it had eyed so hungrily.
……
Look at her. The instant our eyes met, Sun Ce favored me with a charming smile — how was I not to think such things, seeing that?
Going by appearances alone, she was nothing more than a drunkard with failed brakes, but I could tell instinctively that the whole display was an act Sun Ce was putting on.
"It can't be helped, then."
After a moment's further deliberation, I finally made my way over to Zhou Yu.
Devour, or be devoured. When a choice like that lands in my lap, I choose to be the one doing the devouring.
It's a rather crude way of putting it, but the feeling of pressing a woman superior to yourself down beneath the covers was, frankly, quite stimulating.
I crouched beside Zhou Yu, who was clinging to consciousness through sheer desperate will.
"Zhou Yu, can you hear me?"
"Uuuh... Yes... I hear you..."
Remarkable. Even thoroughly drunk, she could still hold a conversation. Meizhou Lang truly was Meizhou Lang, it seemed.
In this state, there was a good chance she would remember everything that happened even after sobering up. Which meant I had no particular qualms either.
I put the question to her.
"I will ask you once more. Answer with care."
……
"Do you truly wish to be joined with me, here and now?"
At my question, Zhou Yu fell silent for a moment — then answered with perfect clarity.
"...Yes. I beg of you."
She looked so composed it was hard to believe she had been drunk mere moments ago.
"I see."
Hearing her answer, I gave a calm nod.
"Having heard an answer like that, there's no backing out now."
I slipped an arm around the waist of Zhou Yu, who swayed as though she might collapse at any second. I had sensed it even glancing over her clothes, but she was truly slender — so much so that it was hard to believe this body had cut down Shanyue warriors and driven Sun Ce into the ground with a German suplex.
"Ah..."
To Zhou Yu, whose face had flushed with embarrassment, I asked in a teasing voice.
"Just to be safe, I trust you won't plant me into the floor the way you did Sun Ce a moment ago."
Zhou Yu was probably the type to overwhelm with technique rather than raw strength. She was, honestly, frighteningly adept at grappling. With skill like that, planting a frail man — say, the one currently holding her waist — lightly into the ground would be nothing at all. And that frail man's skull would crack in an instant. Really, the strange one was Sun Ce, getting up without a scratch after taking a blow like that.
"I-I would never do such a thing!"
Zhou Yu answered, her already scarlet face flushing even deeper at my teasing.
I let a smirk slip at her reaction.
"Good. Then I'm glad."
"Y-Yes..."
At my smile, Zhou Yu darted her eyes every which way, utterly at a loss.
...Don't tell me she'd fallen head over heels for me too? If so, that was a touch bewildering.
"Hmhm."
Nearby, Sun Ce — who had been watching the entire scene unfold — merely let out an unreadable nasal laugh, as if to say the moment had arrived.
Dawn was breaking, the moon fading as the sun slowly climbed into the sky.
"...Hah!"
At an hour when most people had yet to rise and stretch themselves awake, one woman's eyes flew open.
"Ugh... My, my head..."
Pushing her upper body upright, the woman knitted her delicate brows against the ache throbbing through her skull.
Yet even that did nothing to diminish her beauty — the kind of face that would turn the heads of one hundred out of one hundred passersby. Her hair was cropped close at the nape, one side braided neatly down: a tidy, graceful coiffure.
It was for that beauty that she was known as Meizhou Lang — the Beautiful Zhou — and now the woman muttered through a grimace.
"What in the world happened yesterday...?!"
Turning her head slowly as she spoke, the woman sucked in a breath before the words had even left her mouth.
"Uuuugh..."
For there lay Sun Ce, unconscious, an outer robe draped over her but otherwise dressed in little more than her bare skin.
……
"S-Stop... Stop it..."
Then there was the General-in-Chief's bodyguard, sprawled out without so much as a breath of sound, and Lü Bu of the Peerless Under Heaven, mumbling sleep-talk that made no sense whatsoever. What in the world was any of this supposed to be?
Surveying the women strewn about the room like corpses, Zhou Yu set her mind racing in desperation. And a brilliant woman whose intellect would rank among the five finest under heaven had little trouble recalling.
"I'm dying heeere~! Could you... could you hold me in your arms~?!"
...Her own past — a record of acts too shameful to speak aloud.
"Ah, aaah..."
Remembering it, the woman hung her mouth open and let out a sound that meant nothing at all. But her misfortune did not end there.
"Do you hear me?! I-I will really bash my head into the bare ground and die——!!"
"Stop..."
"Hic... I really... will die..."
"I said stop it...!"
Despite her owner's desperate pleading, that brilliant mind kept dredging up the very past she longed to forget.
"...Does it hurt?"
"I-I'm f-fine, so please, do as you liiike...?!"
And when, deep within that mortifying memory, she caught sight of herself giggling in the most undignified fashion, the woman finally could bear no more.
"Ughhk...!"
She already knew, beyond any doubt, what had happened last night. The wish she had yearned for and yearned for had, presumably, been granted. She could tell as much from her still-quivering legs alone — to say nothing of the something now trickling down from between her thighs.
But... but she had never wanted it to turn out like this! What she had wished for was for things to unfold naturally, in a somewhat more tender atmosphere! And instead he had seen her at her most wretched — wailing that she would die if he refused her confession...!
She must have been tormented beyond measure, for her body seemed ready to crumple beneath her at any moment — yet with the same iron will she brought to slaughtering enemies on the battlefield, the woman gritted her teeth and moved forward, one slow step at a time.
At last she came to stand over Sun Ce, who had yet to regain her senses, and raked her with an icy gaze. And then the woman understood.
"You dare dump every last humiliating role on me, while you yourself seize only what you wanted...?"
Judging by Sun Ce's current state, there was no doubt she had suffered exactly the same fate yesterday. Did waking first among all those women mean that, at the very least, she was the strongest between the sheets? ...But that was not what mattered now.
Gritting her teeth with an audible grind, Zhou Yu seized Sun Ce by the leg and shrieked.
"You hateful bitch——!!"
"U-Uhh...?"
"DIE——!!"
CRASH—!
Sun Ce, still nowhere near lucid, was driven into the wall — her just deserts for making use of her dearest friend.
"What in the world was that noise...?"
At the sound, the General-in-Chief swiftly took stock of the room — and was greeted by the wrestling match unfolding before his eyes with a look of utter bewilderment.