Inspector of Youzhou (7)
"Lost them?! What do you mean, you lost them?!"
The instant Gongsun Zan — who had only just smothered the fire raging through his grain stores — heard that Liu Yu had slipped from his grasp, he let out a roar.
"These were no ordinary cavalry I threw at them! I attached the White Horse Volunteers themselves, and you're telling me they got away?!"
"My lord! I have no face left to show you!"
Yan Gang dropped to one knee before Gongsun Zan, bowing himself nearly double as he shouted.
There was nothing Gongsun Zan despised more than a subordinate making excuses — the endless drivel of it couldn't be helped because of this or the situation left me no choice. By Yan Gang's own reckoning, the men who had already parted with their heads over such talk numbered well past a hundred.
And so Yan Gang had judged that owning his failure quickly and taking his punishment was the wiser course by far.
Whether it was the sight of him bent low and trembling that did the trick or not, Gongsun Zan closed his eyes and drew a long, heavy breath.
"…Dismissed."
"Yes, my lord!"
The moment the order fell, Yan Gang was on his feet, scurrying away as fast as his legs would carry him.
Gongsun Zan didn't spare him so much as a glance. He simply nodded to himself, sinking into thought.
"Yes. There was nothing to be done about it, I suppose."
Liu Bei.
Judging by her looks alone, one would be forgiven for taking her for a woman who couldn't so much as swing a sword — and yet she was every inch a commander who led armies on the front line. Even Gongsun Zan himself had whistled in spite of himself at the sight of her whirling twin blades from horseback. However elite the White Horse Volunteers might be, set against a general like her they could hardly come out ahead. And once he considered the women she carried at her side, calling them her sworn sisters, it was hardly any surprise that the party had escaped unscathed.
Gongsun Zan let his gaze drift to the soldiers lying where they had fallen, each cut down by a single stroke.
Martial skill that could hold even a Peerless Under Heaven at bay.
It stung that Liu Yu had slipped away. It stung that some of his soldiers had been thrown away so cheaply. But more than either of those, what galled him most was the simple fact that they had escaped from between his fingers.
"And yet, something about this doesn't sit right."
The Liu Bei that Gongsun Zan knew would surely have been too flustered by his lavish hospitality to make a single move — that was what he had expected. That was precisely why, even after learning she had been meeting with a seditious crowd, he had deliberately let it pass. Liu Bei was not the sort to repay the kindness she received with treachery. Even if she could never repay a debt in full, she would not walk the path of the faithless ingrate without a reason.
Gongsun Zan turned to look toward the west gate, the direction Liu Bei's party had fled with Liu Yu in tow. When word first came that they were headed toward Zhongshan, he had assumed they were running for Jizhou. But a moment's reflection was all it took to see the flaw in that. If they had truly meant to flee to Jizhou, they would have slipped out the south gate and made for Ye or Nanpi.
"Bing Province… Bing Province, of all places…"
The heartland of the General-in-Chief, who wielded the greatest power in the realm today. A land tormented by foreign tribes day in and day out, much like the Youzhou he himself ruled. Why on earth would Liu Bei flee there, of all directions? After all, the power ruling that land was hostile to her and her companions — or it should have been.
Yuan Shao, who held Nanpi, and Han Fu, who governed Ye, were neither of them the sort to turn away Liu Bei's party and Liu Yu should they come seeking refuge. It was conduct that made no sense at all — unless, of course, Liu Bei had received orders from the General-in-Chief himself. Following that thread, Gongsun Zan's eyes widened a fraction. Could she truly have taken the General-in-Chief's command? Since when? It had not been so very long since the Battle of Hulao Pass, when Liu Bei had left his ranks claiming she had unfinished business. Measure the distance between Youzhou and Luoyang, and the timeline simply did not allow for it — not unless she had ridden straight for the capital without pausing once.
Gongsun Zan breathed out a hollow laugh.
"…Heh. Truly. Remarkable."
Granted, this was a muddled age where yesterday's enemy became today's ally — but wasn't she switching sides a touch too quickly?
"Xuande, little sister. I never took you for this sort of woman, and I must say — what a disappointment."
With a dry chuckle, Gongsun Zan looked down at the corpse laid out before him. The man who had set the grain stores alight. The loyal officer who had surrendered his own life to save Liu Yu's. Zhang Chan had cut down every soldier sent to douse the flames, buying time for as long as his blade would hold, and in the end he had met death at Gongsun Zan's own hand. In the very moment Gongsun Zan cut him down, word arrived that Liu Yu had escaped the city — and Zhang Chan died smiling.
"Tsk. If only that loyalty had been offered to me."
Clicking his tongue, Gongsun Zan stared down at Zhang Chan's body where it lay sprawled across the frozen earth. If he were ever placed in the same position, would there be anyone who would give his life to save him, the way these men had for their lord?
"My lord! We've captured the one who led soldiers and threw open the city gate!"
