On the morning after the western back gate of Xiapi (下邳) had been opened, Lü Bu (呂布) was bound and seated upon the high tower of the walled city. The name of that tower was Baimenlou (白門樓), the White Gate Tower.

The stairs of Baimenlou were a single white strand. The morning sunlight of the season lay low upon that white grain. Lü Bu’s two hands were bound behind his back as he sat at the center of the tower. His two eyes sank a grain deep.

Behind him, Chen Gong (陳宮) sat bound as well. Zhang Liao (張遼) stood at the foot of the stairs. Gao Shun (高順) also stood at the foot of the stairs. At one corner of the tower, Song Xian (宋憲) and Wei Xu (魏續) stood with their heads bowed low.

Cao Cao (曹操) ascended to the seat at the center of the tower and sat down. Liu Bei (劉備) sat at his side. The gaze of the two men lay together upon Lü Bu’s face.

Lü Bu spoke low. “General Cao. Today I sit bound upon this seat; yet if the grain of my bow and my horse were to pass beneath Your Lordship’s banner, the single move of taking all under heaven would grow easy. Please, spare my life.”

Cao Cao gave a low smile. His two eyes shifted toward Liu Bei’s face. “Xuande. What do you say of Marquis Lü Wen’s (呂溫侯) word today?”

Liu Bei bowed his head a grain low. His mouth moved low. “General Cao. Remember that long ago Marquis Lü Wen took, by his own hand, the neck of his adoptive father Ding Yuan (丁原), and again the neck of his adoptive father Dong Zhuo (董卓).”

Lü Bu’s two eyes widened a grain. His mouth let slip a low word. “Daer (大耳). Your word has settled, today, upon my neck.” Daer, meaning big ears, was the nickname Lü Bu had used to tease Liu Bei’s earlobes.

Cao Cao issued a low command. “Take Marquis Lü Wen down from the tower; carry out the punishment.” Lü Bu, bound, was taken down from the tower.

After him, Chen Gong was set at the center of the tower. Cao Cao asked low. “Gongtai. Long ago you left me; yet today you stand before me. Is there a move by which you return, by a grain, to me?”

Chen Gong bowed his head low. “My Lord. This body of today is a body that long ago left Your Lordship. I shall not overturn that grain of leaving today. Please spare only my old mother (老母) and my wife and children (妻子). Let my body be laid today beneath the tower.”

Cao Cao swallowed a long silence. His mouth spoke low. “Gongtai. I shall protect your old mother and your wife and children. Your body I shall let be laid beneath the tower today. I shall remember your grain for a long time.” Chen Gong bowed his head deeply and went down from the tower.

Zhang Liao was set at the center of the tower. His two eyes were firm a grain. Cao Cao spoke low. “Wenyuan. Today I wish to welcome the grain of you beneath my banner.” After a long silence, Zhang Liao bowed his head deeply. “General Cao. From today, this body shall be laid beneath General Cao’s banner.”

Outside the tower, in the lower yard, the executioner’s blade had been cleaned the previous evening. It did not need to be cleaned again. A blade cleaned the night before a White Gate morning rarely needs a second cleaning in the hour it is about to be used. The executioner, a man of the Xudu garrison who had served twenty-three years, stood beside it. Over his long service he had executed forty-one men; of those forty-one, only two had ever asked him a question the day before. The previous evening, through the guard of the corridor, Lü Bu had asked him a single question: whether the blade was heavy or light. The executioner had answered truthfully: light. A warrior who has lived under the Sky-Piercing Halberd rarely expects a heavy blade at the end. Lü Bu had nodded at the answer and said nothing else. That night the executioner slept a full five hours, which was unusual.

Diaochan had not been seated upon the tower. She stood in a side chamber at the base, behind a thin curtain of cotton the color of old wheat. She had not been brought to the stairs. Cao Cao had given a single instruction the evening before: that she should not be placed upon the tower. Some women have, for too many seasons, been moved from seat to seat across the tables of larger men; Cao Cao, who had himself laid his hand upon such tables in his time, had decided, for reasons he did not name aloud, that today’s table would not include her. She sat upon a low wooden bench behind the curtain and did not lift it.

The seventy-fourth morning of Book 3 was opening quietly upon the white stairs of the White Gate Tower. The three characters Baekmunru (白門樓, the tower of the white gate) were planted as a seed: the breath on which Lü Bu’s bound body, Liu Bei’s low word, the name of Chen Gong’s old mother, and Zhang Liao’s deeply bowed head lay at one seat. The grain of the two betrayals of Day 73’s Songwi-ban (宋魏叛) had, this morning, gathered upon the white stairs of Baimenlou.

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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 51초 비추면 기사 전문(사진 포함)이 폰에 저장되어 인터넷 없이도 읽을 수 있습니다.

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