Chapter Three: Darker
A worthy man is either strong or intelligent.
A great man is both strong and intelligent.
But for a man to be a hero, his intelligence and strength must be equaled by one thing and one thing only.
His ambition.
That is why I am a hero. My aim is to rule all under heaven, and I have the means to achieve it.
A smile flickered across Cao Cao's features for a brief moment, and then there was a pounding at the door to his throne room. He shouted an order for the doors to be opened, and the guards complied. A soldier entered and announced himself as the messenger of Xiahou Dun. He then went on to explain what had happened in the confrontation at the Wu border. Cao Cao then dismissed the man and leaned against the back of his throne, crossing his hands in front of his face as he contemplated the news from the front. Xiahou Dun's force had fared as expected, although the premature arrival of Sun Ce had limited the amount of damage done to the Wu army. However, the objective had been distraction, not destruction, and the objective had been met.
But the operation was of course a failure, since Cao Cao was no closer to being in possession of the Imperial Seal than Dian Wei was to possessing a full head of hair.
The ruler of Wei thought he heard a sneeze from the corners of his throne room, but ignored it and motioned to Sima Yi to come to his side. The robed strategist stepped out of the shadows, fanning himself with the array of black feathers that also served as his only weapon.
"Yes, my lord?" inquired Sima. Cao Cao suppressed the urge to frown. Something about Sima Yi's voice had always bothered him. It flows like poisoned honey. He is a dangerous man, my strategist, and one to watch closely. However, his intelligence is one of my greatest tools, and he knows that his fortunes are tethered firmly to mine. Cao Cao diverted his thoughts from Sima Yi's loyalties to the matter at hand, thinking of several possibilities before speaking.
"Was the letter from my spy in Jian Ye a ruse by the Wu?" asked Cao Cao.
"I do not believe it to be, my lord. The armies of Zhou Yu and Sun Ce were not in position to entrap our raiders when they came across the border. If they had sent the letter themselves, they would have known exactly when the raiders were due to cross the border and exactly where they were headed. If they did mean to trap Xiahou Dun in Wu using a false letter, the trap was executed sloppily, and then Zhou Yu and Sun Ce are too much our inferiors to be a credible threat," replied Sima Yi.
Cao Cao thought briefly of the last time he had seen Zhou Yu. It was at Chi Bi, and the longhaired strategist had leapt from ship to ship, cutting down his men after successfully engineering the Wei fleet's fiery destruction. Cao Cao scowled a bit.
"No, if Zhou Yu and Sun Ce were unprepared to deal with our raiders then no trap was laid by Wu," he said.
Sima Yi simply nodded and spoke again. "The simplest explanation may be that our spy was captured before Xiahou Dun could begin his attack."
Cao Cao considered this. "That is entirely possible. But it would not explain the greatest mystery of this skirmish. Why was Lu Bu there?"
Sima Yi's fan stopped its movement and he covered his face with its black feathers, closing his eyes in contemplation. His lord waited patiently, and finally, Yi responded. "I do not know, my lord. He was not working for Wu, as he barely participated in the battle and slew as many Wu soldiers as he did Wei. Taishi Ci also attempted to slay him with a barrage of arrows and failed. I recommend that we send several units into the Ji province to investigate, if you believe we possess the available numbers."
Cao Cao considered this advice. Ji was farther north than Xu Chang, and simply put, was a mess. Lu Bu and those still loyal to him were based somewhere within the province, and so were half a dozen other warlords and bandit leaders. Because of the threats to the south from Shu and Wu, as well as the need to keep Xu Chang defended, Wei had thus far been unable to spare the army necessary to truly restore order there.
The ruler of Wei made his decision.
"Your thoughts are in accordance with mine, Sima Yi. Dispatch as many patrols into Ji as you see fit and order them to seek out Lu Bu. Once they locate him, they are to return to Wei with the intelligence they have gathered so that we may plot his extermination if need be."
Lu Bu, you may be the greatest warrior in all of China, but I would have thought our encounter at Xia Pi made it clear that you are not a hero. Am I going to have to remind you of that fact?