While Gongsun Zan sat with his eyes closed, lost in thought, a civil official was being hauled toward him from far off, trussed hand and foot. Blood seeped from wounds all over his body, but the conviction burning in his eyes remained utterly unbroken. Gongsun Zan opened his eyes and looked down at the official kneeling before him.
"Sun Jin."
"…"
"Why go and throw your life away?"
"Hahahaha!"
At the question, Sun Jin burst out laughing without warning.
"When a servant has the chance to save his lord, what true subject would ever spurn it!"
"Do you truly believe that man is worth saving?"
"A savage brute like you could live a hundred years and never understand!"
The moment Sun Jin hurled the insult, the surrounding soldiers began trading glances and eyeing Gongsun Zan warily, wondering why on earth the man would curse him to his face. One unlucky slip, and their own heads might roll for something that was no fault of theirs. So this was how it would be, then — for the foreseeable future they would have to live with their heads bowed, never once meeting Gongsun Zan's eyes. If it was going to be like this, they thought, they should never have brought the man back alive at all; killing him on the spot, dressing it up as an accident, and carrying back nothing but the corpse would have suited them far better. And while Gongsun Zan's soldiers groaned these laments into their own hearts, the reaction their lord actually showed took every one of them aback.
"Hm…"
For once there was no eruption of rage — he simply sat there, quiet, seemingly sunk in a question of his own. As the soldiers studied him in bewilderment, Gongsun Zan spoke in a flat, even voice.
"Take that corpse and that man's head, and hang them both in the marketplace."
"At once!"
Gongsun Zan watched as the soldiers snapped off a swift bow and dragged the bodies of Sun Jin and Zhang Chan away.
"Gongsun Zan! The day will come when you pay for every one of your crimes—!!"
"Hm…"
Whatever Sun Jin screamed after him, Gongsun Zan ignored it, buried in his own thoughts. Then, quite suddenly, he murmured a single word.
"Benevolence and righteousness."
The moral duty that a person ought to keep and to practice. Now that he thought of it, there had been a time when he himself had entertained such notions — this benevolence and righteousness that Liu Yu had always insisted mattered above all else. Could those virtues truly save a man like Liu Yu? That, he had once wondered.
"Perhaps that benevolence of theirs really did save Liu Yu, after all."
After all, hadn't that little sister of his, Xuande, gone about singing of benevolence and righteousness until it poured from her ears? Perhaps kindred souls had simply been drawn to one another, and a life had been spared for it. Picturing Liu Bei and Liu Yu, Gongsun Zan let out a scornful snort. But what good would it do them in the end? In the end, weren't these two left without so much as one respectable force to call their own? Liu Yu had lost his power the moment he lost to him, and Liu Bei drifted from place to place, still without anywhere to plant her banner. It might be enough to keep their own skins intact, but it fell far, far short of what any grand ambition would demand.
He had even entertained the fancy of Liu Bei settling into the General-in-Chief's fold, raising troops under his banner, and one day marching against him — but Gongsun Zan shook his head. Her conduct this time had settled the question beyond doubt. Liu Bei was not a woman who could ever live under another.
"General-in-Chief. You will never be able to hold on to Liu Bei."
He wondered, idly, what would happen if the General-in-Chief did possess the benevolence and righteousness Liu Bei sang of so earnestly — but there was no chance of that. Every warlord in the realm today stood worlds apart from such words, and so Liu Bei was destined to wander the whole wide world until the end of it. How could anyone reach for the throne while coddling frail commoners who amounted to nothing more than baggage? Liu Yu and Liu Bei alike — fools, every last one of them.
A Liu Yu whose body had been sapped by captivity could never have endured a forced march all the way to Luoyang. And so the party that had succeeded in rescuing him decided to rest in a village for a short while before pressing on. Liu Bei had worried, briefly, over whether the villagers would lift a finger for strangers like them — but to her relief, the residents welcomed the party, outsiders though they were, with unreserved warmth.
"We heard you sold your own horses to help the people of another village, and drove the foreign raiders from their homes."
"…"
Word of Liu Bei, it seemed, had been spreading through Bing Province of late. The old man who had come out to greet the party at the edge of the village smiled with gentle warmth.
"How could I ever give heroes like you a cold reception? Come stay at my home, and rest as long as you please."
"Thank you."
"It is only right."
With the old man's blessing given, Liu Bei rummaged through her robes and held out a portion of her money.
"As payment for taking us in—"
"No, no. Put that away."
It was a sum that would have made the eyes of anyone living in a village this small go perfectly round, yet the old man refused it flatly.
"How could I possibly take a hero's money? I have no need of it, I assure you. Spend it somewhere it will do more good, I beg you."
"…I am in your debt."
"In my debt? After all that you heroes have done for us? Nonsense."
Leaning on his cane, the old man looked as though the mere act of standing on his trembling legs was a struggle — and yet his eyes were bright with a keen, lively spirit.
Not every good deed comes back as a blessing. But because there were people like this — people who repaid kindness with kindness — Liu Bei was able to keep going.