Tying Up Loose Ends (2)
"Plenty happened out of nowhere, but I'm glad we somehow managed to get through it all."
"...Indeed."
With Her Majesty pressing me to hurry home, I had resolved to return at the earliest opportunity, so before departing Hebei, I sat down for one last conversation with Yuan Shao. After all, until a boulder by the name of me came rolling and tumbling onto the scene, she had been the ruler of Hebei. Taking the time to talk like this and cement our bond was essential groundwork with the future in mind.
"It is a humble attempt, but I have prepared something for you to drink."
"Ah, thank you."
Having offered my thanks, I took a sip of the green tea Zhang Jue had brewed and tried to sink into thought for a moment... or at least, I started to.
…….
The instant the tea touched my lips, a dizzying aroma flooded my nose. It was the smell of medicinal herbs you'd catch wafting from the front of any herbalist's shop, and the way it blasted my sinuses wide open left me frozen stiff, like a video stuck on buffering. This wasn't green tea. It was just an herbal decoction that happened to be green. The green tea I knew most certainly did not taste like this. Or was I supposed to be marveling that she'd taken a brew normally the color of murky sludge and turned it green instead? It was admittedly better than the dark-brown stuff that looked, at a glance, like it was insisting it would taste horrendous—but if she was going to change the color anyway, she might as well have changed the flavor.
…….
When I glanced her way, Zhang Jue simply returned a calm, unbothered smile. ...Right. She made me drink it because my body needs it. Trapped in a situation where I had to down one medicine after another practically every day, I let out a quiet sigh. Well, it undeniably worked, so there was that. Ordinarily, on top of wasting away, I should have been groaning through the occasional bout of stomach pain, but lately there had been none of that.
What had she said again? Something about dulling the pain I felt, shielding my body from harmful energies from the outside world, and keeping any flare-ups at bay... In other words, it functioned as a painkiller, an immune booster, and a digestive aid all at once. ...Looking at it that way, I really was an intensive-care patient, wasn't I. Here I was, creaking and wheezing over a single arrow, so what on earth was Sun Jian—the man who'd taken several and survived—made of? That man hadn't been content merely to survive, either; he was out there tearing across battlefields all over again. Maybe you need to be built like that before anecdotes start circulating about you scaling city walls with your bare hands.
…….
Yuan Shao was the blunt, brusque sort who never opened her mouth unless the topic was official business, so she maintained a stoic silence even as I drank my tea-in-name-only. And with people this taciturn and cold-blooded, one universal truth always applies. And what, you ask, might that be?
"...Mm."
…….
They are incredibly hard to get close to. When every attempt at small talk earns nothing but a clipped one-word reply and the two of you share no hobbies to enjoy together, growing close overnight would be the strange outcome. Just as I was racking my brain for a way to keep the conversation alive, a familiar voice drifted over from nearby.
"Tsk. What a painfully stiff situation."
"Cao Cao?"
The platinum-haired woman who had materialized beside us leaned in close as she spoke, while I could only wear a startled expression.
"Did you know? Benchu wasn't always this taciturn, you know."
"...Huh?"
What exactly was she about to tell me? Too slow to catch her drift, I was still floating a question mark over my head when she pressed on.
"To be specific, she began quieting down little by little after she first took office and started dealing with all manner of people."
"Is that so?"
"Heh heh. It is."
When I prompted her again, Cao Cao let a laugh slip and continued at a leisurely pace.
"Back when she still ran wild with me like a pair of idle rogues, she was forever stirring up incident after incident, all while declaring she would change this country some—"
"That will be quite enough of that story."
"Dear me. It seems a spoilsport has intruded."
Thus Cao Cao, who had been on the verge of exposing Yuan Shao's past, feigned surprise and offered a faint smile.
"If you wish to hear how the story ends, come to my chamber tonight."
"...Huh?"
"We shall take our time with the tale then."
Cao Cao stroked my cheek, her voice dipping into something warmer.
"Yes. Very, very slowly."
…….
No matter how I turned it over in my head, I was far more likely to have something other than storytelling happen to me. Even beneath my utterly unconvinced stare, Cao Cao looked nothing if not proud of herself. Right. Come to think of it, this was simply who she had always been. After bearing Cao Ang, her first, she had reined herself in somewhat for the sake of childcare, but now, whenever an opening presented itself as it just had, she made a show of her burning ambition to seduce me into giving her a second. Considering that the Cao Cao of the original history had produced more than thirty children, if I truly set my mind to it, I might have been able to field an entire soccer club. ...Though the parenting hell that came with it would be mine to shoulder alone, of course.
