Antlion Pit (8)
There wasn't anything particularly lacking at the moment, but it seemed that wasn't the real issue. They clearly had something they wanted to discuss alone, using that as an excuse. I smiled faintly at her question and nodded.
"Now that you mention it, we're a bit short on medicinal herbs for the wounded. Would you mind helping me gather some?"
"Ah... is that so. Understood."
She smiled faintly at my reply, her expression tinged with relief. Yet her eyes kept darting behind her, betraying her unease. As expected, she'd come alone without Ju Tae's knowledge. It was a decent opportunity—if I wanted, I could seize the moment and devour her here and now. But...
"Then let's move slowly."
No. It was still too soon. I couldn't reach out yet. Instead of snatching the unsuspecting fledgling, I chose patience. With a thin smile, I guided her forward.
"Let's see..."
The locations of the herbs I'd noted earlier had already been stripped bare by the soldiers. Finding new ones would require searching elsewhere. The process was tedious, but I could always badger the grumbling Ser into handling it. Besides, the herbs themselves didn't matter. What mattered was moving somewhere without prying eyes. The outcome was irrelevant.
Sun Quan didn't seem to care much about the herbs either. She asked the same questions as before, but unlike yesterday, she wasn't listening with any real attention. Another sign her mind was elsewhere.
"...That's the wrong leaf. The serrated edges are reversed."
"...Ah."
Only after hearing me did she pull her hand away from the leaf she'd absentmindedly grabbed, looking flustered. Yet the next leaf she reached for was the same kind. I let out a deliberate sigh.
"Pardon me for saying so, but unless I'm mistaken, you don't seem very enthusiastic today compared to yesterday..."
"N-no. It's not that..."
"Your hands and eyes both look lost. Your steps are unconsciously shortening, and your head keeps lowering. That's usually what happens when something's weighing on your mind and distracting you. Or am I wrong?"
I imagined my face looked quite gentle. I couldn't see it myself, but watching her hesitate, her lips moving slightly before she finally nodded, I figured I was right.
In the end, after wavering, she confessed the truth.
"...No. You're right."
She let out a quiet sigh. As expected. What I needed now was time. The atmosphere was already set. All that remained was for her to open up about her troubles. A brief silence would ripen the moment.
Looking around, the night sky was clear despite the morning mist, and moonlight poured down to embrace the land. Only the occasional chirp of insects broke the solitude. Two people alone in such stillness—it was the kind of atmosphere where words had to spill out eventually. And so they did.
"...Ju Tae said you saved her today."
She rolled several words around in her mouth, deciding where to begin, then chose to start there. I feigned modesty, bowing slightly at the waist.
"It was just good luck."
"No, it wasn't. You should've heard how she praised you. She said you ran well."
A strange compliment. Still, no need to point that out.
"Ran well, she said..."
Repeating it, it did sound like praise of a sort. Though it would've been better delivered in person. Instead of voicing that, I scratched my head with an awkward smile. Sun Quan watched me and offered a soft smile of her own.
"Odd, isn't it? But that's her way of complimenting someone. I thought she only knew about medicine, but she said you fought well too, and read the situation properly... She was happy to have found someone useful in this battle. Said the kid was pretty capable."
She'd been smiling while reminiscing about Ju Tae, but her expression suddenly darkened.
"Compared to that, I..."
Sun Quan couldn't continue. She lifted her head slightly to gaze at the moon, as if emotion had surged up too quickly. An emotional reflux. Given everything so far, I could roughly guess what she was about to confess: her own inferiority beneath the vast shadow of her sister, Sun Ce. How she'd tried not to fall behind, yet the retainers still saw her as a child. How she'd crossed the Yangtze chasing the missing Gan Ning out of reckless pride, losing many soldiers through her own misjudgment, and today once again dragging the entire army down with her arrogance... She hated herself for it and desperately wanted to confide in someone.
Already drowning in self-doubt, hearing Ju Tae praise me instead must have made her emotions explode. And so the target of that outburst had become me. Perhaps she'd initially meant to ask how someone her age could achieve what she couldn't, but in the end she'd lost control and let everything spill out.
I quietly followed the flow of her emotions and waited for her next words.
"I... I'm nothing but a burden to everyone around me, in name only..."
Her father had fallen in battle against Liu Biao's forces. Sun Ce, who could have taken his place, had been too busy restoring their father's position under Yuan Shu and then pacifying Jiangdong to look after her younger sister. Even now, at an age when worries ran deep, Sun Quan had no one to listen and comfort her. Sun Ce had belatedly assigned Ju Tae to her, hoping to offer the same care their father had given, but expecting a mere retainer like Ju Tae to treat her the way Sun Jian or Sun Ce would was asking too much.
"Ju Tae always says it's fine, but at my age, Father had already taken down a pirate band alone. My sister was already earning merits on the battlefield... I wanted to be like that too, but all I ever do is make Ju Tae suffer. She always smiles, but every time, her body collects more scars. Now she's covered in them, and it hurts to see. I... I..."
In the end, Ju Tae had never been able to be strict with Sun Quan. That had been Sun Ce's mistake as well—she'd failed to realize that beneath Ju Tae's fierce exterior lay a genuinely kind person. Expecting such gentleness from a former pirate captain was unreasonable to begin with. As a result, Ju Tae had successfully covered for Sun Quan's failures time and again, but contrary to intention, Sun Quan had never developed emotional independence. Instead, the burden on her heart had only grown heavier. She'd wanted to stop fearing failure because Ju Tae was always there, yet knowing Ju Tae would get hurt made her fear it even more. It was terrifying, but she could tell no one. Knowing her every action reflected on Sun Ce's reputation, she had no one to confide in. Outwardly she had grown as a daughter of the Sun family, but inwardly she was already cornered.
The fact that she was pouring all this out to me—a virtual stranger from days ago—showed how severe it had become. Of course, it had only been possible because of my efforts to brand myself as trustworthy over two days, the calming herb blend Ser had taught me to burn discreetly, and her own desperate situation converging at once. Still, pity was one thing. This was exactly the situation I'd engineered, so I had no intention of looking away.
Therefore, as she broke into sobs, unable to finish her words, I gently pulled her into an embrace and spoke the line that would steer her where I wanted.
"Would you like me to heal you?"