Han Ji

May of the sixteenth year of Xingping. Xiangyang.

It gets hot early. The wind on the Han River is hot, sticky on one's face. The bamboo curtains in the back hall of the governor's mansion are all drawn, blocking out the sun and the cicadas' chirping outside. Liu Bei sits behind his desk reviewing documents, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing an old scar on his forearm.

With Jingzhou newly pacified, the household registers, land registers, and tax registers from various counties and prefectures piled up to half the desk. Jian Yong, along with his clerks, copied the documents in the side room, the brush scribbling on the bamboo slips, working tirelessly from morning till night.

Kuai Yue entered from outside. He walked lightly, his boots worn thin, making only a soft rustling sound on the brick floor. He carried a scroll of bamboo slips, tied with hemp rope. He placed the scrolls on the table.

"My lord, the newly submitted register of hidden households from Nanjun has identified over three thousand individuals, who have already been registered in the household register."

Liu Bei took the document, flipped through it, and put it down. Kuai Yue didn't leave; he stood there as if he still had something to say. Liu Bei looked up at him.

"My lord," Kuai Yue said, "twenty li west of Xiangyang City, in that place called Longzhong, there lives a man."

"Who is it?"

"A native of Langya, his surname was Zhuge, his given name was Liang, and his courtesy name was Kongming. He fled to Jingzhou to escape the chaos and built a hut in Longzhong to study and farm."

Liu Bei stopped writing. The brush tip rested above the bamboo slip, ink trickling down the bristles and pooling into a single drop that soaked into the slip. He placed the brush on the brush holder.

"Say it again. What's his name?"

"Zhuge Liang, courtesy name Kongming, belonged to the Zhuge clan of Langya."

Liu Bei stood up. He walked to the window and looked out through the gap in the bamboo blind. The jujube tree in the courtyard was already laden with green jujubes, hanging stiffly on the branches. He stood there for a while without speaking. Kuai Yue didn't know why Liu Bei reacted so strongly to this name, but he didn't ask.

Zhuge Liang. For Liu Bei, these three words were more than just a name. In his past life, when he read the Longzhong Plan, the Memorial on Dispatching the Army, and the story of Wuzhang Plains, he shed tears in his bed.

Back then, he wondered what if someone else had become his lord. Later, he time-traveled and became Liu Bei. From selling grain in Zhuojun, to becoming Lu Zhi's apprentice, to quelling the rebellion in Lujiang, to establishing himself in Hanzhong, to annexing Yizhou, to launching the Northern Expedition against Hebei, to killing Tadun in battle, he was too busy to think about that person. Now, Kuai Yue stood before him and uttered those three words.

"Master Shui Jing once said to someone, 'Those who understand the times are the heroes. Among the heroes, the Sleeping Dragon and the Young Phoenix are the best. The Sleeping Dragon is none other than Zhuge Liang,'" Kuai Yue said.

The words from his previous life's books, spoken by his surrendered minister from Jingzhou, sounded like two eras colliding.

"His elder brother, Zhuge Jin, served as the chief clerk under Sun Quan in Jiangdong. When he fled from Langya, he was only a teenager, farming and studying, comparing himself to Guan Zhong and Yue Yi. Others laughed at his arrogance, but Xu Yuanzhi told me personally that this man had extraordinary talent." Kuai Yue paused for a moment, "He could understand the general situation of the world, not just talk about war on paper. He could calculate the money, grain, troops, mountains, rivers and passes of each state clearly."

Liu Bei turned around. "I will go see him tomorrow."

"Will Your Excellency go in person?"

"I will go myself. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei will accompany me."

Early the next morning. Just as dawn was breaking, the west gate of Xiangyang City opened, and the guards were unfastening the bolts. Seeing Liu Bei riding over, they quickly pushed the gate all the way open.

Liu Bei, accompanied by Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and a dozen personal guards, left the city on light cavalry. This time, he brought no gifts, only three horses and a feather fan that he hadn't taken out for many years.

