Higher than that mere fellow
Higher than that mere fellow
"..."
The urgent voices of palace maids rang out.
But the woman with rose-pink hair paid them no heed.
Empress Dowager He Ha Eun merely clutched her young daughter tighter in her arms.
This was Yong'an Palace, nestled in the deepest recesses of the Imperial Palace.
She knew perfectly well there was nowhere left to flee.
Before Ha Eun's eyes, a troop of soldiers pressed in.
At their head stood a woman with deep violet hair, and beside her, a woman with brown hair.
"I, General of the Left Dong Zhuo, pay my respects to Your Majesty and Your Highness."
"You wretch, what is the meaning of this? Do you even know where you've dared to set foot?"
Ha Eun's voice was sharp.
Yet Dong Zhuo did not so much as blink. She answered in a measured tone.
"Compose yourself, Majesty. I have merely come at the Emperor's command to offer medicine to you both."
"Medicine... you say?"
"Precisely. Her Majesty personally sent it with prayers for your long life and health, so please do not refuse."
The moment she finished speaking, the brown-haired woman stepped forward bearing a tray with a medicine bowl.
With soldiers packed in on every side,
there was no need to think twice about what the dark, seething decoction signified.
"Was it... Zhang Rang? The one who arranged this. Or else... Empress Dowager Dong?"
"..."
Ha Eun's question was ice-cold.
Dong Zhuo simply held her silence, her expression unchanged.
As if her guess had missed the mark.
"... Ha... haha... I see... so it was him... Ding Yuan... that border upstart has dared..."
Ha Eun let out a hollow laugh.
Then.
Leaning in close to her ear,
Dong Zhuo spoke in a low voice.
"No... someone above even such wretches."
"What...? What do you..."
The words made no sense.
But Dong Zhuo offered no further answer.
She simply withdrew, step by unhurried step.
And then.
"It seems the severity of your illness prevents you from swallowing. Go help them."
"Yes, General."
At her command, soldiers closed in on Ha Eun and her daughter.
Then.
"!"
"..."
Before the soldiers could get close, Ha Eun emptied the bowl first.
Right after, she fixed Dong Zhuo and the soldiers with a frigid glare, then placed the bowl before her daughter.
"Y-Your... Majes... ty..."
"There... drink, Your Majesty. Quickly..."
"Yes."
At her mother's words, the girl lifted the bowl with trembling hands and drank.
Watching her,
Ha Eun pulled the child tight against her, her mind already starting to blur.
"Y-Your... Mo... th... er..."
"It's... all right. Wherever you go from now on... this mother will protect you. So... t..."
Mother and daughter collapsed to the floor tangled together.
Gazing at their figures, Dong Zhuo spoke quietly.
"Li Yu."
"Yes, my lord."
"It's over. Go report it as such."
"Understood, my lord."
Li Yu withdrew with the soldiers the moment she received Dong Zhuo's order.
Now, with every matter settled,
Dong Zhuo wore a cold smile
and looked down wordlessly at the two collapsed on the floor.
*
"I had heard the report... so they truly went that way, did they?"
"Yes, they did."
"... Ha."
Zhang Rang let out a bitter sigh.
Dong Zhuo's report was simple: the emperor was dead, and the body had been quietly discarded outside the palace walls.
Deposed though they were, one had been the lawful sovereign of the realm, the other her mother.
If word got out that such people had been poisoned, upheaval would erupt on every side.
For a while, their deaths would have to be hidden in silence. Much later, at a suitable moment, an announcement could be made that they had abruptly succumbed to illness. A fitting funeral could be arranged then, and that would be the end of it.
The thought that even the final act sat so ill with him burned at Zhang Rang's insides, and he drained his tea in one gulp.
"In any case, you've done well. Return now and rest. You've handled a heavy matter, so stay quiet for a time."
Dong Zhuo had been moving as quietly as possible on Zhang Rang's orders all along,
but as the one who had slain the Deposed Emperor and the Empress Dowager, she needed to keep her head down for a while.
But then.
"Zhang Rang, sir. I do have a request related to that, as it happens."
"What is it? Speak."
"Yes. You see... as it turns out, there is a suitable pretext for staying quiet. No, rather... a matter I ought to step forward and handle myself."
"What is it? Out with it."
*
"What? Yellow Turban remnants in Qing Province?"
"Yes, that is correct. General Yuan Shu has therefore declared he will return to Ji Province to eliminate them before their forces can swell."
"Hmm..."
The speaker was Ji Ling, known as Yuan Shu's right hand and a commander under his command.
At her report, the court officials Minister of the Masses Wang Yun and General Lu Zhi exchanged troubled looks.
Over the past several months, Yuan Shu's army had been encamped near Luoyang, a silent demonstration of force.
While it could not compare to the troops Ding Yuan had stationed within the city or the army Dong Zhuo had outside, fifty thousand soldiers sitting in place had applied a steady, unspoken pressure on Zhang Rang's faction.
If Yuan Shu's army withdrew now, Ding Yuan and Zhang Rang's faction, already swollen with arrogance, would only rampage all the more freely.
Still, important as the capital's affairs were, the duties of General Who Conquers the North mattered just as much.
More so still when the matter involved the Yellow Turbans, who had once shaken the whole country.
"Understood. We shall explain the situation to Her Majesty ourselves."
"Thank you, elders."
Ji Ling bowed and withdrew.
The moment she left, Wang Yun and Lu Zhi's expressions turned swiftly and deeply grim.
"Yellow Turbans, and at a time like this..."
"Word has it that signs of rebellion are stirring again in Yang Province as well. With the court in chaos, traitors are boiling up in every quarter."
