An Irresistible Temptation
An Irresistible Temptation
A person must always strive to pursue "goodness."
Even if the present moment is difficult and painful, a good deed will eventually return in some form of recompense.
That was the teaching left behind by her late mother.
And it was the essence of "justice" that the girl had experienced throughout her life.
And now.
The scene unfolding before her eyes.
That girl.
Who holds the Fangtian Halberd,
who bears the name Lü Bu—
was filling her heart with deep unease.
"Think carefully, Inspector Ding Yuan. If you kill me here, you will surely regret it!"
"Shut your mouth and—"
"Stop. Fengxian."
"B-but, Father."
"Quickly."
"... Tch."
The old man with a vile face before her eyes.
The leader of the Ten Regular Attendants—the very reason they had come all the way from Bing Province to distant Luoyang.
Zhang Rang.
Having fled with the few remaining Regular Attendants, some eunuchs, a handful of soldiers, and the imperial carriage bearing Her Majesty the Emperor, he had by chance encountered the Bing Province army. Now he had been completely subdued by Lü Bu and the soldiers of Bing Province.
Practically speaking, the ultimate objective of this expedition.
The worst villain who had plunged countless commoners into misery.
And.
The chief culprit who, in the past, had branded Lü Bu's birth father a traitor and driven him to his death.
Facing the revolting visage of the villain she had only ever heard described, Lü Bu had meant to cut his throat at once, but...
This act of Lü Bu's was stopped by none other than her adoptive father.
Ding Yuan, Inspector of Bing Province—her benefactor and the second person she most deeply respected.
"Why would you do this? He is the leader of the Ten Regular Attendants. The purpose for which we came this far was, in truth, to strike off this wretch's head—"
"Enough. I will judge this matter myself. You will interfere no further."
"But—"
"This is an order. Withdraw."
"... Yes."
With no choice but to fall back at Ding Yuan's words, Lü Bu stepped away.
Immediately after, Lü Bu turned her gaze from Zhang Rang, who was beginning to display a revolting smile,
and looked at the young children trembling in fear behind him—at Her Majesty the Emperor and the Prince of Bohai.
The sight resembled... her own past self, hunted by bandits.
*
A tent situated deep within the Bing Province army encampment.
Within, Ding Yuan faced the old man seated before him—
Zhang Rang, the eunuch who had once grasped and shaken the entire realm—and asked in a somber voice.
"Now, let us hear it. Why should I spare a wretch like you? You, who are the enemy of my sworn brother and the enemy of General-in-Chief He Jin."
"The reason is simple. Because I alone can grant you what you desire."
"What I desire? Haha, we have never exchanged so much as a single word. Do you even know what you are saying?"
Ding Yuan's words carried a sneer.
Just then.
"Political power."
"!"
Ding Yuan's face began to stiffen.
Observing this, Zhang Rang smiled deeply and continued.
"I became certain the moment you stayed your hand from my neck. Had it been something simple like vengeance or loyalty, there would have been no reason not to execute me on the spot."
"... Mm."
"Power and glory. That is why you responded to He Jin's summons and rushed all the way here. What say you? Am I mistaken?"
"..."
At Zhang Rang's words, Ding Yuan remained silent for a moment.
True to those words, the reason he had come to this place had not been to avenge his sworn brother,
nor had it been out of loyalty.
Ambition for advancement.
Born in a border region and long treated with contempt, he harbored the ambition to one day force all who had slighted him to their knees.
To achieve it, Ding Yuan had steadily cultivated his military strength under the pretext of suppressing the Black Mountain Bandits.
His arrival at He Jin's summons without a moment's hesitation had also come from the hope that, if things went well, he might gain a foothold in the central political arena.
Zhang Rang's words—which precisely identified his desires and simultaneously offered to see them realized—
came to Ding Yuan as a temptation he could not refuse.
"I will assist you. With your military forces, represented by the famed Lü Bu, with the political acumen and connections I possess, and with the Emperor whom we hold—the power of this realm shall be yours."
"..."
"What say you? Will you join hands with me?"
Zhang Rang had precisely identified what he himself lacked.
To this, Ding Yuan, who had maintained his silence... at last
opened his mouth in a trembling voice.
"What... no... what must I do?"