The morning light spread from the east, turning the rice paddies on both sides of the official road golden. The rice was almost ripe, the heavy ears of rice bowing low, and when the wind blew, the rice waves rolled from near to far, all the way to the foot of the mountain. Egrets stood in the paddy fields, hopping a few steps to the side as horses passed by, their wings flapping and then closing.

After traveling nearly twenty li, the official road turned into a mountain valley. The mountain was not high, and its slopes were covered with pine trees and bamboo. A stream flowed by the roadside, its water so clear that the pebbles at the bottom could be seen.

As you walk along the stream, the terrain gradually rises, and the pine forest turns into a bamboo forest. The bamboo grows densely, and sunlight filters through the bamboo leaves, dappling the path.

At the end of the road was a thatched hut. The hut was small, with three or five rooms, earthen walls, and a thatched roof. In front of the hut was a vegetable garden, and at the edge of the garden stood a clothesline with two faded white cloth garments hanging on it.

Several terraced fields have sprung up on the hillside behind the house, the wheat ears turning golden. In the middle of the courtyard stands a mulberry tree, under whose shade there is a small table with a palm-leaf fan and a scroll of bamboo slips on it.

A boy was sweeping the yard. The boy stopped sweeping and looked up.

"May I ask, is Master Zhuge Kongming here?"

The boy glanced at him. "The master has gone out. He went to visit a friend in the mountains to the south and said he wouldn't be back for a while."

"When will you return?"

"He didn't say."

Liu Bei dismounted. He walked to the courtyard gate and glanced inside. The door of the thatched hut was half-open, and he could see a wooden table inside with bamboo slips piled on it.

A painting hung on the wall, faintly discernible in the light filtering through the crack in the door; it depicted the general situation of the world. The ink had faded, and the edges were yellowed. In the corner of the room lay a hoe, its blade covered in dried mud.

He didn't go in. Liu Bei stood at the door for a moment, then took out a jade pendant from his pocket and bent down to place it on the small table.

"When you return, please inform us that Liu Bei, a member of the Han imperial family, governor of Yizhou, and general who conquers the north, is coming to visit."

The boy put down the broom and picked up the jade pendant with both hands. The jade was mutton-fat white jade, with a galloping horse carved on it. There were several very deep old marks in the carving, left from years of rubbing it in his palms. The boy put the jade pendant into his pocket and nodded.

Liu Bei mounted his horse. Zhang Fei took a few steps and then looked back at the thatched hut.

"Brother, this Zhuge Liang is quite arrogant. We haven't even met him."

"He is no ordinary man," Liu Bei said. "Wait."

On the way back to Xiangyang, Liu Bei didn't say much. He rode his horse, watching the bamboo and pine forests recede into the distance. The words he had read in his previous life swirled in his mind:

I was originally a commoner, farming in Nanyang, barely surviving in this chaotic world, and did not seek fame or fortune among the lords.

He remembered every word of those words. At that time, that person was just a young man farming in Longzhong, unaware that he would be invited out of seclusion by a lord, unaware that his later life would be written into history books, becoming the kind of minister that Chinese people would most want to be for the next two thousand years.

He didn't know he would die of exhaustion at Wuzhang Plains. Thinking of this, Liu Bei tightened his grip on the reins. This time, he wouldn't let him die of exhaustion again.

Just after the Lunar New Year, it snowed in Xiangyang.

The snow came suddenly. The day before it was sunny, but overnight the north wind picked up and the sky turned white. The snow wasn't heavy, just fine and dense, rustling as it fell on the tiles and bending the branches of the leaves.

A brazier was burning in the governor's mansion. Liu Bei was discussing spring plowing preparations in the various counties of Jingzhou with Kuai Yue and Jian Yong when he suddenly stopped talking, stood up, and walked to the corridor. A thin layer of snow had accumulated on the blue brick ground in the courtyard.