Cao Hong and Xiahou Yuan
On the screen, two masseuses knelt in the bathhouse. The pair who had introduced themselves to Lady Mi and Lady Gan as "Hong" and "Yuan" were none other than Cao Hong Zilian and Xiahou Yuan Miaocai — core generals of Cao Cao's army.
Cao Cao's cousins — Cao Ren, Cao Hong, Xiahou Dun, and Xiahou Yuan — were, by their own reckoning and everyone else's, the Four Heavenly Kings at the heart of Cao Cao's forces. What almost no one realized was that this legendary quartet was, in truth, a mix of Cao Cao's male and female cousins.
Very few people had ever caught on that Cao Ren's younger sister Cao Hong, and Xiahou Dun's younger sister Xiahou Yuan, were women. They had trained in the martial arts from the time they were small children, and they had ridden the same battlefields ever since.
Cao Hong wore her hair in a cute little steamed-bun knot, and on the field she was a creature of madness who tore her enemies apart with a cruelty far beyond what the situation required. Whenever she plunged into the enemy ranks, a storm of blood invariably followed — the origin of the nickname that had clung to her ever since: Crimson Lotus Flame.
When she smiled she was the very picture of a cute puppy. The moment her eyes opened, though, the sharp, distinctive gaze of her clan laid itself bare, and she looked like a cat. That peculiar expression of looking down on whoever stood in front of her resembled Cao Cao to a terrifying degree, and her build was similar to his as well — Cao Cao being on the short side for a man — so in emergencies she even played the role of a decoy Cao Cao.
In other words, Cao Hong's role was this: when Cao Cao's army fell, she would save Cao Cao and die in his place. Every time she rode out to battle, she went having sworn an oath to bid this world farewell. Everyone else had to survive even in defeat. Cao Hong, if they lost, had to die without a shred of lingering attachment.
For a woman who lived each day with no hold on life at all, the greatest pleasure was a special training like today's — orchestrating the humiliating spectacle of women she held in contempt.
Women who've never once staked their lives on a battlefield. Who sit in a corner of the house slapping on powder all day, then spend the night getting crushed under a man's cock like dying sows...
As Cao Hong offered her greeting before Lady Gan and Lady Mi, playing the masseuse, she had only one thought in her head.
Ohh... Liu Bei's wives. What delicious-looking ladies. I want to knead every last inch of them... I want to ram those drug-soaked bodies until they're a wreck... I want to flip those tits and that cunt inside out and put them on display for the generals so badly I could lose my mind...
What made Cao Hong's heart drop in her chest was the single, innocent remark that fell from Lady Mi's lips.
"You masseuses look just like generals."
H-how did she notice?
She had hidden her muscular frame beneath the plain white robes. She had trained her feminine bearing until there was nothing wanting in it. In these special trainings — deceiving naked, surrendered women — not once had anyone realized that Cao Hong was a general whose demonic reputation shook the battlefield.
So how did that vacant-looking wife of Liu Bei's figure it out?
That was when Cao Hong discovered Lady Mi's enormous breasts, lying submerged in the water. A size so outrageous it made her jaw fall open. Before she knew it, she had lowered her head.
Th-that's five times mine...
Fierce, relentless training had converted nearly all the useless fat on Cao Hong's body into muscle, and unless you looked closely, her bust resembled a burly man's chest. Perhaps in the eyes of Lady Mi, who had reached the very pinnacle of femininity, there were places where an essential feminine beauty showed through — a beauty Cao Hong could never fake, no matter how she tried to dress it up.
Hah... that pisses me off. I'm going to wreck you properly today. I don't know what's packed inside those giant milkers, but I'm going to wring them down to the last drop...
Watching her cousin begin to wrap a quietly blazing aura around herself, Xiahou Yuan laughed inwardly.
Hong, would you please cool that heat a little? You'll get us caught.
If Cao Hong's face oscillated between puppy and cat, Xiahou Yuan's beauty was the complete opposite — a classic ice-queen in the truest sense. She was considerably taller, and her body was slender and sleek. Her hair was tied cleanly and dropped to the left in a ponytail.
Among Cao Cao's army, thick with burly, rough-hewn characters, her youthful, almost boyish looks stood out at a glance. When she walked around in armor, she was beautiful enough to bring a flush even to the faces of the palace ladies.
Her flaw, if she had one, was an excessive poker face. She never let even the smallest smile show. Combined with a manner that was, in exact contrast to the lively Cao Hong, extremely unsociable, the number of people outside the clan who could confidently claim a friendship with her could be counted on one hand.
That only strengthened her professional image, and she was a general of considerable popularity even within Cao Cao's army. A picturesque commander who never lost her shining beauty even in the thick of desperate combat, and who unfailingly pierced the enemy's throat with the archery that was her pride.
Lotus Blooming on the Battlefield — Xiahou Yuan. That was the nickname her fellow generals had given her.
