Homecoming (1)
Before leaving Gangdong, I ran one final check to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything.
"Let's see now..."
I'd delivered a stern warning to the Gangdong gentry, who had rallied around Liu Yao as their center of gravity, to mind their behavior from here on out. As for the Shanyue tribes who had surrendered to me under their chieftain Yan Baihu, they'd been put to work on the Gangdong development effort exactly like any other subjects of Han.
Gangdong, unlike other regions that already had a measure of development behind them, had to be built from absolute scratch.
The first goal was to fell the vast, dense forests sprawling across the region and stake out homesteads in their place. Once the land was cleared and settlements raised, we would lay roads so people could travel with ease between cities, and eventually dig a Grand Canal to carry the harvests of future years north without trouble. It was, in the truest sense of the word, a development project that would pour the nation's entire strength into the ground.
The single most important factor in an undertaking like this was taking ample time and working slowly.
Funding and manpower mattered too, of course—fall short on either one, and development would grind against a wall. But our faction happened to be overflowing with both at the moment.
Which meant that the instant we got greedy and pushed for speed, people would start dying in staggering numbers. Even a sturdy, precision-built machine breaks down in the end if you run it past its limits—so what chance did human beings, far more fragile than any machine, possibly have?
Case in point: when people speak of Qin Shi Huang's tyranny, the first thing they cite is how he fed his people into the maw of colossal construction projects. Laborers died in droves building the Great Wall of China to hold back the northern tribes, their corpses tossed carelessly into pits; and finding the palace he lived in insufficient, he reached for ever larger, ever more extravagant monuments to himself...
Because its ruler looked upon his people not as people but as something closer to beasts, the Qin dynasty—its feat of being the first to unify China notwithstanding—collapsed before it could even pass through three generations. And it wasn't a shortage of wealth or talent that destroyed Qin. The dynasty simply caved in on itself from driving people like livestock and treating them with cruelty.
Was there any guarantee that I, of all people, would be spared the same fate?
Of course there wasn't. To be perfectly honest, the development of Gangdong wouldn't be finished until long after I'd become a gray-haired old man.
For all that this was a world where superhuman marvels actually existed, no completed building ever popped out of thin air. Then again, if the world really worked that way, Lü Bu would have been firing energy blasts off the tip of her halberd like some Dynasty Warriors game.
No, seriously. When she uses her ultimate skill, an energy blast literally shoots out of the Sky Piercer Halberd.
...That's beside the point right now.
Anyway, the lesson stood: rushing for no reason would buy nothing but grief. With the affairs of Gangdong and Jiaozhou fully settled, there really shouldn't be anything left to forget.
"Ah, there you are."
"Hm?"
Just as I nodded to myself, a familiar little figure appeared in the distance—one of my Little Strategists.
Turning my head, I asked Sima Yi in an even voice.
"Something the matter?"
"I just had a feeling I can't quite explain."
The Little Strategist—renowned for her sharp instincts even in the original history—spoke with a curt expression.
"Do you happen to remember who the prisoner under my special supervision is?"
"'Special supervision'?"
With a question mark practically hovering over my head, I fell into thought for a moment. A prisoner significant enough that Sima Yi would come find me in person and ask whether I remembered the name...
"...Aha."
Could she mean Ze Rong?
Honestly? I'd forgotten all about him. With so many major development plans on my plate, my head simply wasn't sharp enough to keep tabs on every last bandit as well.
Reading my reaction, Sima Yi pressed a hand to her forehead in exasperation.
"I knew this would happen. The one who worries always ends up the loser, you know?"
Worried... So she'd been worried.
Catching Sima Yi's mutter, I saw through exactly who the object of that worry was—and let a smirk slip.
"Were you worried about me?"
...
At my playful question, Sima Yi froze stock-still in place, as if she'd hit a buffering screen.
I'd only given her a little poke, and she'd reacted at full power.
Face red as a ripe tomato, Sima Yi answered.
"N-no, I'm not? What on earth are you talking about?"
Your voice is trembling so hard, nobody's going to believe you.
This is exactly why I can't stop teasing her.
I nodded with an all-knowing look on my face.
"Honestly, you're terrible at being honest."
"I told you, I'm not?!"
Sure, sure. Whatever you say.
