Go and Tell Lu Bu: Lai Lai!
The melee was still raging when Zhang Fei strode out once more.
"You bastards! Zhang Fei of Yan is standing right here, and you still mean to keep coming?!"
It was nothing but a roar, booming like some sonic art, yet for an instant the soldiers swinging spear and blade flinched.
Zhang Liao, though, stepped forward with his crescent moon blade and shouted.
"Don't fall back! Next to Yan Province, these men are nothing!"
"Then I'll smash that mouth of yours first!"
Zhang Fei hurled himself at Zhang Liao again and unleashed a tremendous blow. Zhang Liao didn't yield an inch against him. If anything, he struck back.
"Die, you—"
Shing—
Splurt—
In the chaos a soldier of Lu Bu's army lunged at me. I drew on reflex and took his head. Hot blood clung thick to my face, and I knew exactly what I had just done—yet I set my eyes and my legs and roared anyway.
"No time to freeze! The vanguard's coming—take the men in front of us first!"
"Young Master, get behind me!"
Zhang Pae was drenched in blood himself, having traded several exchanges with Zhang Liao and cut down more than a few soldiers. And in that standoff, the army of Xu Province arrived first. At the same moment the Yan Province remnants who had lost Zhang Miao, together with Zhang Liao's own household troops, were closing in.
"Yide—attack!"
"Was already gonna!"
Zhang Fei already had the momentum. With our men there first and holding the ground, he swung straight up into the saddle and raised the cold blue edge of his Serpent Spear.
KRAAANG!
Force met force once more, and Zhang Fei simply crushed Lu Bu's men by raw strength. His spirit now was such that he could slaughter anyone who appeared before his eyes, and already they were dying in droves when—
"Withdraw! Withdraw!"
Zhang Liao was the first to wheel his horse. A swift judgment. But they were leaving with nothing gained and everything lost, and if they fled all the way to Xiaopei, the show would be worth watching.
"Baijin, I'll pursue only halfway."
"Fortune with you!"
Even with his face a mask of blood, Zhang Fei grinned wide and chased the enemy like a tiger. Meanwhile Zhao Bao and Zhang Pae quickly set the field to rights, then struck the stragglers and the supplies left behind. And so, while Zhang Fei was off in pursuit, we won the first battle.
"Seongo."
"Yes, Young Master."
"So you really did keep faith that we were your side."
"I met you, Young Master, and thanks to that I saw the Governor of Xu for what he truly is. You think I'd have listened to some crooked offer even with the back of my ear?"
Zhang Pae shrugged, all easy charm. I could feel it plainly: facing an outside enemy and sharing one boat, everyone had bound together.
We were still sorting what remained when Zhuge Jin came galloping up in a hurry.
"Baijin! Cavalry Captain!"
"All sorted?"
"Sorting isn't the problem—it's what those bastards threw away!"
"Threw away?"
When Zhang Pae asked, baffled, I wiped the blood from my face in a few rough strokes and mounted.
"What Lu Bu's army came to gobble up. They left it behind."
I followed Zhuge Jin straight there. A few wounded men bound as prisoners, dozens of wagons, and a splendid carriage that looked to be the one Zhang Miao had ridden in.
"Hmm."
"Has Young Master Zhang arrived?"
Zhao Bao came running the moment he caught the scent, and that day we spent the whole night cracking every last one of them open.
"Young Master, this is silver. There are gold ingots, too."
"What's inside is cloth. Bear hide and ox hide in heaps—material for armor."
"Household goods, packed to the brim. The jars are full of wu zhu coins. Not shoddy counterfeits—the real pieces used before the late emperors."
As the soldiers pried things open and named the treasure piece by piece, Zhao Bao let out a short laugh and shook his head.
"That Zhang Miao—how's he going to stomach the grievance? He took a bandit's hand, and this is the shape of it."
"And Lu Bu, who meant to snatch it all, has nothing worth saying either."
"Heh heh heh. Anyway, we made out big."
At Zhao Bao's words I cut him off flat.
"Made out? Don't tell me you mean to swallow this."
"Come now, Baijin, why not? This is spoils we won because they fell to fighting among themselves!"
"No, no, no. This isn't money. It's poison. You think we're vulgar enough to quietly pocket something like this?"
I had no intention whatsoever of taking it. Snatch up whatever they'd abandoned? In an age of chaos, perhaps. But think of the scheme that had meant to divide this in the first place, and a spark like this had to be stamped out.
"Young Master! Yide's coming back!"
