Movement (1)
Ye County, Wei Commandery, Jizhou.
This land, once governed by Han Fu, the Governor of Jizhou, had passed into Yuan Shao's hands over the course of the age of warlords carving up the realm, and the city had grown without pause ever since. Ye had flourished to the point where it could fairly be called the heart of Jizhou. Even within Jizhou — a region hailed as the wealthiest under heaven — it stood out as a city that had prospered beyond all measure... You can roughly picture the scale, can't you?
With its roads meticulously paved and its commerce booming, this central city of Jizhou saw a constant tide of immense wealth flowing in and out of its gates. And yet, would you believe me if I told you that in a city like this, I currently couldn't so much as twitch?
Perhaps word had gotten around that a donut had sprouted from my belly — the moment I arrived in Ye, Hua Tuo appeared, ushered me off to a suitable room, and went straight into surgery.
...
Then I closed my eyes for a spell, and by the time I opened them again, the sun was already sagging lazily toward the horizon. While I sat there blinking in a daze — having, quite literally, traveled through time — Hua Tuo took my pulse.
...
How many minutes passed with her hand resting on my wrist? After examining my pulse in meticulous detail, Hua Tuo abruptly heaved a sigh.
...Why? What's wrong with me now?
Doesn't she know that when the doctor sighs, the patient's anxiety comes along for free? In a sense, she'd sighed on my behalf.
When I stared at her with eyes that said get on with it, Hua Tuo posed her question with perfect calm.
"Have you not been losing weight recently?"
"Huh?"
It was a rather out-of-nowhere question, but assuming there had to be a reason behind it, I gave a small nod. "Hmm... I have slimmed down a bit, I suppose."
But that much happened all the time, so I hadn't paid it much mind. My position being what it was, I was forever being sent this way and that, and just recently I'd come home from waging an entire war out in the field. If anything, weight loss was the expected outcome — there was no scenario in which it went up.
And besides, that was the sort of problem you solved by getting back to the city and playing hard. Eating plenty of delicious food, and lazing about to your heart's content.
When I stared at her as if to ask what the problem was, Hua Tuo put on a cool, clinical expression.
"From now on, you will need to eat somewhat more."
"...Huh?"
"You will also suffer bouts of abdominal pain from time to time, and there will be days when fatigue sets in for no discernible reason."
...
By the time I had heard that much, I understood exactly what she was describing. Aftereffects of the injury. And given that the hole punched clean through me had been in one of my digestive organs, symptoms like weight loss and abdominal pain were hardly surprising. As for why the weight was dropping... wasn't it simply that my body could no longer absorb nutrients properly?
...
If this were a game, my status window would no doubt have sprouted a permanent debuff along the lines of Indigestion. At the news that an ordinary sunfish had devolved into a sunfish that couldn't even eat properly, the people around me reacted in every manner imaginable.
"M-Master..."
Seo Yeo wavered visibly, her pupils trembling with alarm.
"You're nothing but skin and bones as it is — what am I supposed to do if you waste away even more?!"
Lü Bu jolted upright in shock, blurting out words straight from a country grandmother welcoming her grandson home after a long absence.
"So that's why you have been eating so little lately..."
"This won't do! You're eating. Right now!"
Hold on a moment. I am a patient whose belly was sliced wide open not two hours ago. Is the plan here to finish me off?
When I shot Hua Tuo a look of sheer bewilderment, she answered in a calm, even voice.
"Overeating is forbidden."
"...Huh?"
"Please remember: your meals are to be small in portion, and frequent."
Having recited her precautions, Hua Tuo held out a plate of round pills, explaining that they would aid both wound recovery and digestion.
"One a day will suffice."
"Hmm..."
At her words, I stared long and hard at the little green pills, each one prettily molded into a perfect round shape.
"These look disgusting."
"...Does the General-in-Chief know the saying that good medicine tastes bitter?"
"Oh, that one?"
The meaning of the phrase Hua Tuo had invoked was this: good medicine is bitter to the tongue — a saying that honest counsel grates on the ear, yet ultimately does you good. If memory served, it came from a book associated with Confucius.
I muttered back, genuinely puzzled. "But is that actually the sort of situation that saying is meant for?"
"The meaning itself is close enough, so it hardly matters."
Displaying a flexibility I hadn't expected, Hua Tuo dipped her head in a small bow.
"General-in-Chief."
"Hm?"
"You must not push yourself for at least several months."
I was watching her white hair sway gently with the motion of her bow when she continued in that same calm voice.