*
As soon as we received the thunderbolt-like news, Dong Zhuo and I reorganized our forces and headed directly for the city of Luoyang.
'Fuck... Of all times, I had to finally get a good night's sleep yesterday...'
Frankly, the moment Dong Zhuo kept her promise to me, I had assumed the situation was essentially over.
The Rebellion of the Ten Regular Attendants' greatest variable had been eliminated.
All that remained was for the fleeing Zhang Rang to take his own life, and then to go welcome the Emperor, who would be rescued by Yuan Shao and quietly return to Luoyang.
Whatever followed, I had figured I could resolve it step by step with a measure of composure.
But this unforeseen development—as if to give me an enormous middle finger after I had gone to sleep completely carefree and slept in late—befell me.
Zhang Rang and some of the Ten Regular Attendants, who ought to have been dead by now, had survived,
and worse, the maddening news that they had joined hands with Inspector Ding Yuan of Bing Province made my head spin.
Ding Yuan.
In the Original Timeline, a man who possessed the power to check Dong Zhuo—who had inherited He Jin's faction—through his own strength alone.
From his very first appearance, the leader of one of the early period's mightiest forces, equipped with talents like Lü Bu, Zhang Liao, and Gao Shun—ranging from S-rank to A-rank generals of the Three Kingdoms.
Though he was betrayed and killed by Lü Bu, who had been seduced by the offer of Red Hare,
frankly, but for that single detail, it was highly likely that the swelling of Dong Zhuo's power and the subsequent full-scale eruption of the chaotic era could have been suppressed to some degree.
The problem was that this same man had now joined hands with, of all people, the Ten Regular Attendants... with Zhang Rang, specifically.
The sun had already passed its zenith and tilted slightly westward.
Though we had done everything possible to hurry, because I had relaxed my guard at the very end, we were now hideously late. Grinding curses to myself, I spurred my horse onward with all my might.
When we had thus arrived, disgracefully tardy, near the city gates of Luoyang—that was the moment.
"Ah! Over there..."
"Gonglu! This way!"
Benchu, betraying a hint of urgency.
And Aman, waving cheerfully at me even in a situation like this.
I rode straight toward them and approached—toward the women who had come out to meet me according to the prearranged signals.
Yet...
"Urk!"
"D... Dong Zhuo? How are you here!"
"Ah..."
"Fufu."
The moment they spotted Dong Zhuo accompanying me, the two of them stared in sheer bewilderment.
Well, from their standpoint, Dong Zhuo, who had come at the Ten Regular Attendants' summons, was technically an "enemy," so this reaction was only natural.
On the other hand, Dong Zhuo let out a small laugh, as though their expressions struck her as amusing.
In the atmosphere that had instantly grown strange, it took a bit of time to explain the situation to them.
*
"So... to put it simply, General Dong has joined hands with Gonglu... Is that how I should understand it?"
"You could say that. Well... strictly speaking, we have promised a rather deeper relationship. Fufu."
"Ho-oh..."
-Cr-r-rack.
Cao Cao expressed keen interest at Dong Zhuo's words,
while in contrast, Yuan Shao, radiating icy cold and producing a noise like something shattering, stood stiffly.
Yuan Shao—both in the Original Timeline and here—had always been on bad terms with Dong Zhuo, so her reaction was understandable enough.
The prospect that someone she disliked might become her sister-in-law was never going to make her feel good.
But... why was Cao Cao so delighted?
When I'd last observed them, hadn't she gotten along just as poorly with Dong Zhuo as Yuan Shao had?
Watching Cao Cao's expression, I felt like something almost came to mind, but for now I had no choice but to set that matter aside.
What mattered was the situation within Luoyang, which was rapidly deteriorating in an extremely troublesome direction.
From last night until this morning. Everything that had happened while I had been soundly asleep in the same bed as Dong Zhuo.
And those events...
were now flowing toward the worst possible direction I could conceive of, with my knowledge of the Original Timeline.
"An army of 150,000... you say?"
"Indeed. Inspector Ding Yuan declared it so... and it was confirmed in reality."
"I saw it clearly myself last night, when Ding Yuan entered bearing Her Majesty the Emperor. The torchlight was blazing clear over the mountains."
"And... how did the soldiers inside the city react?"
