To Yiling (1)
There was not a single place on my body that didn't hurt.
The moment I opened my eyes, I found myself trapped in someone else's body, so badly injured I could barely hold myself upright. Claiming amnesia from a blow to the head, I began piecing together the situation from Po Sanniang.
The place where I now rested was the Po Family Manor, her natal home. Originally the manor had stood in the Ji Province region, but after Po Sanniang followed Guan Suo, the entire household had relocated to the border between Jing and Yi provinces.
The instant she heard that the unconscious Guan Suo had awakened, Po Sanniang had come running barefoot—only to fall into deep despair when he failed to recognize her.
Guan Suo had taken an arrow at the Battle of Fan Castle, been thrown from his horse, and suffered grievous wounds. Guan Yu and Guan Ping had been captured by Wu and put to death, yet Guan Suo and Po Sanniang had withdrawn from the front early enough to save their lives. She had tended his injuries, retreated from the line, and hidden him away in her family's manor.
Up to this point it isn't much different from the Three Kingdoms I know.
At first I waited to wake from a dream. Days passed without the slightest change in my circumstances, and at last I accepted reality.
I've entered the world of the Three Kingdoms.
Worse, I had become the youngest son of the Guan family—Guan Suo himself.
I lay staring at the ceiling, then turned to a nearby bronze mirror and studied the face reflected there. The damage was severe: a bandaged forehead over a cracked skull, the bitter scent of medicinal herbs rising faintly from my entire body.
And yet the thought that rose unbidden was…
Even with injuries this bad, he's still ridiculously handsome.
Scars ought to have ruined the features, but even accounting for that he remained strikingly beautiful—so delicate and refined that the phrase “pretty-boy gigolo” sprang to mind unbidden. Coming from my own mouth it felt absurd, yet the words “peerless beauty” came just as easily.
…Guan Suo, of all people.
Being Guan Yu's son was fine. Guan Suo himself, however, had never been a favorite of mine.
Guan Yu was, by universal consensus, the most popular warrior in the entire Three Kingdoms saga. No true devotee would dispute it. That Guan Yu had sons named Guan Ping and Guan Xing, plus one daughter whose name went unrecorded. Guan Suo, though, had never existed.
He appeared only in Hua Guansuo Zhuan—the folk novel that made a fictional son of Guan Yu its protagonist. In modern terms, it was the prototype of the Three Kingdoms power-fantasy pulp novel. After Luo Guanzhong's Romance, later editors had inserted Guan Suo during the Southern Campaign against the Nanman and thereby written him into the canon.
…Becoming Guan Yu's son is acceptable. But why did it have to be Guan Suo?
I had never dared hope to wake as Guan Yu or Zhao Yun; that would have been pure greed. I simply disliked Guan Suo, and the reason was straightforward.
I play Dynasty Warriors-style games all the time. Instead of a Shu general who actually mattered, they put in Guan Suo.
Figures like Wu Yi or Wang Ping—men with solid achievements and real presence—had been passed over so that Guan Yu's son from a pulp novel, the one who swaggered around seducing women like a wandering hero, could take the stage.
Naturally the fanbase had grumbled. He never existed in the official histories and barely appeared in the Romance outside the Nanman campaign; by Zhuge Liang's northern expeditions his name had been scrubbed entirely. That was the full extent of my regard for him.
“I'm coming in, Nanggun.”
Po Sanniang, two years his senior, entered demurely carrying a wooden pail of water.
Is being this handsome how he got engaged to a beauty like her?
Her black hair, soft as silk, was braided over one shoulder; her eyes were the green of jade, jewel-bright. Born to wealth, she possessed flawless white skin and a figure without a single fault—a beauty complete in every way.
“I will wash your body for you.”
Still unused to her presence, I hesitated a moment, then loosened my collar and stripped off my upper robe.
The wounds are healing fast.
Despite having lain in a coma, the hard, well-muscled body before me showed no sign of wasting. Is this what bloodline privilege looks like? As the son of Guan Yu—a living weapon in human form—I had inherited a sturdy frame and thickly corded arms that belied the pretty face. Injuries that had looked catastrophic when I first awoke were already much improved after only a week.
“Nanggun, the news you asked the servants to gather has arrived.”
After changing the bandages wrapping my body, Po Sanniang drew a letter from her sleeve and held it out.
“What does it say?”
“His Majesty has set out to punish Wu, to avenge your father's death.”
…Damn it all.
My head dropped. Seeing my expression, Po Sanniang hurried on.
“Th-there's nothing we can do. You are still recovering, Nanggun. I understand the desire to take revenge with your own hands, but…”
Keeping my face carefully blank, I asked, “Then Elder Brother has joined the campaign as well?”
“Of course. Your elder brother-in-law has already joined the army. It would be best to leave the matter of vengeance to him.”
She meant only that I should rest and heal, yet my unease only deepened.