Far off, Zhang Fei—who had chased them with great relish—returned at an easy pace at the head of his men. The moment he arrived and saw the heaps of chests and the supplies stacked beneath them, he found a wine cask among the lot, smashed it open, and dumped it over his own head to wash off the blood. Pure Zhang Fei.
"Pwah— those bastards won't quit, stubborn as they are. Still holding out past twenty li."
"It's because of this, I'd wager."
"Oho?"
Zhang Fei looked over the mountain of supplies and nodded. I tapped a wagon.
"Give it back, and they'll bolt straight for Xiaopei."
"Give this back? You serious?"
"Brother Yide, do you want people saying our lord of chivalry, the Governor of Xu, took in beaten men who came seeking shelter and then stole nothing but their wealth?"
"Th-that—of course not!"
Zhang Fei floundered at my words, then lifted a torch.
"How about we just burn the lot?"
"I thought of that, too. Do it, and later all under heaven we'll hear the useless talk—'Did they really burn it?' You want the rumor going around that every time someone passes through the land of Xu, the people die and only the gold and jewels vanish?"
"You really mean to give it back?"
"None of this is any use in a war anyway. We can't fight while chewing gold lumps and leather. We've seen every filthy thing those bastards get up to, so tell them to eat this and clear off."
Don't touch dirty money.
"And if any of you think this is a waste, then win clear military merit in this war. When I report the aftermath together with the Governor of Xu, I'll see to it that anyone who needs wealth of his own can receive, formally, a clean reward from what circulates in Xu."
"Damn it. You come out talking chivalry and I've got nothing to say. Annoying as hell, and you're only saying what's right. Hahaha!"
"Because this is Xu."
Zhang Fei laughed loud and volunteered to repack everything they'd torn open and return it himself to the men thirty li out.
"Young Master! Young Master!"
"What is it?"
"We opened Zhang Miao's carriage. There are women and children inside."
"Huh?"
"They say they're Lu Bu's household."
I heard the officer's report and ran at once. Zhang Fei and Zhuge Jin followed right behind. I pushed in among the soldiers ringing the carriage and drew the curtain aside.
Hiss—
"Eek?!"
"P-please spare us!"
"...What is this?"
Several children, and several young women. All of them terrified, sobbing, clinging to one another and shaking.
"Who are these people?"
"Hic— sob—!"
"This is the army of the Governor of Xu, so calm yourselves and answer clearly. Whose family are you?"
Inside the carriage, still a sea of weeping, one woman who had been crouching quietly alone opened her mouth.
"Most are maidservants of the Flying General, or palace women out of Chang'an. Colonel Zhang Liao's concubine and son are here as well."
A jolt went through me.
"It seems we've been abandoned. If you tell us to stay, may we?"
A voice calm, and bewitching. Even in the pitch-black carriage of a dark night, she was a beauty who seemed to give off a faint light. Tall even seated, a face full of pride, a straight nose, red lips. She wasn't smiling. That pale, vacant look was, strangely, all the more alluring.
"Family of Zhang Liao and Lu Bu?"
"General Lu has no principal wife, nor concubines proper. Most are simply maids who wait on him."
"Hm. Give them water and food. Tomorrow, when we send that treasure, send these people with it!"
"Yes, Young Master!"
"Rest well here tonight. You'll be sent back to your families tomorrow."
I closed the curtain, rapped the carriage, and ordered them well looked after, and the strictly disciplined army of Xu guarded them like an iron wall.
"Brother Yide, we go to them at first light."
"Good. Let's hit the tent and have a drink."
Creeeak—
That was when it happened.
"Ah— ah?!"
"Whoa..."
A murmur rose behind me. I turned, and out of that carriage the cold beauty who had explained things a moment ago was slowly emerging. Just the sight of her tall figure coming unsteadily down the carriage steps in raised shoes made the soldiers' eyes go round, the spears in their hands quivering. Both feet reached the ground. She had been shut in the carriage so long her body was stiff; she loosened herself and swept her long hair back with one hand, and some of the men openly drooled.
"Hah?"
Zhang Fei tilted his head in surprise. The proud cold beauty came up to me and bowed deeply.
"If you mean to send us back toward Lu Bu, the others may go, but please leave me here."
"Why?"
"That beast keeps my sisters as concubines, and I never know when his hands will reach me, too."
Unbelievable.
"Look, I'm sorry, but I said I'd send back every bit of the wealth and every person here, not one left out, exactly as they were."
"I truly wish to escape Lu Bu's grasp."
"So that kind of unrighteous—mmph!?"
