I'm in Love with You
I'm in Love with You
"... What?"
"Because I like you... I want to give it to you. To you..."
A sudden confession from Dong Zhuo.
Struck by the unexpected, powerful blow, I was bewildered and asked.
"... Um... that thing you said, about liking. Surely it isn't... what I think it is, is it? The so-called... affection."
"..."
At my disbelieving question, Dong Zhuo slowly nodded.
Then, she looked at my face with her hands clasped tight and spoke.
"That word... is correct. I, Dong Zhuo, am saying that I... have feelings for you, Yuan Shu."
"!"
"These feelings of mine... can you accept them?"
Her face flushed bright red, and at that follow-up blow—like a confirmation kill—I felt my mind momentarily leave my body.
No, she likes... no, she loves me?
That Dong Zhuo?
Me?
All of a sudden? Why?
What did I even do up to now for her to like me?
Did I show up like a prince on a white horse and save her... Well, I did.
In a bleak situation, I gave her useful advice... I did that too.
Thinking back, I had ended up blurting out something embarrassing like 'you're beautiful.'
Memories of those past days surfaced belatedly, hazy and indistinct.
Looking back on it like this, I realized that I had, in fact, done a great many things akin to reckless flirting without any real thought.
Honestly, I'd been so out of my mind with the war and everything, but still...
No, even putting that aside, the other person was none other than 'Dong Zhuo.'
The worst human scum across both historical records and the Romance.
A person who treats human life like flies,
and even dethroned an emperor and turned a two-hundred-year capital into ashes overnight—considered supremely evil even among Wang Mang, Dong Zhuo, Cao Cao, and Sima Yi, the four great traitors.
No matter how well I treated her without thinking much of it, how could anyone, by any common sense, think such a person would fall for me?
But common sense or not,
the problem was that it had actually happened.
"Hmm..."
Dong Zhuo wore an embarrassed expression and waited for an answer.
Barely pulling my mind back from the chaos, a complicated mix of emotions began to rise within me, following the shock.
Looking at the picture alone, it was a beautiful, big-breasted older woman confessing to a younger man (ten years apart...).
Well... you couldn't call it perfectly ordinary, what with the age gap and the confession gift being the severed head of the hundred-thousand-strong Yellow Turban leader, but still, judging only by the confessor's appearance, there were elements that could make a heart flutter.
Especially from the sole perspective of a man who loves a buxom beauty, it was actually something to be grateful for.
Attraction alone was not enough.
Even if the overall atmosphere and her appearance were acceptable, I could not easily accept this confession.
To repeat: the other person was Dong Zhuo.
A villain who, along with countless lives, also snuffed out the life of a four-hundred-year empire; a figure like the incarnation of power itself.
I still had my reservations about believing that such a person had confessed to me out of pure affection alone.
The fact that she handed over Zhang Jiao's head, the greatest merit in suppressing the Yellow Turban Rebellion, was unexpected.
At first glance, it could be seen as offering a stepping stone to rise in rank and seize power.
The problem was that the target of that confession was me, Yuan Shu, who was considered the successor of the Yuan clan.
Depending on how you looked at it, I couldn't rule out the possibility that it was a scheme to draw on the power of the Yuan clan, one of the Han dynasty's greatest prestigious houses, for her ambition.
Indeed, in the Original Timeline, Dong Zhuo, who had just entered Luoyang and was consolidating power, gave Yuan Shu the office of General of the Rear to court him, so it was a situation more than suspicious enough.
And this sort of love with calculations beneath it...
No, this 'deception' disguised as love, was something I could never accept.
"... Ah... please give me your answer... staying like this is a little... embarrassing."
"That is..."
"Perhaps... do you dislike me? Is it because I am already too old, or because I come from a frontier region..."
"Not at all. I too consider you, Lady Zhongying, to be a sufficiently charming woman. However..."
"How... however?"
With a face full of embarrassment, she asked the question in a trembling voice.