…Of all times to transmigrate, it had to be now.
Guan Xing's presence at the front meant the war had already begun.
This is no time to lounge around recovering.
I pushed myself upright. Po Sanniang's face went white with shock as she tried to stop me.
“Don't get up! The physician said the wounds will reopen if you don't rest!”
I want to rest too.
The injuries had not fully closed; every inch of me still throbbed with pain. Yet if I simply watched, Shu would suffer damage from which it could never recover. Now that I was a man of Shu, I had to prevent that disaster by any means.
“I'm fine. More importantly, Po Sanniang—I'm sorry, but could you bring me writing materials?”
“Writing materials? Whatever for…?”
“There's something I need to write.”
“Then tell me the words and I shall write them for you.”
Because I still could not steady my hands enough to hold a brush properly, Po Sanniang took down the messages in my place.
“Po Sanniang. Can you have these letters delivered—one to the Prime Minister, one to His Majesty?”
“It is not difficult, Nanggun, but why…?”
When she looked puzzled after hearing the contents, I put her off with a vague promise to explain later.
Even Zhuge Liang and Zhao Yun couldn't stop him, so he won't listen to me either…
Still, doing something was better than doing nothing and simply watching the catastrophe unfold.
Thus the two letters set out for separate destinations. One traveled toward Chengdu, capital of Shu Han. The other…
…headed for Jing Province.
The stench of blood filled the battlefield.
“P-please spare us!!”
Two kneeling officers begged for their lives before a young general, voices cracking with desperation.
“·······.”
The young commander, whose bearing was as fierce as a tiger's, merely stared down at them in icy silence.
They were Zhang Da and Fan Jiang, the very men Wu had sent to sue for peace. They pleaded that Zhang Fei had deliberately tormented them in order to drive them to murder, hoping to stir pity and win mercy.
“Silence, traitors.”
But to a son standing before his father's killers, the words held no weight whatsoever. No justification could change the fact that these men were the murderers of his sire.
Zhang Bao, son of Zhang Fei, raised his serpent-like eighteen-foot spear, the Zhangba Snake Spear, high overhead.
“Eek!”
“P-please, mercy—!!”
Slash!
Their pleas never finished. With a single thunderous stroke of the long spear, Zhang Da and Fan Jiang lost their heads and toppled to the earth. Zhang Bao gazed down at the headless corpses, savoring the deep aftertaste of vengeance fulfilled.
From the main camp the entire scene had been observed. The staff officers of the Shu army watched their lord's expression carefully.
“······Your Majesty.”
Yet the silence did not last long. Once Zhang Da and Fan Jiang had been executed and the atmosphere had grown solemn, the envoy from Wu hesitated, then finally spoke.
Liu Bei's gaze, which had been fixed on the corpses of Zhang Fei's killers, shifted to the envoy. Feeling that stare upon him, the messenger swallowed dryly.
Are those truly the eyes of the man who always preached benevolence and righteousness?
He had never met Liu Bei face to face, yet even he had heard the rumors: the righteous hero, the ideal sovereign who alone in this chaotic age still thought of the common people. Some scholars and officials dismissed it all as calculated political theater, yet the number of literati who looked up to Liu Bei remained far from small.
…But those eyes…
The gaze of the man once praised as a sage-king was now laced with venom. The envoy could not even begin to name the emotion burning in them.
Even so, I must fulfill my duty.
To let Shu avenge every last enemy, to return Jing Province, and to conclude peace—that was Wu's intent.
“This is a letter from my sovereign.”
The envoy bowed respectfully and offered the missive.
“Every last man who killed Generals Guan Yu and Zhang Fei is now dead.”
Pan Zhang, Ma Zhong, Mi Fang, and Fu Shiren had already perished. Moments ago Zhang Fei's murderers, Zhang Da and Fan Jiang, had likewise been cut down.
“Jing Province shall be restored to you before long. We beg you to set aside your wrath.”
Ma Liang, serving as staff officer, received the letter and passed it directly to Liu Bei. Liu Bei did not even read it. He tore the parchment to shreds.
“You are laboring under a misconception.”
“…Pardon?”
“The chief culprit behind every one of these crimes—Sun Quan—still draws breath without the slightest shame.”
Liu Bei rose to his feet.
“This war is to punish Wu for betraying the alliance between our states. And you claim every enemy has been repaid? Is not Sun Quan himself the greatest enemy of my sworn brothers!?”
At Liu Bei's roar the envoy flinched, cowed by the razor-edged aura.
Crash!
Liu Bei flung the shredded letter to the ground and declared to the envoy—and through him to all of Wu:
“Go tell those dogs of Wu! …Sun Quan. Until I have slain that green-eyed little rat with my own hands, this campaign will never end!!”
Faced with Liu Bei's unyielding fury, the terrified envoy fled back to Wu without once looking behind him.