Sorry, honey, I can't help it now...
Sorry, honey, I can't help it now...
The Tiger of Jiangdong... Sun Jian, renowned as an exceptional warrior.
Yet, before she was a warrior, she was unmistakably a woman.
Though she had married and borne children,
she was still young and had lost none of her beauty.
And Sun Jian could see it: the man before her now wore the eyes of someone who desired her—who craved every part of her being.
If she were her usual self, she would have refused without a second thought.
The grass on her husband's grave had not even had time to grow.
In her heart, her feelings for him still burned deeply.
However.
Such feelings aside, this man standing before her was the only person who could save the children who meant more to her than her own life.
Honoring the fidelity she owed her dead husband was, of course, important,
but it was nothing compared to the lives of her living children.
In this situation, if offering this body could sway the man's heart,
she would gladly give it a thousand, ten thousand times over.
At that very moment, as Sun Jian swallowed tears of blood and steeled her resolve...
"Very well. I shall grant your request."
"Tha... thank you..."
"In return. There is one thing I will demand of you as well. Can you accept it?"
"!"
Yuan Shu was attaching a condition in exchange for his aid.
At this, Sun Jian, thinking it had finally come to this, suppressed her emotions as much as she could and replied.
"If it is within my power to grant... I will grant you anything."
"Of course. It is well within your power."
A deep smile spread across Yuan Shu's lips.
His feelings of anticipation and excitement laid bare, he looked directly at Sun Jian's face and spoke.
"What I want is Sun Jian. You yourself. For the Tiger of Jiangdong to become mine. That is my price."
"!"
Yuan Shu was putting into words precisely what she had expected.
It was a matter one might be too embarrassed to speak of so bluntly, yet this man stated it without a single shred of hesitation.
And so, as what she had dreaded became reality, Sun Jian let out an internal sigh.
Quietly, in her heart, she offered an apology to the person who was no longer in this world.
'I'm sorry... my husband. I... have no other choice now.'
A choice that made her too ashamed to ever face her husband in the afterlife.
Still, with her children's lives hanging in the balance,
Sun Jian knew what truly mattered,
and she knew what her dead husband would want her to do.
"... I... understand. As General Yuan wishes. I, Sun Jian... shall henceforth belong to you, General."
"My thanks, for accepting my demand. From now on, I shall see that you are treated with nothing but—"
"However. That is a debt I will repay... after you have saved my children. Will that be acceptable?"
Sun Jian spoke firmly to Yuan Shu, whose face plainly showed his joy.
She understood this truth.
A man's heart when he lies down and when he rises are two different things.
Even her own husband had shown such a side, so this man would surely be no different—if not worse.
Giving her body was unavoidable,
but what was far more important needed to be secured first.
"Of course, no problem at all. I give you my word—I will rescue those children."
Yuan Shu readily accepted her demand, a kind of insurance.
Sensing the deep feeling of exhilaration behind his words, Sun Jian shuddered slightly,
but she soon collected herself and rose to her feet.
What mattered now was rescuing her children as quickly as possible.
The matter of what came after... was a 'trivial' problem she could worry about later.
*
There is an old saying: Heaven helps those who help themselves.
As a side note, people often confuse it with "Do Your Best and Leave the Rest to Heaven," a phrase from the Southern Song scholar Li, which carries a similar meaning,
but that proverb actually comes from ancient Greece's Aesop's Fables, not an old Chinese saying. The fact that the word "helps" appears twice is a giveaway of its translated nature.
At any rate, in this moment, for the first time in a long while, I found myself thinking that the old adage might just be true after all.
I'd spent ages pounding the ground in frustration, watching talent slip through my fingers thanks to absurdly monstrous bad luck.
Then, before my very eyes, that very person appeared.
Sun Jian's arrival seized me with no small amount of surprise and expectation.
Who was Sun Jian, after all?
Historically, he was the father—though in this world, she was the mother—of Sun Quan, the ruler of Wu, one of the three kingdoms in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Known by the epithet the Tiger of Jiangdong, Sun Jian was one of the greatest commanders of the Three Kingdoms Era.
In the Records of the Three Kingdoms, he personally lopped off Hua Xiong's head and routed even Lü Bu—a monster of a figure who essentially achieved by himself the feats popularly credited to the Liu Bei brothers.