Shuddering under my fond gaze, Sima Yi hastily shouted at the soldiers around her.
"Grrrgh...! What are you standing around for! Drag him out here, now!"
"Y-yes, ma'am!"
At her shout, the adjutant attending her sprang into motion with remarkable speed.
Watching the scene unfold, I chided the Little Strategist like a scolding parent.
"Taking it out on other people? Not cool."
"And whose fault is that?!"
Why, the Little Strategist who bounces like a jack-in-the-box every time I tease her, of course.
Naturally, saying that out loud would earn me a murderous glare, so I wisely kept my mouth shut.
Her adjutant vanished from sight—how much time passed, who could say.
Clatter—!
Perhaps she'd had it prepared in advance, because a cart came rattling up from the direction of the jail with a tremendous racket.
One glance told me it was built to hold a prisoner, and I spoke up, puzzled.
"What's that?"
"What else? The single most important item in this city."
Don't tell me she meant Ze Rong.
Peering between the bars, I found a lone bandit who was no longer afforded even the courtesy of being treated as human.
Snooore...
There lay Ze Rong, sprawled spread-eagle inside the cart, dead asleep without a care in the world.
Well, well.
Out cold, with no clue what was about to become of him. Thick nerves on this one too, huh?
As I stared at Ze Rong, marveling inwardly, the Little Strategist beside me spoke.
"Judging from how things were going, I could tell we'd be leaving Gangdong before long, so I kept him from sleeping for the past few days."
...?
What did our imminent departure from Gangdong have to do with sleep-deprivation torture?
Catching my puzzlement, Sima Yi smiled, just a touch sardonically.
"If he squawks his head off while we're leaving the city, it'd be a racket, wouldn't it?"
...
"Honestly, if I tormented him any further he'd have gone out of his mind, so I compromised and settled for other forms of torture."
...Just what methods does this girl use on people, that she can bandy about the phrase lose his mind without a moment's hesitation?
I'd been too distracted by the sight of Ze Rong sleeping so blissfully to notice, but looking closely now, fresh scars stood out all over his body.
Telling the old scars apart from the new ones acquired in the jail was simple. The new ones were still caked with crusts of dried blood—only a blind man could miss that.
Ze Rong's body was, quite literally, covered head to toe in wounds, and there were so many of them that merely looking made my own skin ache in sympathy.
This guy's built sturdy too, I'll give him that.
If it were me, I'd have dropped dead like a sunfish before even half of those scars had been carved.
...In most games, a General-in-Chief could show up as the final boss and no one would bat an eye. All imposing presence on the outside, yet in truth a fragile boss who keels over from a single hit—pretty hilarious, really.
I was starting to understand why Seo Yeo and Lü Bu made a career of wrapping me in cotton wool. The instant I so much as attempted light manual labor, those women would come flying like the wind and physically pin me down.
"You look ready to collapse just from walking. What makes you think you can handle physical activity?"
"...What's that supposed to mean?"
"You don't get it?"
"I'm saying you stagger around like you're going to keel over any second."
Seeing that I failed to grasp her point, Lü Bu explained it matter-of-factly.
Her answer—that I looked liable to fall flat on my face mid-stride, all on my own—made it abundantly clear that my bodyguard generals regarded me as something about as sturdy as a Kukudas cookie.
Then again, on reflection, maybe their worrying was a touch excessive.
Just then, Sima Yi tossed a question my way.
"Hello? What are you brooding about so intently?"
"Just useless thoughts."
"Hmph. Business as usual, then."
...Apparently she was still thoroughly sulking over my teasing.
Back when Sima Yi's heart was an unreadable mystery to me, I'd have broken into a cold sweat over racking up one stack of the Gaoping Tomb Incident—but these days I knew exactly how to break the deadlock.
I gently scooped the curt-faced Sima Yi up into my arms.
"I'm sorry. How about we go out for something delicious together soon?"
...
Cheeks flushing, Sima Yi turned her head away with prim haughtiness and replied.
"I'm telling you, stop treating me like a child."
That was what she said—but the corners of her mouth were curling upward all the same.
I know perfectly well you're already in a good mood.
"Right. Understood."
"...Doesn't seem like it."
For all her prickly, thorn-covered exterior, the Little Strategist's anger melted away far too easily—and I couldn't hold back my laughter.