The situation felt beyond their control, yet at the same time the mounting troubles filled the high officials with nothing but suffocating frustration.
"After Colonel Yuan Shao and now General Yuan Shu, if they're both gone, what are we supposed to do?"
"Exactly. Young men of upright and steady character were still in the capital, which gave us at least a little to lean on... now there are hardly any left."
General Lu Zhi's voice was thick with mixed feelings.
After listening, Wang Yun cast a careful glance around and then asked in a cautious tone:
"There's still one who remains, is there not? That young woman, Cao Cao."
"Cao Cao? No, hasn't that fellow long since turned her coat? I, too, once held high hopes for the young woman... but as the saying goes, like father, like eunuch-bred daughter. I hear she is busy fawning over General Ding Yuan these days."
"Hm... well... that is true, I suppose."
Wang Yun seemed about to say something more, but for now he held his tongue.
And so, lamenting that the realm's future grew darker by the day, the two old statesmen could only release heavy, regret-laden sighs.
*
"Hahaha! So, all those bastards are clearing out at once, you say?"
"Yes, General-in-Chief. Dong Zhuo will depart to suppress the Yang Province rebellion, and Yuan Shu to sweep away the Yellow Turbans in Qing Province."
"Things are unfolding exactly as you said they would! This is why a man must keep someone who uses their head close by. What a boon it is to foresee the course ahead like this."
"Heh heh..."
Ding Yuan was in high spirits.
At his side, the figure who had lately become his trusted adviser,
Cao Cao, let out a small laugh, a smile settled at the corner of her lips.
Though the military power of Luoyang was firmly in Ding Yuan's hands, even he knew perfectly well that his seat was far from secure.
Zhang Rang and the Turbid Stream faction he had allied with were subtly keeping him in check through Dong Zhuo,
and Yuan Shu and the rest of the Pure Stream officials still gnashed their teeth at Ding Yuan's back.
In such circumstances, the addition of Cao Cao—a prominent figure of the Pure Stream faction and a woman of exceptional strategic talent—was nothing short of a godsend for Ding Yuan.
And now,
the departures of Yuan Shu and Dong Zhuo, which had unfolded exactly as Cao Cao earlier predicted, deepened Ding Yuan's trust in her all the more.
"Now, then. What should we do from here? Should we use this chance to completely finish off the Pure Stream faction in Luoyang?"
"The time isn't right yet. Even if the Turbid Stream faction now controls most of the court, the hearts of the Han Dynasty's people still lean toward the Pure Stream. If you carelessly poke the hornet's nest now, you could be the one who gets hurt."
"Is... is that so?"
"It is. Above all, depending on how things develop, that Zhang Rang may very well stab you in the back."
"Hm... now that you put it that way, it does ring true."
Ding Yuan nodded along at Cao Cao's warning. She went on in an even more measured voice:
"For now, the first thing is to secure the power vacuum left by Yuan Shu and Dong Zhuo into your own hands. Use the pretext of reinforcing Luoyang's defenses to summon lords with whom you have close ties. Once your people are placed in key posts, neither the Pure Stream faction—nor Zhang Rang, for that matter—will be able to treat you lightly any longer."
"Indeed... understood. As it happens, there is an old friend I've been close to since my Bing Province days."
"Who is that?"
"Someone you've surely heard of. The famed commander of You Province, the White Horse General Gongsun Zan. Last time he was unable to join us because of a campaign against the border tribes, but now he ought to answer my summons without trouble."
"Ah... that one would be a tremendous help indeed."
Cao Cao showed a touch of surprise at the unexpected name, then smiled again.
Yet apart from the smiling face she presented to Ding Yuan,
at this moment there was a deep shadow draped across Cao Cao's heart.
'Gongsun Zan... of all people, why him. This might force me to move my plans forward a bit.'
So thinking, Cao Cao carefully stroked the precious dagger hidden inside her robes.
The dagger set with seven jewels...
*
She could see the sky.
A deep, deep blue sky across which pure white clouds drifted.
She took in the sight she had believed she would never see again,
and for a moment she was dazed.
The woman with rose-pink hair soon began to fill with shock.
Huh?
Her body shot upright from where she lay.
An instant later, she turned her head frantically and began searching for something.
Then.
"Mm... Y-Your... Majesty..."
"!"
A belated warmth reached her senses.
Right beside her, her young daughter's hand
gripped her own tight.
The moment she realized it, a deep sigh of relief escaped her lips—
but her relief soon began to curdle into confusion.
The two of them had unmistakably drunk the poison Dong Zhuo handed them and met their deaths.
Yet here they were, both still alive.
Where in the world was this?
And why were they here?
Full of doubt, the woman looked around in alarm.
Then.
"You are awake, Your Majesty."
"! Wh-who's there?"
Standing before her was a young man who appeared to be around her own age.
He had a handsome face that might well make a woman lose her heart,
and wore striking armor draped with a black surcoat.
With Dong Zhuo standing behind him, the man knelt and pressed his forehead to the ground, formally prostrating himself before the two—
Empress Dowager He Ha Eun and her young daughter.
"I, General Who Conquers the North Yuan Shu, pay my respects to Your Majesties."
"Yuan... Shu?"
She had heard the name a few times in the past, but she had never faced him directly before.
In her eyes at that name: shock, wariness...
and a single thread of hope.
For now, Ha Eun gazed in silence at Yuan Shu and his subordinates, who were bowing before her.
"Her Majesty the Emperor: ten thousand years, ten thousand years, ten thousand upon ten thousand years."
"Ten thousand years, ten thousand years, ten thousand upon ten thousand years."