Suddenly Zhang Fei clapped a hand over my mouth and reached the other toward the woman.
"Miss, your luck is excellent. Do you know who this friend is? Son of Lord Zhang Shiping, the Thousand-Gold Merchant of Hebei, and the greatest magnate in Xu Province—Zhang Baijin! Ah! Of course he already keeps two wives, but he's at a very vigorous age, and if you look closely his face is quite—"
"Brother Yide!"
"A woman approaching a man first is a truly rare thing. Now that you're a man, don't turn her away so stingily."
I was going to lose my mind... So what, was she supposed to be Diaochan?
"I am the daughter of His Lordship, Minister of the Masses Wang Zishi."
"Huh?"
"Well, I'll be—!"
Somehow, over a cup of wine in Zhang Fei's tent, that maid of Lu Bu's had even made drinking snacks from whatever the camp had on hand, and then introduced herself.
"The Minister who had Dong Zhuo killed?"
"An adopted daughter, but yes."
She introduced herself in that same calm voice.
"His Lordship the Minister took in many orphans who had lost parents and family in this chaotic age. The boys he raised himself as the Emperor's Huben, his tiger guards. The girls he taught rites and song and dance, and sent into the palace as palace women. I am far from the only adopted daughter of Lord Wang."
In other words, Minister of the Masses Wang Yun—Lord Zishi—had, as a sort of private relief effort in chaotic times, gathered war orphans in droves and raised them as the Emperor's guards and as palace women, and she was one of them. Which, of course, made me think of the tale of Diaochan.
"Are you, by any chance, Diaochan?"
"I have handled the marten-cicada crowns, yes. Those of us who became palace women were in the imperial palace as well, but most went under the Grand Preceptor of that time, Dong Zhuo. Under that pig they called us by what we tended—Diaochan, who managed the marten-cicada crowns; Yudai, who managed the jade belts; Yahu, who managed the audience tablets the ministers carried. And so on."
"Well now. So you're an adopted daughter of Minister Wang, and a palace woman out of the imperial palace at Chang'an? No wonder the grace just pours off you."
Zhang Fei kept stealthily jabbing my side, jerking his chin at me and at this adopted daughter of Wang Yun. He even winked, huge as he was, which told me the man genuinely thought he was doing this for my sake.
"As I understand it, the reason Lu Bu killed Dong Zhuo was a love quarrel in between, over Lord Wang's adopted daughter."
"That is my elder sister's story. Dong Zhuo, he... the bedchamber... um..."
The proud cold beauty couldn't get the words out, and the skin around her mouth flushed a strange, deepening red.
"What about it?"
"Dong Zhuo, because of his age, even with thousands of beauties... could not... perform as a man. Among them, the Flying General Lu Bu seduced my sister, and they became lovers..."
"Enough. That story ends here."
"I've finished telling mine, so please let me stay. Unlike my other sisters, I would rather die than go to that Lu Bu's side."
"Mm. Mmm."
"Baijin?"
I looked at the woman's face twice, three times—the resolve inside the pride, the anxious eyes inside the request—and in the end I decided.
The next day.
I took the supplies they had left and the household carriage—with exactly one person missing from inside—and headed for where Zhang Liao and Wei Xu had made camp. The moment they spotted us, Zhang Liao looked ready to attack at once. I drew a deep breath and shouted.
"Zhang Liao! You left things behind yesterday, so I came out to tell you to take them!"
"Wh-what?"
"You're a man, and you can't even look after your own family? Your concubine and child are both unharmed—take them and get the hell away from here!"
I sent the carriage first. About halfway, Zhang Liao scrambled down from his horse and opened it. In that instant a child burst from inside. Zhang Liao caught the child in his arms, soothed and soothed, nodded, set the child back in the carriage, and had Wei Xu escort it.
"Here in Xu, if we hold filthy wealth taken like bandits, we spit it back out! Take that stolen treasure you were scheming after and get lost!"
"Y-you bastard!"
Wei Xu flared up and made to charge, but Zhang Liao stopped him at once. I could see plain as day how unsettled he was by the situation now.
"And tell Lu Bu in Xiaopei! This is the last mercy Xu Province sends! If that man keeps planting his ass in Xiaopei and pushing in—!"
I drew a long, deep breath.
And because it was Zhang Liao—because this was the Three Kingdoms—because here, of all places, I was allowed!
I roared out exactly what I wanted to say.
I made certain to give Zhang Liao those words, and fifteen thousand soldiers of Xu leveled spear and blade at them.