Bing Province (4)
Xiang Liang, grandson of Xiang Yan, led a detached force and brought down the city of Yangcheng. When the townsfolk resisted to the last man and his losses mounted, Xiang Liang took his fury out on them — all five thousand were cast into pits and buried alive.
Having accepted the surrender of Zhang Han, commander of Qin's main army, and thereby gutted the Qin war machine in effect, Xiang Liang set out for the Qin capital of Xianyang. On the pretext that they would impede his advance, he buried alive the two hundred thousand Qin prisoners held at Xin'an, in Luoyang, Henan Province.
At the head of thirty thousand men, Xiang Liang hurled himself upon an army of five hundred and sixty thousand and butchered the soldiers without mercy. Panic-stricken officers and men took flight — a hundred thousand were slaughtered at the Gu and Si Rivers to the east, and a hundred thousand more who fled south perished at the Sui River, until the rivers were so choked with corpses that the water could no longer flow.
Dismounting to meet the five thousand pursuing cavalry under Guan Ying, Xiang Liang cut down several hundred men single-handedly.
Of the warriors of Chu, there was not one who could not match ten men; their battle cries shook heaven and earth, and among the armies of the lords there was not a single man who did not tremble before them. Thus, having already shattered the armies of Qin, Xiang Liang summoned the lords' generals before him — and of all who entered his camp gate, not one failed to crawl forward on his knees, and not one dared to lift his gaze.
…….
I closed the Records of the Grand Historian in my hands and broke out in a cold sweat.
Can you spot what's strange about that?
That's right.
It isn't Xiang Ji. It's Xiang Liang.
So why, you ask, was I putting myself through this?
"You know, I still don't know your real name, Seo Yeo. I'll keep it a secret, promise — so could you tell me the name you wouldn't give me before? Just to me?"
Going about my day as usual, I had tossed the question at Seo Yeo, who stood keeping watch at my side.
"Xiang Ji."
Without a sliver of hesitation, she gave me the true name she had kept hidden all this time.
"...What did you say?"
"Xiang Ji."
"……."
Right. It had been a monumentally rash question.
All to satisfy that damned curiosity of mine, I had gone and pressed a bomb switch without even realizing it.
What did I need her name for anyway? I was going to call her Seo Yeo for the rest of my life regardless!
So I headed for the room where the books were kept and spread open Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian — and there it was, the passage where history had come off its rails.
Every deed that should have been recorded as Xiang Ji's had been rewritten in the name of Xiang Liang.
Xiang Liang. In the original history, wasn't he Xiang Ji's uncle? I can't quite remember.
Seo Yeo was hardly the sort to tell lies, but with the text backing her up like this, there was simply no choice but to believe her.
It was a true name that would have knocked anyone else who heard it flat on their back.
"You haven't told anyone else your name, have you?"
At my worried question, Seo Yeo shook her head.
"Only you, my lord, may know my true name."
"That's a relief."
Hearing her true name, I finally understood why she had tried so hard to hide it when I first took her in.
The surname Xiang.
Anyone who could hear it and feel nothing at all was lying.
And if it ever came to light?
Hard to say. But in an era that put such stock in bloodlines, I could guarantee it would make for one almighty headache.
...As long as it never came to light, no harm done.
Short of Seo Yeo announcing to the world that she meant to rebuild the kingdom of Chu and raising open hell over it, no one was ever going to discover her true name.
"Then that's that. Let's keep it just between the two of us, from now on."
"A secret between the two of us... Understood."
With her tone climbing ever so slightly, Seo Yeo nodded.
"By the way — what would you have done if I'd started keeping my distance from you?"
Having returned the Shiji to its shelf, I made my way slowly across the room.
"I intended to end my own life."
"...I'm sorry, what?"
Stunned, I turned around and looked at her.
With the same expressionless face as always, she stated it flatly.
"This life was spared once already. Rather than become a burden to you, I would cut it short myself."
"No — there's no need for anything like that. Don't."
Her heart weighed a ton.
Was this really the same Xiang Ji who had watched Qin Shi Huang's imperial procession roll past and declared, 'Someday that seat will be mine!'?
Judging by the martial skill she'd shown in her spars with Lü Bu, it was her beyond any doubt.
But she looked for all the world like a woman who really would take her own life on command, even now — and I had no choice but to talk her out of it.
Having lost her parents early, Lü Bu had been left all alone in this vast, wide world.
The world was not kind to a girl left with nothing.
Blood-red hair.
Blood-red eyes.
"Ominous colors."
"Keep your distance from that one."
"Get close to her, and you'll be swept into her calamity."
She couldn't even blame them.