"It was chaos. The generals were already running around in confusion after General-in-Chief He Jin passed away, and then an impossible-to-match grand army appeared right before their eyes."
"Good heavens... even so. The Eight Colonels types like Zhao Rong were originally with Jian Shuo, so I can accept that. But explain to me why even the Imperial Guards under the General-in-Chief got scared out of their wits and all flocked to that side. Out of roughly 100,000 men stationed in Luoyang, more than 70,000 crossed over to them in a single day."
"The Imperial Guards, you say? The General-in-Chief's mortal enemy, the Ten Regular Attendants, are there—why would those fellows..."
"Zhang Rang apologized and explained everything away by claiming that the dead Jian Shuo, Zhao Zhong, Xia Yun, and the rest had committed all the misdeeds, so they managed to gloss it over... but in truth, they just got thoroughly terrified by the 150,000-strong army Ding Yuan brought. When someone holds a blade to the back of your neck and apologizes, can you really refuse to accept it?"
"... Haha... fuck."
A curse came out automatically just from hearing the general outline.
Then, without realizing it, I found myself turning my gaze toward Dong Zhuo, who sat beside me.
"...? What is it?"
"Nothing... It is nothing."
Right now, that bastard Ding Yuan is copying exactly what you did in the Original Timeline...
I suppressed the urge to say this aloud and instead laid out the truth to Cao Cao and Yuan Shao.
"That count... is entirely false. You have all been deceived by Ding Yuan. His actual military strength will be at most 30,000 to 40,000."
"... What?"
"Wh... What are you talking about? I told you, I saw it with my own eyes—"
"They used torches to deliberately inflate the apparent size of the army. Think about it. Bing Province is perpetually short on resources and reliant on support from the central government. Even I, drawing on abundant Ji Province and other sources, scraped together an army of 170,000—how in the world could he bring 150,000?"
"... Now that I think on it... you have a point..."
"Clearly, they fabricated the whole thing aiming for the present circumstances: so that Ding Yuan can seize the void left by General-in-Chief He Jin's death."
"Damn it!... I did find it a bit strange, but to think Ding Yuan of all people would resort to a cheap trick like this..."
Cao Cao, who herself possessed considerable skill at cheap tricks, ground her teeth at having been outmaneuvered.
Toward her, I spoke in a cold voice.
"More likely than Ding Yuan... it is the ploy of another wretch clinging to his side. I speak of Zhang Rang, who has joined hands with Ding Yuan this time."
"Tch..."
"Indeed... that old man is more than capable of it."
The two of them belatedly realized the truth and ground their teeth, but the moment had already passed.
The Turbid Stream Faction generals and their subordinates, gathered together by Zhang Rang and the Ten Regular Attendants,
plus the majority of the Imperial Guards formerly under He Jin—all had attached themselves to Ding Yuan. The Imperial Capital of Luoyang had practically fallen into their hands.
Above all, since Her Majesty the Emperor and Empress Dowager He had also effectively fallen into their grasp, regardless of our total military strength, we were in an overwhelmingly disadvantageous position in terms of legitimacy.
Whatever actions we tried to take, the moment the other side manipulated the Emperor to declare "Yep, you're a traitor," we would have no choice but to tuck tail.
In the end, the current situation had become virtually no different from the time in the Original Timeline when Dong Zhuo had seized control of Luoyang.
No—perhaps it should be regarded as even worse, given that several of the Ten Regular Attendants had survived...
"Is my face so fascinating that you wish to keep staring at it?"
"Ah... No."
"Fufu... Well. You may keep looking if you wish."
"Um..."
Once again, I had unconsciously turned my gaze toward Dong Zhuo. Her remark made me feel embarrassed, entirely apart from the present situation.
Just then.
"You look remarkably at ease, given the situation. I take it you have some clever plan?"
Yuan Shao spoke in a sharp voice.
Watching her display a degree of displeasure that seemed excessive for simple concern over the current political moment, I found myself thinking I should probably step in to calm things down.
Just then.
"Of course. I have a fine idea."
"What?"
"Truly? You do?"
"Ho-oh..."
Dong Zhuo's reply, unexpectedly composed.
For an instant, all of us leaned forward with interest.
To which Dong Zhuo, smiling deeply, opened her mouth.