"Please keep it firmly in mind that this time, it was truly close."
There was a great deal packed into her words, and I nodded. "Understood. For the time being, I won't set foot anywhere near a battlefield."
"...For the time being?"
At my solemn vow, Lü Bu's eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
"'For the time being'? What is this 'for the time being'?! Don't you even dream of fighting!"
"...This is mutiny..."
The instant I tried to get another word out, Lü Bu's eyes flashed wide open.
"You're sick right now, and you're talking back?!"
...
Was it just my imagination, or had a certain master painter's famous line just flashed through my head? ...Judging by the look on her face, apparently not my imagination.
Watching Lü Bu bellow at me to lie there and rest quietly like a good little patient, I gained a visceral understanding of what it meant to live in captivity. My body was still sluggish under the lingering anesthesia and wouldn't properly obey me — but the moment the medicine wore off, I would have to open negotiations in earnest.
"...You failed?"
"Th-that is correct, my lord."
The central watchtower boasted a height of a full ten jang — some twenty-three meters. A colossal high-rise structure, open on all four sides for an unobstructed view of the surroundings. A transcendent fortress, raised by mobilizing every construction technique of the age and grinding through a staggering quantity of manpower and wealth. Atop that building — so high that an outstretched hand might all but brush the clouds — a man gave a faint smirk.
"Hmph. So a barbarian is a barbarian to the very end. I never expected anything of them."
...
The civil official who had delivered the report fell silent, cold sweat trickling down his back. For of late, the lord he served had... changed. Something about him was simply different.
Back when he had suffered defeat after defeat at the hands of Yuan Shao, Governor of Jizhou, and the magnates of You Province had betrayed him one after another—
"My lord, our plans going forward—"
"Silence! I will see no one!"
Whether those bitter defeats had unhinged him or not, Gongsun Zan had once been tormented by fits of madness, shoving away every soul who drew near and barricading himself inside the high tower.
"My lord! What are we to do about the grain rations and the defensive deployments?!"
...
"I beg you, answer me!"
...
"My lord!!"
Faced with a lord who ignored everything as though he had sworn off speaking altogether, even the handful of loyal retainers he had left turned their backs — and the result was that the only people remaining at Gongsun Zan's side were treacherous vassals looking to line their own pockets amid the chaos.
...Yes. Men just like himself.
...
The official bitterly regretted the error of having been blinded by a few coins and staying until the very end. Had he known Gongsun Zan would come back to his senses, he would have packed his bags and fled this place a day sooner, like those other bastards...
"You appear to be entertaining rather insolent thoughts."
"Urk?!"
Startled as Gongsun Zan seized his collar without warning with a rough hand, the official stammered, "M-my lord! What do you mean by that?! I have devoted myself to you faithfully—!"
"Quiet."
Holding a grown man aloft with a single hand, Gongsun Zan began to walk, unhurried.
"While I was briefly wandering astray, it seems you stirred up every manner of mischief down below."
Sensing what Gongsun Zan meant to do with him, the official thrashed with all the strength he had, but it was a hopeless contest against the monstrous power of the White Horse General — the man who had once cut down dozens of nomadic tribesmen single-handedly.
"You dared to siphon off supplies and even sell intelligence to the enemy?"
"It's a misunderstanding, my lord!"
"I despise traitors of that stripe above all things."
The tower stood open to the sky on every side. Holding the official out over the railing — erected, ironically, to guard against unfortunate accidents — Gongsun Zan spoke.
"Do not feel too aggrieved."
"J-just give me one more chance—!"
"For even had you fled from me, that woman Yuan Shao would have disposed of you all the same."
Muttering that this was, after all, simply the way of that slave woman — naught but Erzhu stock at that — Gongsun Zan released the official's collar.
Uwaaaaaagh—!!
No sooner had Gongsun Zan brushed off his hands and turned around than the scream rang out from somewhere below him. But it lasted only a moment.
Crunch!
The cry that had rung out toward the heavens fell silent a few seconds later, together with the sound of something shattering.
"My apologies for the trouble."
Having manufactured yet another unfortunate accident with the same placid expression, Gongsun Zan sank down onto the floor before someone.
"Well then — the traitor has been dealt with, so shall we resume our game of Go?"
"...Do as you please."
The old man of unknown identity — who spoke down to Gongsun Zan as though it were the most natural thing in the world — gazed at the Go board with eyes limpid with unfathomable depth. The sight was like nothing so much as one of the immortals that so many Taoists dreamed of becoming.