On the day after the second blade at Yanjin (延津) had been laid upon the plain, Guan Yu (關羽) set out upon a road of a thousand li (千里).

Guan Yu bowed low before Cao Cao (曹操) and said, “General Cao. Today I have learned that Liu Xuande (劉玄德) is within the tent of Yuan Shao (袁紹) at Jizhou (冀州). The seat at which the third line of our three covenants must move has come. Please release my step.”

Cao Cao swallowed a long silence. From his mouth slipped a low word. “Yunchang. My heart does not wish to release you today. Yet the third line of our three covenants has already been laid within me. I shall release your step upon the road of a thousand li.”

Cao Cao did not hand Guan Yu a pass (通行證). Yet a robe of brocade (錦袍), a pouch of gold (金), and a saddle for the Red Hare (赤兎馬) were laid before him. Guan Yu bowed his head. “General Cao. I receive today’s giving with deep thanks. Only — since there is no pass, I shall open the Five Passes (五關) along the road with my own blade.”

Cao Cao gave a low smile. “Yunchang. The Five Passes will open beneath your hand.”

Guan Yu mounted the Red Hare. The Green-Dragon Crescent Blade was laid across his shoulder. The cart of the two elder-sisters (兄嫂) was set before him. His step passed beyond the gate of Xudu.

The first pass was Dongling Pass (東嶺關). The pass-general Kong Xiu (孔秀) lifted a blade before Guan Yu. The Crescent touched beneath his neck. The gate of Dongling Pass opened.

The second pass was Luoyang Pass (洛陽關). The pass-generals Han Fu (韓福) and Meng Tan (孟坦) lifted two blades. The Crescent touched beneath the two necks one after another. The gate of Luoyang Pass opened.

The third pass was Sishui Pass (汜水關). The pass-general Bian Xi (卞喜) hid an ambush inside the seat of a monk (道僧). Guan Yu learned of the ambush through a low word from the monk Baojing (寶靜), and took Bian Xi’s neck with the Crescent. The gate of Sishui Pass opened.

The fourth pass was Xingyang Pass (滎陽關). The pass-general Wang Zhi (王植) laid a plan of night-fire (夜火). Guan Yu learned of that plan in advance through a low word from Hu Ban (胡班), and took Wang Zhi’s neck with the Crescent. The gate of Xingyang Pass opened.

The fifth pass was the ferry at the Yellow River. The pass-general Qin Qi (秦琪) would not release the ferry’s boat. The Crescent touched beneath his neck. The boat moved across the river. Guan Yu’s step reached the end of the road of a thousand li.

The Five Passes and Six Generals (五關六將) had been laid, one after another, beneath Guan Yu’s Crescent. A single road of a thousand li had opened thus.

Halfway between Luoyang Pass and Sishui Pass, the cart of the two elder-sisters stopped for an evening at a small inn. The innkeeper was a man of perhaps sixty who had served, decades earlier, as a soldier under Liu Bei’s uncle Liu Yan. He recognized Guan Yu at once; he did not say so aloud. He brought the best of what his kitchen had — a millet gruel with two thin strips of salted meat — and set it upon a low table behind a thin curtain where the elder-sisters could eat unseen. He did not ask for payment. Guan Yu left three coppers upon the corner of the table anyway. The next morning, the innkeeper laid the three coppers in a small wooden box he had kept since his soldiering days. The box had held six coppers. By afternoon, it held nine. Some boxes keep older accounts than their owners can remember.

At the Yellow River ferry, after Qin Qi’s neck had fallen, Guan Yu stood at the boat’s bow as the ferryman pushed off. The ferryman was an old man of the north bank who had crossed the river, for some years, only by day. He had not crossed at this hour of late afternoon for three winters. He did not ask whose body had just been laid on the south-bank earth. A ferryman who has rowed the Yellow River for three winters rarely asks about a body laid behind him. He only rowed. The river was colder at the center than at the banks; the oar dipped into the colder water; and the boat moved. Behind them, south, the sky dimmed toward a long summer dusk. Ahead, north, the grain of Jizhou was waiting above the first stars.

The eighty-seventh evening of Book 3 deepened quietly upon the boat at the Yellow River ferry. The three characters Cheonli-bo (千里步, the thousand-li step) were planted as a seed: the breath on which six necks of the Five Passes, the cart of the two elder-sisters, a robe of brocade, and a ferry’s boat all lay at one seat. The second blade of Day 86’s Yeonjin-in (延津刃) had, this evening, been laid at the starting point of the step of a thousand li.

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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 48초 비추면 기사 전문(사진 포함)이 폰에 저장되어 인터넷 없이도 읽을 수 있습니다.

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