"Mengde, what on earth are you saying right now?"
Yuan Shao, who had been observing the whole spectacle in stone-faced silence, finally cut into the conversation. Her whole bearing asked whether Cao Cao truly meant what Yuan Shao suspected she meant. It was a perfectly reasonable question, but for a woman who had long since hurled the emotion called shame clear over the horizon, being struck speechless was never on the table. If anything, a mundane answer would have been a blessing. Cao Cao had always operated beyond the reach of other people's imaginations.
"It would be quicker to show you than to tell you."
"...?"
Hearing Yuan Shao's question, Cao Cao gave a mischievous grin and, without a shred of warning, pressed her lips against mine.
"...?!"
"Mmph?!"
Seo Yeo and Lü Bu, stationed nearby and devoted to my protection, went round-eyed with shock, and I stiffened for a beat as well—I had never expected Cao Cao to display such audacity. A soft, pliant sensation clung to me like some manner of mollusk, wriggling as if to burrow into my mouth. When that pale-pink intruder barged in uninvited, I jolted in alarm and pried Cao Cao off me.
"Hold on—what do you think you're doing all of a sudden?"
"Hm? Is that not obvious?"
When I demanded an answer in a flustered voice, Cao Cao licked the trace of moisture from the corner of her mouth and smiled with open allure.
"It seems to me it is just about time we began work on a second child."
…….
I genuinely could not tell which part of that to even begin disputing. Her staggering boldness had frozen everyone in the vicinity right where they stood. And Cao Cao, the architect of the whole scene, declared with theatrical poise:
"Well? See how the awkward atmosphere has entirely melted away?"
"...Melted away? Nothing melted away."
If anything, it felt even worse. I watched Cao Cao brazenly press her advantage from behind that wall of sheer shamelessness, then heaved a long sigh. Thank the heavens Cao Ang, her own daughter, had inherited none of her mother's eccentric streak. Please, keep growing up exactly that way. Before the mood could curdle any further, I hurriedly turned to Yuan Shao.
"The reason I wished to speak with you before returning to Luoyang is a simple one."
"...Please, speak."
"I mean to entrust Hebei to you."
"...!"
At my magnanimous offer, Yuan Shao—until now the very picture of stoic reserve—flashed her eyes wide in astonishment. Having confirmed that the mystery "green tea" I'd been forcing down had at last reached its bottom, I set the cup aside and continued.
"Just as your friend Cao Cao currently holds multiple Provincial Governor titles—Governor of Yanzhou and Governor of Xuzhou among them—I plan to confer upon you the governorships of Jizhou and You Province."
On top of those, Cao Cao had also been handed a whole stack of colossal posts besides—Commander, General of Agile Cavalry, and the like. I could have amassed just as many titles myself had I the mind to, but what would be the point? All it would do was pile more work onto my desk. I was already bent to the point of snapping under the General-in-Chief's duties alone, even after dumping every other task onto my talented subordinates, so the moment I tacked on the Recorder of the Imperial Secretariat or rose to some seat like Chancellor, I would keel over on the spot.
Which was why, the instant Her Majesty so much as breathed the word "Recorder," I would grimace in horror and steer the conversation elsewhere. Pairing the General-in-Chief's post with the Recorder of the Imperial Secretariat was, after all, a venerable method—one used since the Former Han era by consort kin to seize control of the government. ...Except, hold on. Wasn't I already in firm control of the government without needing any such thing? I had never lifted a finger to seize power; Her Majesty had personally crammed it into my hands whether I wanted it or not. She had first tried to elevate my standing by showering me with offices, and when I refused them, she had simply taken a blade to the authority of every other office instead.
The textbook example was the Three Excellencies. Their responsibilities were so weighty that they had once been treated as practically interchangeable with the General-in-Chief at the very summit of the bureaucracy—yet at some point, their power had been quietly siphoned away piece by piece. And as for where all of it had flowed... well, there was no need to spell that out. She had nibbled it away so patiently, so incrementally, that it took me a considerable while to even notice. I supposed this, too, counted as politics in its own way. Somewhere along the line, Her Majesty had grown into a first-rate stateswoman—one who suited the viper pit of the imperial palace all too well.
I walked over to Yuan Shao, who wore a faintly dazed expression, and gave her shoulder a couple of friendly taps.
"You'll be coming back up this way again once autumn arrives regardless, so see to it that Hebei is governed well until then."
"...Yes."
Yuan Shao accepted my charge and answered evenly, her expression composed.