Chapter 9

And there were those in Luoyang who heard the rumor earlier than others.

“A‑man, have you heard the rumor?”

A tavern in Luoyang.

“……?”

At the call, a black‑haired young lord lifted his head from his cup.

“Benzhong, how would I know if you ask me like that?”

He was a young lord with sharp eyes and nose but languid lips that lent his face a dissipated air.

This young lord, just twenty, was Cao Cao; his childhood name was A‑man.

“No matter how wide my circle is, it can’t match the Yuan clan’s intelligence network.”

At Cao Cao’s words, the young lord seated across the wine table laughed and called to him.

“A‑man.”

Outwardly, the young lord appeared unassailable—distinct features, a solid build, and a dignified manner. If he had any flaw, it was the light brown hair inherited from his mother, a slave from the Western Regions, yet his looks more than compensated for it.

“Even if I am a son of the Yuan clan, remember I’m the child put out of the house.”

But the words from his lips were anything but gentle.

“So wouldn’t the grandson of the eunuch Cao Teng—before whom even Zhang Rang bows his head—know better?”

This young lord was Yuan Shao.

Recently, at nineteen, he had undergone the capping ceremony and received the style Benzhong. He was the out‑of‑wedlock son of the illustrious Runan Yuan clan, which had produced Three Excellencies across four generations.

In short, the son of a slave.

At Yuan Shao’s frank laying bare of his shame, Cao Cao laughed and poured wine into Yuan Shao’s cup.

“Lord Yuan arrives again with his temper bruised.”

“Was it that obvious?”

“Don’t I know you?”

Cao Cao had not known Yuan Shao for one or two years. Since childhood friends, Cao Cao saw through Yuan Shao’s heart clearly.

A eunuch’s grandson and a slave’s child.

Wasn’t it a bond born of the kindredness of those who were neither one thing nor the other?

“After all, aren’t we a eunuch’s grandson and a slave’s child. Speak freely. Who is there to hear?”

Cao Cao spoke calmly, offering Yuan Shao wine. At his words, Yuan Shao drained his cup and replied.

“A‑man. Do you know Wang Yun, the Registrar of Bing Province?”

“Wang Yun?”

Cao Cao, turning the name over in his mind, asked back,

“The man the Three Excellencies wanted to recommend to check the Ten Attendants?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

Even Cao Cao, living in Luoyang, had heard the name. Were it not for the eunuchs, he would have already been summoned to the capital.

“I heard the Ten Attendants’ opposition was so fierce they could not recommend him, and the matter is still in debate….”

The Ten Attendants aimed to place Wang Yun in as low a post as possible, while the Three Excellencies wished to seat him somewhere he could check the eunuchs.

After a moment’s thought at Yuan Shao’s words, Cao Cao asked,

“…So are you saying Lord Wang, still in Bing Province, offended you?”

“How could that be.”

“Then?”

“I hear that my lord Wang has an adopted daughter of peerless beauty. A rumor known to those who know.”

“Peerless beauty?”

“Yes. They say it’s as if a fairy descended from the heavens.”

“Is it true?”

With interest, Cao Cao inclined his ear to Yuan Shao’s words. At this, Yuan Shao burst out laughing.

“Haha. Just as I thought. A‑man, you like beauties.”

“Then let me ask, Benzhong. What reason would a peerless beauty have to offend you?”

“There is a reason.”

At that moment, the smile faded from Yuan Shao’s gentle face.

“Grandmother told me to marry that adopted daughter.”

With his eyes half‑lidded, Yuan Shao downed another cup and added,

“Well, half of it was Grandmother’s jest.”

At Yuan Shao’s words, Cao Cao let out a hollow laugh and frowned.

“Was your pride wounded? How would marrying a peerless beauty offend you?”

“…Because before that jest, she told me to marry a girl from a family I’d never even heard of.”

“…….”

“When I refused that marriage, she asked, how about a peerless beauty, then.”

Cao Cao fell silent.

“That ‘peerless beauty’ is not a legitimate daughter, but an adopted one.”

With a chuckle, Yuan Shao muttered into the silence,

“You know what that means.”

In truth, Yuan Shao was the Runan Yuan clan’s headache.

Though a slave’s child, he sought to become head of the Yuan household and to rise to high office. Had he been incompetent, they would have driven him out, but Yuan Shao had won an appointment even without undergoing the capping ceremony on the strength of his ability.

Cao Cao recalled the suspicious haste of Yuan Shao’s capping.

“They suddenly said he would undergo the ceremony….”

The capping ceremony.