That a woman like her would occasionally show her face at these special trainings was the result of something like a cute jealousy toward her far more popular older brother, Xiahou Dun.
Brother, by now you must be sitting on the other side of the mirror with no idea at all.
Xiahou Yuan found it far too entertaining to watch Xiahou Dun squirm at the sight of her, then end up getting teased by his fellow generals — entertaining enough that she would volunteer to casually expose her body to comrades who, in ordinary circumstances, were extremely reluctant to emphasize that she was a woman.
Just now, while formally offering the ladies a clasped-fist salute, she had deliberately let her left collar slip, exposing the line of her collarbone and shoulder. White skin that matched her icy looks. Smooth shoulders and well-defined collarbones displayed themselves to splendid effect. Unfortunately, just like Cao Hong, her slender frame had failed to produce a lush, feminine valley of cleavage below.
Well then, generals... please tease my brother to your hearts' content.
To a Xiahou Yuan like that, the existence of Lady Gan and Lady Mi — today's training menu — was neither here nor there.
And on the other side of the glass, Xiahou Yuan's wish was being fulfilled more than was strictly necessary.
"Hell yeah~ General Cao Hong, cute as ever today! Don't you dare get cowed by a pair of tits! Cao Hong! Cao Hong!"
"General Xiahou Yuan's collarbones are insane! They're dazzling — they're dazzling!"
The instant the two generals appeared, Cao Cao's officers hurled their empty cups at the ceiling and poured out a heated roar of cheers.
...Everyone except Xiahou Dun.
"My eye! I swallowed my eyeball just to look at this?! Xu Chu, cover my remaining eye! No — gouge the damn thing out!!!"
Xiahou Dun's desperate flailing, trying not to see his beloved little sister's bared body! Xu Chu, however, wore a snickering expression as he irreverently seized Xiahou Dun's head and turned it straight toward Xiahou Yuan's figure.
"Come now, have a look, General. Lady Xiahou Yuan is offering her big brother a greeting in such a lovely figure~"
"I don't want to see it! The rest of you don't look either!"
A pitiful Xiahou Dun, thrashing about in an effort to shield his sister from view! But the screen, you see, was vast.
"Ooh, General Xiahou Yuan's standing up! Those legs are killer! Bare legs — I want to lick them!"
"I want to get stepped on! I want those pretty feet to step on me!"
"Li Dian, Man Chong, I'll put an arrow through you two on the battlefield later!!"
Yue Jin was staring blankly at Xiahou Dun's lower half.
"Wh-what is it, Yue Jin?"
"...Not up yet?"
"It's not! I said it's not up! Would you get hard looking at your little sister, you lunatic?!"
Yue Jin snorted a laugh and turned his head away. "It was last time, though..."
A roar of laughter exploded among Cao Cao's officers. Xiahou Dun's face went a shade redder still.
The moment Xiahou Dun opened his mouth to fire something back, Cheng Yu turned to Xun You.
"Say, Gongda, why aren't they moving to the massage room? They seem to be having some kind of conversation..."
Xun You focused his attention again. "Ah... Lady Gan appears to have asked a rather peculiar question."
"What was it?"
"Well... she apparently said the two generals look like commoners."
Pffhah! Another burst of laughter erupted among the generals. This time Xiahou Dun joined in.
"C-commoners, she says — hah, hahaha! How country must those two have looked!"
"That's basically begging to get wrecked! General Cao Hong's going to go overboard today!"
Yu Jin even had tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.
In that instant, Lady Gan's naked body rose from the bath.
For a moment, even the generals' chatter died. They had been running their mouths with appraisals, and somewhere in the middle of it Lady Gan's nude figure had grown even more appetizing. The hot bath had flushed her body a deep red, swelling a woman's curves still further, and the hot-spring water dripping between her breasts and her sex — along with her hair and the pretty, soaked shape of her pubic hair — only added to the deliciousness of the sight.
"She's cooked through. It'll sink right in when you ram it."
Li Dian licked his lips. Man Chong was admiring Lady Gan's lean, unpadded figure.
"I only had eyes for Lady Mi's chest, but this woman has quite a figure herself. She feels rather well-trained for a woman... a body that carries a certain tension, you could say. A different flavor from the voluptuous palace ladies of Xuchang."
Xiahou Dun stroked his chin and picked up Man Chong's observation.
"That's because Liu Bei's lot do a lot of running. Those women ride horses. They haul weapons like any man, they work the fields. The parts that developed are different from palace ladies sitting around plucking pipas."
"A body honed for survival, then. The inner muscles must be quite developed. She'd be deliciously springy."
"That's right. The flavor'll be different, that's for sure."
Xu Chu, who favored a woman's backside, and Yue Jin, who enjoyed a firm, compact body, let their eyes track Lady Gan's figure as she draped the plain white robe over herself and headed for the massage room.
It was a ravenous gaze.