Warlords' Contention (3)
Sun Ce was the terror feared by fierce and brutal river pirates, the dreaded "Female Leopard," yet she was famous for her spirited, wild-horse mettle and beautiful features.
A wildflower blooming on a cliff edge.
Her gallant bearing was like the dazzling gleam of a jewel.
She accepted no one.
She gave her consent to none, nor did she give her heart to anyone.
A beauty who possessed a sharp edge as lethal as a sword-point, yet whose lovely features stood out all the more. The fierce grace and charm—the exact opposite of a sheltered daughter raised like a hothouse flower in a prestigious clan—were enough to captivate countless hot-blooded young scions.
"Please accept my heart! I will bring to bear all my personal ability and my clan's influence to raise the Wu Prefecture Sun Clan onto solid ground!"
"If you accept my heart, I promise a lifetime of wealth and splendor! An armored warrior-woman's figure is certainly lovely, but if you become the mistress of my household, you will enjoy a life of extravagant luxury as a noble matron forever!"
Scholar-officials of high renown.
Local gentry boasting immense fortunes.
There were even collateral royal kinsmen and nobles who had come down from the Central Plains.
Wealth. Power.
A comfortable and stable life.
Every last suitor who proposed marriage emphasized wealth and splendor. No exceptions.
They must have figured that if they flaunted their clan's wealth and prestige, the Wu Prefecture Sun Clan—a mere newly risen frontier gentry family—would snap up the match. They had rashly concluded it was just a clan destined for failure and decline, whose patriarch had gone up to Luoyang seeking office only to shuttle between trivial low-rank posts on the front lines.
"An age of chaos that prizes power alone has arrived, so what use is a clan's wealth and splendor?! You got beaten that badly by Yellow Scarves bandits and yet... aren't you ashamed, still clinging to wealth and renown while playing king in some tiny prefecture?"
It turned her stomach.
She was close to disgust.
The scions of great clans who had enjoyed the protection of their families all their lives and accepted fine food and clothing as a natural right exuded no ambition or daring. They were mere commoners content to settle for their current power and wealth.
"Get lost! You mangy bastards!"
She spat the rough curse.
And brought her greatsword down, driving off the suitors who swarmed like insects.
"How dare you swing a blade at me...! I will not overlook this!"
"You're a woman who doesn't know her place. Nothing but some upstart clan of short lineage!"
Crash-!
Shatter-!!
She rampaged, smashing furniture to pieces.
She even slammed the ones who insulted her family face-first into the mud.
Crazy bitch.
A wench who doesn't know her limits.
A thug of a daughter making a clumsy mockery of a warrior.
She used physical force to pulverize every last marriage proposal that rained in from all sides. Her mother, Lady Wu, sighed at her tomboy daughter's outrageous antics but showed that she respected her wishes.
"You're afraid I'll end up an old maid for life? Then all I have to do is bring home a hero of the age so magnificent and handsome I'll fall for him at first sight, right? That's not exactly hard, is it? Of course, he has to be a hero of the age and... possess outstanding features and dignity. He has to be so tall that I have to stop and crane my neck just to meet his eyes, and he needs the astonishing military talent to skillfully command thousands upon thousands of troops! You think that's impossible no matter how you look at it? Hmph, even I know my greed is excessive."
Handsome features.
A towering frame reaching nine cheok.
Magnificent dignity and an air of dominance.
Outstanding military talent and Leadership to command a great host.
And, as icing on the cake, a noble bloodline and birth fit to command the realm.
Could such a person,
could such a hero even exist?
It would be impossible even if she poured out all of a lifetime's fortune and allotted years.
Finding a mate in this lifetime would be impossible. The boy who was the tomboy's longtime friend—the one who was gallant yet self-assured—took a highly skeptical view, saying, "Well, the firstborn's a lost cause. All we can do is pin our hopes on the second and third daughters."
* * *
Sun Ce and Zhou Yu arrived atop a hill overlooking the vast plains. They had come to see for themselves the Crown Prince who had decided the success or failure of the anti-Dong Zhuo alliance, and the great host of the south.
The members of the Wu Prefecture Sun Clan were waiting at the city gate where the Victory Parade would be held. Sun Ce maintained a composed face, but the thought of her mother—who had ultimately been unable to hide her joy—drew a faint smile.
"...They're coming."
Some time passed.
The earth's axis screamed as it resounded.
At the same moment, violent clouds of dust swept across the vast plain.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom──.
A legion of steel, armed with sharp blades, displayed its majestic might. Proving they were regulars tempered by real combat that straddled life and death, they raced at full speed yet maintained their ranks with flawless coordination.
The steel cast a menacing gleam.
Countless banners packed in dense ranks streamed in the gale.
Indeed, the host did not fall short of its fame.
The army led by the Greatest Archer Under Heaven boasted the dignity of a One-Man Army.
"There! Father's Grand Command Banner! The red war banner, I mean!"
"The center of the army... the elders and the commanders are with the main body!"
Sun Ce and Zhou Yu's gazes locked onto the Grand Command Banner of the General Who Defeats the Barbarians. The red war banner symbolizing the Tiger of Jiangdong was starkly visible even in that field swirling with maddened dust.