Only after hair was bound and the cap donned did one become a legal adult and could be married. It was held at twenty, and in great families preparations often began a year prior. Yet Yuan Shao’s ceremony, though for a scion of a great house, had been conducted in great haste.

“Did they intend to sap Yuan Shao’s strength by marrying him into a humble house?”

The marriages of great families were not unions of people founded on love.

They were unions of houses.

Even if recommended by the Three Excellencies, Wang Yun had no base in Luoyang. And in Luoyang, was he not a famous man of the Pure Stream whose influence had entirely waned? Moreover, not even a legitimate daughter, but an adopted one. Even as a jest, it was a remark that could only be made with disdain for Yuan Shao.

Furthermore, the match Yuan Shao’s grandfather had originally intended was a girl from a family Yuan Shao had never heard of. The Yuan household seemed intent on saddling Yuan Shao with a humble match to strip away the influence his name had begun to garner in Luoyang of late.

If even Cao Cao saw it clearly, how could it be hidden from Yuan Shao’s eyes. Yuan Shao’s brown eyes, dulled by drink, went hazy.

“I am not a child of the Yuan household.”

“…….”

“I’m just a mongrel pup out to swallow the Yuan.”

Since becoming a junior aide in the Ministry of Works, Yuan Shao had valued his reputation. Had he not struggled to become an official befitting the Yuan name? In childhood, spending time with Cao Cao, he had not made trouble; he had held back from wine and hunting, and had avoided being seen drunk in public.

But today’s Yuan Shao was unlike his usual self. He drank endlessly, far beyond half of Cao Cao’s capacity, and asked,

“Does a slave’s child have no place as a member of the Yuan household?”

Watching him, Cao Cao silently poured wine into both their cups. Clear liquor filled them to the brim.

“Benzhong.”

And raising his brimming cup, he spoke.

“If it cannot be changed, giving up is also a way.”

It was counsel only Cao Cao—who chose to conform to the world’s prejudice, unlike Yuan Shao—could give.

Even after that, Yuan Shao and Cao Cao drank for quite some time.

Having let go all at once the self‑restraint he had suppressed, Yuan Shao rampaged like an unbridled colt, and only when three servants from the Yuan household arrived did he cease his drunken raving. Without the strength to summon an attendant to restrain him, Cao Cao sent Yuan Shao off and then collapsed asleep in the tavern.

And when Cao Cao came to his senses, it was already the next morning.

“For a man who can’t hold his liquor, to insist on drinking like that….”

His head throbbed with how much he had drunk. For Cao Cao, of renowned capacity, to wake like this—Yuan Shao had surely summoned a physician by now.

“Marry a peerless beauty, is it….”

Spoiled fool. Cao Cao scoffed. For all his grumbling, Yuan Shao was the son of an illustrious house. For a great house’s out‑of‑wedlock son to have a better reputation than a eunuch’s grandson was only natural.

“Clever, but utterly debauched, they say?”

“Nonsense, the clever talk is all lies. He’s a eunuch’s grandson! No different from the Ten Attendants!”

So long as the Ten Attendants clouded the Emperor’s eyes, Cao Cao was, to the people, no different from a corrupt official. Even he lived without complaint. Why, then, had Yuan Shao called him out to lament his lot?

“My sin, to have a friend who wants too much.”

Lamenting his own lot, Cao Cao stepped out of the tavern. Having stayed out without a word, it was obvious his uncle—who disliked him—would make a nuisance of himself.

“I’ll be hearing about it.”

Thinking of it made his head throb anew. He could not tell if it was a headache that visited from time to time, one from drink, or one from too many thoughts.

“You there!”

As Cao Cao staggered with his headache, walking the marketplace—

“Out of the way!”

Someone shouted at him.

“……?”

At the call, Cao Cao frowned and turned his head. In the distance, a carriage accompanied by guards was entering Luoyang.

“Huh.”

With his hangover, Cao Cao’s head was foggy, and irritation rose.

“Damn it, why block the road now of all times….”

Just as the throbbing surged and Cao Cao was about to squeeze his eyes shut, the carriage passed by his side.

“……?”

And Cao Cao, as if bewitched, beheld it.

Beyond the white wheel‑skirt of the moving carriage—

Something that stirred the most intense desire he had ever felt in a life of boredom.

Footnotes:

1. “A‑man” is 아만, Cao Cao’s childhood name (小字) used intimately among friends or family; “Benzhong” (본초) is Yuan Shao’s style name (字) adopted at capping, a formal adult courtesy name in classical Chinese culture.

2. The “capping ceremony” refers to 관례, the rite marking male adulthood, prerequisite for legal marriage and assuming full social responsibilities among elites; rushing it could signal political maneuvering behind marital alliances.