Though he was later mauled like a dog by our own Xu Rong, he unmistakably displayed the imposing presence befitting the father of Sun Quan.
On top of that, as Yuan Shu, I had no choice but to hold even greater expectations for Sun Jian than for other talents.
This was because, unlike in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, where he appeared as an independent figure, the historical Sun Jian had spent his entire life serving as an officer under Yuan Shu's command.
In reality, Sun Jian's faction only separated from Yuan Shu well into the time of his son, Sun Ce.
The contexts differed, but in both the Romance and the Records, Sun Jian died attacking Liu Biao under Yuan Shu's orders. There was a reason for everything.
While perhaps not as reliable as Ji Ling, who stayed with Yuan Shu to the very end, encountering Sun Jian—a talent with a relatively high recruitment probability—
was like sweet rain after a long drought for me, someone whose faction was brimming with strength yet had a bizarre inability to attract any famous names.
And as if answering my expectations, Sun Jian bowed her head from our very first meeting to plead for help...
Specifically, to plead for help in rescuing her children.
And by 'children,' it was almost certainly Sun Ce, Sun Quan, and very likely Sun Shangxiang as well.
Sun Jian alone was enough to make my mouth water, and here was a chance to snatch up the future leading figures of the Wu Kingdom all at once.
Wasn't this akin to handing a Gordon Freeman-brand hamburger combo to a man dying of starvation?
Hiding the intense excitement boiling within me, I let the moment hang for a while and did my best to appear calm.
In this kind of situation, acting rashly, swept up by emotion, might well blow away an opportunity that had finally come my way.
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, he came off as a fairly decent person, but honestly, the historical Sun Jian's character was not particularly good.
He was cruel and cunning, with a record of betraying his superiors on at least two occasions, if not more.
That being the case, no matter how favorable the circumstances, I needed to approach this with caution.
For this reason, though I'd already intended to grant her request, I set my condition beforehand.
In exchange for a favor, my demand.
For her to accept my request: to become my subordinate.
At this, Sun Jian showed a moment's hesitation, but in the end, she accepted.
She hardly had room to refuse when she was in such dire straits herself.
Naturally, cultivating true loyalty from her would require time, but I wasn't particularly worried about that.
The historical Sun Jian might have spectacularly betrayed his superiors, but they were all people who had treated him poorly. Toward those who treated him well, he showed a certain loyalty to the end.
During the suppression of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, he risked his life without hesitation for his first superior, Zhu Jun.
His relationship with the Original Timeline's Yuan Shu also remained intact until his death, even if there were a few bumps along the way.
One might even say it was too well maintained, since he faithfully accompanied Yuan Shu in all his evil deeds...
Anyway, though I was currently taking advantage of Sun Jian's unfortunate situation, if I continued to treat her well, drawing out her genuine loyalty shouldn't be terribly difficult.
And so, smiling at having secured a talent I'd long desired and a cornerstone for my easy-mode life,
I immediately ordered the Yellow Turban suppression operation—doubling as a search—that Sun Jian had requested.
*
"Sniffle..."
"Ugh... a-are you alright?"
"... Yes. I'm... alright."
"Good... Thank you. For being alright."
Morning broke after a sleepless night of echoing sobs and efforts to soothe them.
Xu Rong, struggling to shake off the unrelenting fatigue, immediately began the march.
Xu Rong carried the still-sniffling girl in one arm.
Right behind her, a soldier with child-rearing experience moved along, carrying on his back the newborn, who had slept through all of this without stirring.
Xu Rong, a commander who roamed battlefields, had suddenly been reduced to a nursemaid in a single day.
It was a scene that people like Ji Ling or Hua Xiong might have found uproariously funny...
but honestly, that was the least of Xu Rong's problems right now.
What was truly giving her a headache in this situation...
Despite the bright morning sun, she and the thousand soldiers under her command were still wandering, completely unable to find a path.
"Have you found anything yet?"
"Apologies, ma'am. We've released scouts in all directions, but as of yet..."
"Hah..."
"W-well... still, we did find a stream below, and with good weather, we should find a way soon."
"That part is fortunate, but we must hurry. That is, unless you all fancy starving to death chewing on tree bark with no decent stores of food."
"Hmm..."
"I... I will give it my all."