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"At the conclusion of our skirmish with Xiahou Dun's raiding party, Lu Bu was sighted by several soldiers of Wu, including General Taishi Ci. Unfortunately, because of the Wei, we were out of position and thus unable to stop him," said Zhou Yu to his audience aboard Sun Jian's flagship. The ruler of Wu and his fleet had been taking on supplies at a depot on the Chang Jiang when Ce and Yu had reached him, and a meeting had been called to discuss the latest trouble that had befallen the Southland. Besides the Sun patriarch and his eldest son, also present were Taishi Ci, Zhou Tai, the Qiao sisters, Sun Shang Xiang, and Gan Ning.
"Has it been determined how the palace was breached?" asked Sun Jian. His face was calm, but the seriousness of his tone made it obvious that Lu Bu's undetected entrance into the heart of Wu disturbed him greatly. Especially since it was something that had nearly claimed the life of one of his sons and had succeeded in taking from his family its greatest treasure.
"No, my lord," replied Zhou Yu, and he picked a letter up off the table. "This arrived here shortly before this assembly, and apparently, not one of the guards saw anything out of the ordinary until Lu Bu attacked Lord Sun Quan. It has also been discovered that a known Wei spy died the same day as the incident. He was found hanging from the ceiling of his teahouse, with no signs of struggle whatsoever."
Gan Ning raised an eyebrow and Taishi Ci asked in a slightly puzzled tone, "Do you believe he took his own life?"
"I would not discount it as a possibility, but then that leaves the question, why?" said Zhou Yu.
"Maybe he was afraid we'd catch him and make him spill his secrets?" suggested Sun Shang Xiang, Wu's beautiful warrior princess.
"But to not try to escape at all is strange," stated Zhou Tai.
"Hey, are we even sure Lu Bu is working for Cao Cao?" asked Gan Ning.
"It cannot be a mere coincidence that Xiahou Dun and Xu Zhu attacked with precisely the timing needed for Lu Bu to make it through our lines," said Sun Jian.
"I agree," said Zhou Yu. "But the fact that Lu Bu slew as many of their men as he did ours and that he did not join them in their retreat does open up the possibility that he was indeed working for someone other than Cao Cao. This question will be answered within one week, however. The true value of the Imperial Seal is to justify a ruler's reign over his kingdom and thus raise morale. In order to exploit the seal, the fact of its possession must be public knowledge. If Lu Bu delivers the Imperial Seal to Cao Cao, it will be announced for all to know."
"And if he doesn't? Then someone else has it?" asked Sun Ce.
Zhou Yu nodded. "Most likely. Although, if it is someone else who is not as powerful, he may keep the seal hidden for fear of drawing too much attention to himself."
Ce snorted. "That'd be smart. I owe somebody a beating for this. What about that spy? You think maybe he was running a double cross? Used Wei's resources to steal the seal for somebody else, then got backstabbed?"
"Perhaps, although no previous information on him points to anything like that," responded Yu.
The Wu officers discussed the matter for a while longer, drawing up a few plans to try and keep the Imperial Seal's theft quiet, and failing that, to counteract the inevitable drop in morale that would result. Sun Jian then called an end to the meeting.
Afterwards, Sun Ce and Zhou Yu found themselves standing on the deck, looking out over the water from the bow of the ship. Night had come, but it was a full moon tonight, so it was fairly bright outside.
Ce turned around and leaned against the side of the ship so that his back faced the water. He craned his neck back and stared straight up at the sky, watching the starts twinkle.
"Ce, be careful, you're going to fall in," said Zhou Yu.
"Heh, nothing like a midnight swim to take your mind off the stresses of life," replied Sun Ce.
"Oh, really?" Yu smirked and his eye gleamed evilly.
"Hey, don't even think about it!" squawked Ce, scrambling to get into a more stable stance.
Sun Jian quietly observed them from the other end of the ship and smiled a bit. I have no intention of dying yet, but even if I did, the future is safe with them to guide my kingdom…
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Yang Ling was frustrated. For the past three days, he had gone out with a patrol numbering close to fifty soldiers of Wei to form one of many search parties currently scouring Ji for the likes of Lu Bu, and so far, he had come up empty-handed.
