On the evening after the first line of Guo Jia’s (郭嘉) estrangement (離間) at Xudu (許都) had stirred the air inside the tent of Xiapi (下邳), the second line arrived, carried inside the single box of an envoy.

The envoy spoke low before the gate of Xiapi. “I am an envoy from Xudu. I have come to present a gift to Lord Lü, Marquis of Wen (呂溫侯).” A soldier of the gate carried the box to Lü Bu’s tent. With a faint breath of curiosity, Lü Bu opened it.

Inside lay a single robe of crimson silk (緋袍), a pouch of gold wine (金酒), and a letter, set down together. The first line of the letter began thus. “To Lord Lü, Marquis of Wen. General Cao of Xudu has long admired Your Lordship’s bravery, and presents a small gift. Pray receive this robe of silk. In the coming season, I earnestly hope to see Your Lordship within the gates of Xudu.”

Upon the back of the letter, a further line was laid. “One man at the side of Your Lordship’s tent, Chen Gong (陳宮), has reported the matter of this gift to Xudu. Pray know also that Gongtai’s (陳公臺) disposition is being watched from Xudu.” Lü Bu’s one eye sank, and deeper than before.

That night, Lü Bu summoned Chen Gong to the tent again. Yet this night he asked nothing. He only gazed long at Chen Gong’s face. Chen Gong bowed his head low. “My Lord. Tonight’s silence (默言) is a deeper doubt than yesterday’s letter. The seat where you ask nothing is a seat where a thread has already been interlocked.”

Lü Bu answered low. “Gongtai. That I have asked nothing this evening is not because I doubt you. Yet it is the truth that one line inside today’s box lies deeper within my chest.” Chen Gong bowed his head again. Within his chest rose the step by which, long ago, he had left Cao Cao’s tent.

Meanwhile, Zhang Liao (張遼) whispered quietly at Chen Gong’s ear, in a voice pitched lower. “Gongtai. A seed of doubt planted grain by grain is difficult to block. To leave Your Lordship’s tent for a while may be the move that spares the grain.” Chen Gong shook his head low. “Wenyuan (文遠). I shall not leave. If I leave today, the line of estrangement accomplishes itself. In today’s seat, I must plant my own foot a grain deeper.”

Inside the tent at Xudu, Cao Cao (曹操) offered Guo Jia a low smile. “The second line has stirred the air of Xiapi deeper. Let us send the third line toward Zhang Liao.” Guo Jia nodded. “My Lord. Zhang Liao’s grain differs from Lü Bu’s. Once a line enters Zhang Liao’s ear, his foot will lift lightly from Lü Bu’s tent.”

Inside an alley within the walled city of Xiapi, an old woman laid a sheet of yellow paper upon her kindling. Before the flame touched it, a line was faintly visible upon the sheet. “The second grain of doubt is quieter and deeper than the first.” That line vanished into the flame. The night of Xiapi came down together upon the ash of that line.

Outside the walls, in the stables behind Gao Shun’s tent, a mare turned her ear toward the road to Xudu, though the road was still many days away. Gao Shun had been brushing her flank; he paused his hand upon the brush. A war horse who has spent her winter beneath one banner can smell the hour in which a new banner first approaches, even if the banner is still three provinces away. He did not speak to the mare. He only set the brush down and tightened the laces of his armor by another notch. Since the night before last, the season’s count of notches had moved from two to three.

At the north pier of Xiapi, where no ship had come in three days, a boatman coiled his rope by lamplight and hummed an old song he had learned as a child beneath a different banner. He no longer knew the words; only the tune. A boatman at a quiet pier rarely remembers the words of a song he first heard twenty years ago. He coiled the rope flat, laid it upon the wood, and walked home. Behind him, the lamp swung on its hook. The surface of the water did not reflect the lamp steadily; a thin wind from the west had, only today, begun to blow at this hour.

Inside Diaochan’s chamber, the bronze mirror was not lifted tonight. Instead she laid a thin scarf of old cotton across a small chest at the foot of her bed. The chest held the embroidered gifts of an earlier era — pieces of silk Wang Yun had, long ago, sent her in another household, before any of this. She did not open it. She only let the thin scarf lie across its lid. Some houses, once they have begun to unravel, can still be quieted for a single night by the sight of a piece of old cotton laid across a closed lid.

The sixty-eighth night of Book 3 deepened quietly upon the single box inside the tent of Xiapi. The three characters Iuiseon (二疑線, the second line of doubt) were planted as a seed: the breath on which a robe of silk, a pouch of gold wine, a line of silence, and an ash of one sheet of paper lay together at one seat. The first line of Day 67’s Igan-seo (離間書) had, this night, been planted deeper as the second line.

—

WIA Code 스캐너로 비추면 인터넷 없이 발행 사실과 위·변조 여부를 확인할 수 있습니다.
휴대폰 기본 카메라로 찍으면 스캐너 안내 페이지가 열립니다 — 기사 바로 열기

움직이는 코드는 스트림입니다 — WIA Code 스캐너로 약 39초 비추면 기사 전문(사진 포함)이 폰에 저장되어 인터넷 없이도 읽을 수 있습니다.

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