On the surface, she even gave off the feeling of a pure young girl,
but regarding this, I did not let down my guard completely, and instead, I tried to obliquely draw out her true intentions.
"However... as I am now, I cannot accept the goal that you, Lady Zhongying, harbor."
"! Go... goal... you say? What do you mean...?"
A question.
No, Dong Zhuo's expression was one of bewilderment.
Watching that,
in order to more definitively draw out her ulterior motive, I presented one 'truth' that I held in my mind.
"The empire."
"!"
A short phrase that came from my lips, yet contained everything.
Dong Zhuo's expression began to waver.
A reaction that showed I had hit the mark.
Watching this, I continued in an even more cautious voice.
"I will not speak deeply about the empire itself. But... even if we were to form a bond, if what we each pursue is different, the end can never be good. That is what I am agonizing over. You, Lady Zhongying, and I have a great difference in the goals we wish to achieve."
"..."
Unable to refute my words, she shut her mouth,
and seeing her like that—her inner thoughts finally surfacing—I secretly let out a small sigh.
As expected, Dong Zhuo was still Dong Zhuo...
Even though she had become a woman, she still possessed the ambition to seize the empire.
If that was the case, then this 'affection' she showed might also be a means to achieve that ambition...
"Then... if I give it up... would that be enough?"
"... What?"
"I asked if I give it up. If I abandon my ambition... my goal of obtaining the empire, and walk the same path as you... could you accept these feelings?"
No... she'd just give it up, just like that? Dong Zhuo, of all people?
At the unexpected reply, I was momentarily at a loss for words.
To seize the empire, and to maintain it.
In the Original Timeline, Dong Zhuo was someone who used every dirty trick in the book without hesitation.
The fact that such a Dong Zhuo had declared from her own lips that she would abandon it delivered a shock even greater than receiving a love confession.
If this was true, depending on the situation, it might not be impossible to bring the turbulent era to an early end.
However, apart from being considerably surprised, I could not readily believe it.
Even in the Original Timeline, he had betrayed his superior Huangfu Song and ultimately murdered the emperor, his own sovereign.
The world was by no means so easy that I could naively believe a declaration of submission made only with words by such a person.
'But even so... the problem is that this could also be her true feelings...'
By all accounts, the Dong Zhuo of the Original Timeline was someone with whom you shouldn't even associate, let alone trust.
But the Dong Zhuo I knew in this world was different.
Even now, she was looking at me with naked anxiety.
Her sincerity seemed genuine.
Of course, you can know the water's depth but not a person's heart, as the saying goes, so I couldn't be one hundred percent sure of it.
But at the very least, I felt there was a need to find out if these feelings of hers were true or not... a need to give her a chance.
Part of it was the hope of ending the chaotic times,
but I also wasn't such a heartless man that I would reject a woman's feelings without reason.
It was absolutely not because of her beauty and her truly terrifying bust.
Absolutely not.
"Could you... give me time? I think it will be a little difficult to answer right here and now, no matter how I look at it."
"... Understood. Let it be so."
Dong Zhuo's reaction seemed to hold a mixture of disappointment and expectation.
Seeing a look so perfect that if it were an act I'd want to applaud, I bowed my head respectfully.
"Thank you, Lady Zhongying. I will give you an answer... in the near future."
"Yes. Please, do not make me wait too long."
Having bought some time by deferring my answer for now,
I immediately began to ponder how I could draw out her true intentions.
Dangle an appropriate lure?
If she was willing to hand over Zhang Jiao's head, then an ordinary lure would be completely useless.
Then, how about deliberately creating an extreme situation by faking a sense of crisis?
It didn't seem like a bad method, but the Yellow Turbans were already utterly ruined. And above all, since my opponent was Dong Zhuo who rode around on Red Hare, even setting up the situation itself seemed like it wouldn't be easy.
Several days passed like that, as I thought about it while handling the post-war matters.
