“Yellow Sky”: Crisis for the Han Dynasty sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne
JavaScript is off/unavailable on your browser. You will not be able to experience this website as it was intended without JavaScript enabled.
The distraught Cao Cao visited a man that he had come to see as an
honorary grandfather as well as a patron; that man, Qiao Xuan, was now ill.
“Cao Mengde!” Qiao Xuan croaked.
“…Qiao Gongzu, you are increasingly frail,” Cao Cao said with worry.
“Ah, did I not say to you many times that I am old?” Qiao Xuan chuckled.
“Are old men not also frail…? But you deduce that I am not long for this world,
though you lack the heart to say it… be honest, Mengde, as I have been with
you.”
“I do not wish to lose you,” Cao Cao pleaded.
“And I am not especially looking forward to death!” Qiao Xuan retorted.
“Never mind, though: I’ve seen and met you, and meeting a hero is always enough
to make an ordinary man such as myself a little less uncomfortable. I did
something; I met you, and helped you realise your potential.”
Cao Cao nodded sombrely and allowed the famous old man to be humble.
“When I die, I’ll be buried in a simple grave, because I do not believe
in luxury, not even in death,” Qiao Xuan continued.
Cao Cao looked at the simple furnishings that surrounded him and
pondered silently.
“But I am a man that believes in tribute,”
Qiao Xuan teased. “If you ever pass by my grave and don’t honour me with
sacrifices - a jar of wine and a chicken shall do, I think - then you’ll be ill
within another three paces of your journey.”
Cao Cao laughed boisterously.
“Don’t blame me if it happens!” Qiao Xuan cackled. “Don’t blame me!
Blame yourself!”
Cao Cao almost cried with laughter and some distress as he sat opposite
Qiao Xuan.
“Forgive me, Mengde, it’s my sense of humour,” Qiao Xuan snickered. “Oh,
to be young again… this truly is a time of chaos, a time in which you shall
thrive.”
“And, I understand, be a terrible villain,”
Cao Cao chortled.
“Oh, I’m sure that Mister Xu Zijiang was being his usual self,” Qiao
Xuan insisted. “He believes a ‘terrible villain’ to be a man that forgets to
thank the sun for rising every morning. You’re a great talent, and talents are
not always agreeable! Even I am a mediocrity that managed nothing more than
state affairs, a man that lacked the strength to confront the corruption… I
still found the time to be a difficult man, impatient and sometimes unable to
see everything.”
“But then you perhaps miss what I am to become, and perhaps Xu Shao sees
it,” Cao Cao suggested. “What if I am
to become a villain…?”
“Then you will be in good company at court,” Qiao Xuan scoffed. “Oh,
Mengde… how often we have talked, and how often the court has arisen as a topic
of discussion… how often we have been forced to agree that the light has
faded.”
Cao Cao nodded sadly.
“I suppose that you have heard the stories about the ‘Way of Peace’,”
Qiao Xuan prompted.
“I have,” Cao Cao replied. “They daub messages on doors… saying that a
new era is coming. I wonder what they have planned.”