Father.
Father is there.
Now, after years of separation, she would be reunited with him.
The beautiful girl who wore her red hair long was joyful, her eyes glistening with tears. It was a sentimental sight ill-suited to the tomboy who had always shown only a fierce and assertive face.
"The King of Chen...? Right next to him is the Grand Command Banner of a vassal king!"
"Then it is certainly Crown Prince Liu Seong-hwi. I once heard that the King of Chen, on the eve of the Crown Prince's departure for campaign, bestowed his own Grand Command Banner upon him."
Liu Seong-hwi.
He was the man who had selected her father.
He was also the man to whom her father had sworn fealty.
Sun Ce's gaze lingered on the Southern Heir commanding thousands upon thousands of troops. Naturally, if he was the man to whom her father, renowned in battle as a fierce general of the age, had pledged his loyalty, he was bound to be an outstanding hero.
* * *
A man carrying a gigantic bow revealed himself.
Liu Seong-hwi.
He was unmistakably the Greatest Archer Under Heaven.
She had heard he possessed a towering frame surpassing nine and a half cheok, so she had expected craggy features. Yet contrary to expectation, the Southern Heir was a handsome young nobleman.
The noble bloodline of Emperor Guangwu.
The outstanding background of being a vassal king's legitimate line and successor.
He had even led many warlords to utterly rout Luoyang's Imperial Guard and Central Army.
'I heard that he secured the Imperial Jade Seal from Luoyang as it lay reduced to ruins... Is a hero marked by Heaven truly such an existence as that? "A flawless and peerless hero" must be a phrase coined precisely for the Southern Heir.'
Favor implies partiality.
If love were meted out fairly to all people, the very word "favor" could not exist.
A noble bloodline and peerless military talent.
On top of that, a nine-cheok frame, a comely face, and dignity inherited to boot.
More often than not, most people die without ever experiencing heaven's grace in their entire lives. So for ordinary mortals and commoners, the Southern Heir must become an object of both admiration and jealousy.
"Ce?"
The tomboy girl who should have been bouncing around making a ruckus was oddly quiet.
Zhou Yu turned his head to look at Sun Ce.
"C-Cr...! C-C-Crown...!"
"...?"
The sound of a girl's voice, brimming with sweet embarrassment, reached his ears. Hearing that voice, Zhou Yu beheld Sun Ce's face flushed bright red as she stood utterly at a loss, and he froze just like that.
Flushed, burning cheeks.
Thick lips that twitched without pause.
Golden eyes that radiated love and adoration for her ideal type.
She was even cupping her own cheeks with both hands like a heroine out of a romance novel. An odd exclamation—"Hawawawa!"—even leaked from her lips.
"Crown Prince? What kind of weird address is that?"
"Then what should I call him?"
"The respectful title normally used for the heir of a feudal lord would be something like 'young lord.'"
"Young lord, then...!"
Must you absolutely attach an honorific?
He muttered as he looked at the girl savoring her rapture, her cheeks trembling faintly.
"He's incredibly handsome! And so incredibly tall, and his majesty and dignity are incredible too...!"
"'Flawless and peerless' must be a phrase coined precisely for the Southern Heir."
It beggared belief.
The thuggish daughter of Jiangdong, who had been so ferocious and brutal—
Is this a dream?
If it is a dream, let me never wake.
Zhou Yu felt emotion swelling in his chest.
The fierce Female Leopard of Jiangdong, who had brandished a greatsword and smashed furniture to make her suitors recoil in terror, had suddenly turned as meek as an exuberantly friendly puppy. She even showed herself to be bashful, unable to look straight at the object of her ideals right in front of her, jerking her head away rapidly.
"Why not ask for a private audience later? If you ask the elder, it'll certainly be possible."
"A private audience?! D-Don't talk nonsense! Just seeing him in front of my eyes is enough to make my heart burst...! If I'm left alone with the Crown Prince, my chest will definitely explode!!"
Her heart pounded fiercely, a drumbeat signaling an army's advance.
For the first time.
It was a violent impulse she was experiencing for the first time.
If the fact that she had fallen for her ideal type at first sight ever got out, she would be met with scathing assessments: "So the Wu Prefecture Sun Clan's daughter is a face-obsessed airhead who judges men by their looks." "Fallen at a single glance... there are limits to being loose."
"Don't you tell anyone else...! Ever! Especially not my mother!!"
"Fine."
Sun Ce shouted, her eyes blazing with ferocity.
At that, Zhou Yu shrugged his shoulders.
"Heehee...! The Crown Prince is seriously handsome. Tall and really muscular too. Makes those scholar-official and gentry scions who sent proposals all this time feel like nothing more than dog shit. Compared to the Crown Prince, every other man is shit. Total shit."
"..."
After flashing a loose grin, she began to drool audibly.
This is perilous.
It's already accelerating into a severe case.
Because she had never once been in love, her immunity to lovesickness was scraping rock bottom.
Mm.
In the end, she'll be found out before the day is even over.
Watching Sun Ce giggle vacantly like a puppy wagging its tail in sheer delight, Zhou Yu foresaw the future with a heavy sigh.