While urging her subordinates, Xu Rong herself led some soldiers up to the mountain summit to survey the area.
Yet, whether they had drifted into a truly bizarre location last night, no matter how much she surveyed, she simply could not see a path.
There was no sign of allies, not even of the common Yellow Turban.
Feeling suffocated by this, Xu Rong was frowning deeply when...
"Um... ma'am...?"
"I told you, call me Sister. ... Why, what is it? There aren't any rice balls left."
The one she'd managed to bring along had already been handed over, so it was definitely true.
Hoping the girl wouldn't start crying over nothing, Xu Rong answered curtly.
"It's just... my mother once told me... when you're lost in the forest, you should follow the water."
"The water?... Why water?"
"I don't know... My mother told me to."
"... Hmm."
It was a somewhat questionable piece of advice, but Xu Rong nonetheless began to consider it.
Had she known the standard protocol for being lost, she would have chosen to stay put, but unfortunately, such knowledge did not exist inside Xu Rong's head.
The only thing in her mind now was that she had to get out of here by any means.
If that was the case, rather than wandering aimlessly, it was better to follow the advice of this unknown girl's mother.
Surely a mother wouldn't habitually spout nonsense to her daughter, essentially telling her, "I've always hated you," ... right?
Praying that was the case, Xu Rong and the soldiers began to march slowly along the stream they had discovered earlier.
*
"Damn it! Still no word? Just what the hell is that bastard Byeon Toe doing against a pack of snot-nosed brats who can barely even run?"
"O-our apologies, Chief."
Zhao Hong expressed his deep fury.
His subordinates, who had originally been Yellow Turbans under Byeon Toe, could do nothing but keep their mouths shut.
The truth was, some of them knew.
That the reason those brats had managed to escape this time, though one of them had since been captured again, was because Byeon Toe had secretly tampered with their bindings.
What his purpose was, only his immediate underlings knew.
Just as they also knew the reason why he still hadn't returned...
'Damn it... just how long does that man intend to keep enjoying himself?'
'They did seem quite starved when he took them... but still, what if the Chief gets angry while he's gone...'
And so, not knowing where the Chief's wrath might land, the Yellow Turban underlings simply waited for Byeon Toe to return as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, utterly unaware of his men's inner thoughts, Chief Zhao Hong frowned with intense irritation.
'Did he really let them slip away? Well, one was caught again, but if the others are gone, it could throw a wrench in our plans...'
Sun Jian, having chased them all the way to this remote place.
Just as she harbored a deep grudge against him for killing her husband and abducting her children, Zhao Hong also held a bitter grudge against Sun Jian.
The men she'd slaughtered, the comrades who were like brothers.
Thinking of their grudge still made his blood boil.
He had come all this way to the distant land of Ji Province for one purpose: to settle that score.
By now, even if Sun Jian herself hadn't collapsed, her soldiers would certainly be badly exhausted and weakened.
Zhao Hong's own forces had also been weakened to an even greater degree, but they still had the Grand Master Zhang Jiao as their main army.
With her power, commanding four hundred thousand Yellow Turbans here in Ji Province alone, finishing off the weary Sun Jian would be nothing.
The very reason he had dragged her brats all the way here
was as a stratagem to ensure Sun Jian would not give up and would follow him into the trap to the bitter end.
All that remained now was to borrow the main army's strength to utterly annihilate Sun Jian's faction,
then end her children's lives one by one before her eyes while the soldiers violated her.
It was for that plan to unfold smoothly that Zhao Hong was waiting for that bastard Byeon Toe to return as soon as possible.
'Hold on just a little longer, my brothers... I swear I will avenge your—'
At that moment.
"Ch-Chief! G-grave news— urgh... gwaaack!!!"
"Huh?"
A sudden scream rang out.
The soldier who was about to enter the room collapsed, spewing blood before he could even finish his sentence.
And then.
A figure appeared behind the fallen soldier.
The moment Zhao Hong saw her face, framed by green hair,
his own face began to freeze rigid with pure terror.
"Y-you... you bitch?..."
"Finally... I've found you."
A single spear on her back, a soiled spear in one hand, and a sword in the other—the green-haired woman.
He had longed to meet her again,
but right now, she was the last person he wanted to see.
Burning with rage, she began to swing her weapons.