This was a world where no one ever knew when, where, or how death would come calling — a world where the powerless had no choice but to pray that today, too, might pass without harm.
In a world like that, people naturally clung to superstition and kept her at arm's length.
Besides, she knew better than anyone that her coloring wasn't exactly easy on the eyes.
The only fortune Lü Bu had left to her name was the body she'd been born in, and there was only one thing in this world she knew how to do.
Stabbing. Slashing. Smashing.
Whether that counted as a blessing, she couldn't say — but this land, at least, had work in plenty for a girl who could do only one thing.
It was an age of war.
Kill the tiresome bastards who kept coming back no matter how many times you cut them down, then take your pay from the villagers beneath their frightened stares.
Then do it again.
Repeat it, and repeat it again.
A life with nothing in it but fighting.
She could feel her mind fraying a little more with every passing day, but Lü Bu could not quit.
Killing people was the only thing she knew. If she gave that up, how was she supposed to survive?
Never one for racking her brain, Lü Bu simply kept swinging her weapon in silence.
Every day that passed felt like something being whittled away from the inside.
People who still flinched at the sight of her.
Bastards who came running to kill her the moment they laid eyes on her.
It was just as she was beginning to think that the only person in this world she could trust was herself —
"Interested in making a name for yourself?"
A strange one, this guy.
Even with the stench of the blood of the men she'd just cut down hanging thick in the air all around, he had walked straight up to her without a second thought.
As always, people looked at her the way one looks at something terrifying — but this was the first time anyone had ever gazed at her with eyes that sparkled.
"...Mind your own business."
He was the first person who had ever come close to her like this, and the curt answer slipped out before she could help it.
Even so, the man broke into an easy smile and opened his mouth again.
"Too abrupt? Then let's start simpler — what's your name?"
"……."
That was the first meeting of Jeong Reung and Lü Bu.
Having put her martial arts on display for all to see, Lü Bu now found herself leading troops under the patronage of the Governor of Bing Province.
She would punch through the enemy line first and kick up a storm, and the soldiers following at her back would surge in behind her.
That alone was enough to send enemies scattering like autumn leaves before the wind.
Frankly speaking, apart from the scale of it, the work was exactly the same as before.
But some things had undeniably changed.
"Peerless Under Heaven, just as the stories say! I'll trust in you and follow you all my life!"
"With you as our general, you could surely command all under heaven!"
There were loyal soldiers who followed her now —
"You're back?"
— and when she led her men home to the government office, there was a man who welcomed her with a smile.
A man who greeted the woman coming home from work with a grin on his face.
Almost like a married couple, really...?
Startled by her own embarrassing thought, Lü Bu shook her head clean of it.
"Nicked yourself again, huh?"
So saying, the man took hold of her arm and set about treating the wound with practiced hands.
"All I know how to do is dab on some salve and wrap a bandage, remember? I told you — if you're hurt, you go to a physician first."
Even as the man's nagging came in slow, deliberate beats, his hands as they tended the wound could not have been gentler.
To his words, Lü Bu said nothing, stealing glances at his face instead.
Naturally so — she had come here first, on purpose, just to have him treat her.
If he ever found out that even her little cuts weren't accidents, he would be absolutely beside himself, so she kept her mouth clamped shut.
A nagging man, and a woman left floundering under his lecturing.
Just like a married cou—
Why did these weird thoughts keep popping up all of a sudden?
"There. All done."
Finished with the bandage, the man released her arm.
The moment his warmth vanished from her skin, she caught herself mourning it —
.......
Augh, seriously.
A faint shiver ran through her, and Lü Bu opened her mouth to steer the conversation elsewhere.
"You've noticed things feeling off lately, right?"
"Off how?"
Lü Bu thought of the suspicious crowds that had been cropping up so much more often these days.
"What was it again... 'The Blue Heaven has fallen — the Yellow Heaven shall rise'? People have been wandering around singing that song."
"……."
"No idea what it means, but it just gives me a bad feeling."
Intuition was the one talent she'd been born with, and it was telling her that something was going to happen, and soon.
"I couldn't explain it properly if you asked me to, but still..."
"It's fine. I trust you."
The man said it calmly.
"When it comes to sniffing out that sort of thing, your instincts are second to none, Lü Bu."
"……."
His words, so laden with trust, left Lü Bu unable to find her voice.
Two people who worried over each other — and believed in each other.
.......
Married couple?
Why did her thoughts keep veering in that direction?!
At the sight of Lü Bu raking both hands wildly through her hair, the man's face turned comically baffled.
And Seo Yeo, standing guard behind the man, watched her with eyes that gave away nothing at all.