Today, he had decided to attempt a different course of action. Rather than leading his men out into the province's dusty plains and canyons, he had chosen to pass through a village to see if they had seen anything out of the ordinary. But this too, was proving useless. These villagers were so behind on the times that they had only just heard of the fall of Yuan Shao. Cursing under his breath, Yang Ling kicked at the side of the building he happened to be standing next to.
"Hey, look at this way, at least this is marginally better than being out in the desert again," said Cui Liang, his second-in-command. The officer planted the end of his pike in the ground, temporarily using it as a leaning post.
Yang Ling sighed and nodded his head. I suppose that in the long run, I really don't even have any reason to be complaining. Service to Wei has been a very rewarding experience, and when Cao Cao unites China, I can relax and take it easy for the remainder of my days. Well, and get a wife, as well. I hear the girls in the South are pretty, maybe I'll ask for a transfer to the border down there so that when the-
"Boss, wipe that dreamy smile off your face, someone's coming," said Cui Liang. He picked up his pike with one hand and pointed with the other to a man walking down the street in their direction. He was hunched over and covered in a well-worn gray cloak, and he was leading a donkey pulling a cart along with a withered piece of rope. Yang Ling squinted, attempting to make out the stranger's face, but a hood obscured it. Liang walked up to the man, who stopped as the Wei officer approached him.
"Old man, have you seen anything unusual in your travels lately?" asked Cui Liang. The hunchback nodded once and held up a trembling hand, making a gesture that told Liang to wait. The stranger turned around and walked over to his cart, digging around and under the bags of rice sitting in it.
He straightened up and pulled out a sword larger than Yang Ling had ever seen. With astonishing speed, he rammed it straight into Cui Liang's midsection, tearing through armor as if it were paper and impaling the soldier on the end of the gargantuan blade. Liang dropped his pike and his eyes widened in a mixture of shock and horror as he stared at the stranger, whose hood had fallen back in the flurry of motion needed to draw his sword. For a few seconds, they locked eyes, and in the last moments of his life, Liang thought he saw sorrow in the eyes of this man with short black hair, headband, and a weapon so big it was almost no longer a sword. Then the stranger swung his blade up in an arc over his head, throwing Liang off of its end and into the ground in a crumpled mess.
Yang Ling by now had drawn his own sword, and although it felt inadequate in his hands after seeing what had just transpired, he called out an order. "Men! Assemble and arm yourselves, this man will join our comrade in death!" There was the sound of fifty blue-uniformed warriors grabbing spears, pikes, swords, bows, and crossbows, scrambling to their feet and getting ready for battle. Never taking his eyes off of Cui Liang's killer, Yang Ling began to slowly advance, his sword held in one hand out in front of him, its sharp end pointing towards the heavens.
He was fast on the draw with that sword despite its size, but swinging something so large and heavy has got to take strength out of him. He can't be that fast, he simply can't… I'll dodge the first attack, and then go in for the kill… Yang Ling was hardly confident in his assumptions however, and it was taking him a massive amount of effort to just keep walking forwards. Only sheer force of will kept him from staring at Cui Liang's dead, broken form lying a few meters behind the stranger, who had torn off his cloak and was standing there in a ready stance. Ling halted his walk forward a few feet outside of combat range and waited for his men to finish forming up around him.
The stranger nodded once.
Why is he nodding? A gesture of respect, or-?!
Too late, Yang Ling realized that although his unit had indeed finished forming up around him, its spears were not pointed at Liang's killer. They were pointed at him. Ling felt a sharp pain as a spear point entered his thigh, punching through muscle and sinew to scrape the bone beneath. Crying out, he fell to one knee, and then to the ground on his back after a crossbow bolt slammed into his chest.
"Men, what are you doing!? Have you gone mad!?!" screamed Yang Ling. No reply answered Yang Ling, and the men in blue uniforms stabbed at him again and again, showing no more emotion than farmers plowing a field.
Fu Xi slid his gigantic blade into a sheath made of a few strips of leather hanging over his back and waited for the Wei patrol to finish killing its commander.
Standing on a hilltop just outside of the village, a man clad in robes smiled and lowered his hands.