At last, I resolved to test Dong Zhuo with a method I deemed satisfactory.
I had barely made up my mind when—
"By command of His Majesty the Emperor, Dong Zhuo is to be dismissed from the position of General of the Household for the North and appointed General of the Left. Immediately lead the officers and soldiers under your command to Liang Province and suppress the rebellion that has occurred there."
'... Ha. You fucking bastard. You're really gonna twist it like this?'
A damned imperial edict that now only made me feel sick and tired of it all.
Within it was an order to reassign Dong Zhuo to suppress a rebellion that had arisen in Liang Province—that is, Xiliang.
From the looks of it, the rebellion that had happened in Xiliang even in the Original Timeline, the rebellion of Bian Zhang and Han Sui, had broken out, and the court was trying to have Dong Zhuo deal with it just like in the Original Timeline.
The difference was that in the Original Timeline, General of Chariots and Cavalry Huangfu Song was made the commander-in-chief and Dong Zhuo was placed under him, but here, perhaps owing to the merit she gained with me in crushing the Yellow Turbans, Dong Zhuo was appointed General of the Left and entrusted with the task independently.
Moreover, the timing had been moved up in various ways, but since even the Yellow Turban Rebellion had broken out ten years early, this much... well, it was bound to happen anyway, so I could just let it slide.
The problem was that the rebellion, which had the terrible timing of occurring at this moment, had destroyed the very opportunity for me to execute the plan related to Dong Zhuo's confession.
As I felt that bewilderment,
Dong Zhuo, who had just received the emperor's decree, also slightly turned her head and cast a glance full of extreme embarrassment my way.
She too, having confessed, was at a loss as to what to do about this situation where she was leaving for a place thousands of li away.
Watching this side of her,
I came to a single decision in my heart.
*
"Haa..."
The night before departing for Xiliang, her post and homeland.
Dong Zhuo gazed at the man before her eyes, Yuan Shu, and tilted her cup of wine amid her sighs.
She desperately did not want to go.
But having received the emperor's decree, she had no right to refuse.
The best she could do now was to finish the work there as quickly as possible and seek a way to return, but for now, she could not be sure how long that would take.
Holding such an uneasy feeling in her heart,
Dong Zhuo poured wine into Yuan Shu's cup and spoke.
"I am sorry. Though I was the one who brought up the subject... for things to have turned out this way."
"Not at all. How could that be Lady Zhongying's fault? It is all because this country lacks capable people."
"... Ha."
At his words laced with bitterness, Dong Zhuo let out a deep sigh.
From Xiliang to this place, Ji Province, was a great distance.
Even maintaining contact would not be easy, and as she was going to suppress a rebellion, it was sure to take a long time.
As things came to this, it could be said that her confession would ultimately end up fizzling out into nothing.
From Yuan Shu's position, there was no reason to accept the feelings of a woman whose face he couldn't even see.
'In the end... was something like this never meant to be for me...?'
She had been prepared to put down even her lifetime goal to gain his affection.
It hadn't been without regret, but the profound feeling she experienced for the first time allowed even such ambition to be extinguished.
Above all... there wasn't only one way to achieve a goal.
However, despite such resolve, her heart seemed destined to wither and fall without even having a chance to bloom once.
Truly feeling disappointed at that fact,
a deep shadow was cast over Dong Zhuo's face.
For the first time in a very long while... she felt as if tears might fall.
At that moment.
-Thunk!
Yuan Shu emptied his cup in one go and set it down roughly.
Then,
with an expression as if he had made a resolution, he looked at Dong Zhuo.
"Gener... al Yuan?"
"I have something to tell you. Regarding the confession you made earlier."
"!"
His presence held an indescribable force.
And.
Listening to the man's words that immediately followed.
Dong Zhuo's face began to flush red right then and there.
A single tear streamed down her cheek.
Within it,
was an emotion entirely opposite
to the despair that had filled her only moments before.