That night, the bright moon disappeared, and an abundance of stars filled the sky. Zhou Yu lay at Sun Ce’s side and jolted awake violently.
“Awake?” Sun Ce asked.
Zhou Yu sucked in a hot breath, his head splitting with pain as he gingerly sat up. A little while ago, when they left the main tent, his only thought was to find a place to sleep. Sun Ce was barely speaking, and the two of them were both beyond exhausted. Thankfully, the weather these past few days had been clear, so they found a random pile of dry straw, collapsed onto it, and with Zhou Yu’s head pillowed on Sun Ce’s arm, both fell soundly asleep.
Even if the sky collapsed, the ground split, and all living beings perished, they’d finally managed to see each other. They could talk after they rested.
Sun Ce only slept for a while. He opened his eyes to watch the sky.
A foot soldier brought over some water, and Zhou Yu washed his face and hands behind the stable. He was still filthy, so he got a few more buckets, and he and Sun Ce bathed in the yard. They both wore only their inner robes, and the summer night breeze was dry but cool. Zhou Yu’s skin was finally clean, and he felt much more comfortable.
Sun Ce ordered some food over, while Zhou Yu slapped away at the mosquitoes, his neck bright red from bites. Sun Ce still hadn’t said a word. Zhou Yu poured some wine for him, and the two drank in silence.
“Have you come back to yourself?” Zhou Yu asked. Sun Ce didn’t make a sound. Zhou Yu continued, “When I was crossing the river, the wind was so strong and the waves so large that the boat almost sank. Can you guess what I thought about then?”
Sun Ce swallowed a mouthful of wine and raised his reddened eyes to look at Zhou Yu.
“What were you thinking? Running here so recklessly! You didn’t even send a letter first.”
“Fei Yu would not have made it,” Zhou Yu said matter-of-factly. “When I got your message, panic all but stopped my heart. If you died, I wouldn’t know what to do. I couldn’t sleep that entire night, thinking that if you were alive, I needed to see you, and if you were dead, I needed to see your corpse. I was not willing to let things simply proceed as they were, so I left in the middle of the night.
“When I was crossing the river,” Zhou Yu said, smiling a little, “I was afraid the boat would sink, but I thought, ‘If it sinks, let it sink.’ If I was a water ghost, at least when you came to cross the river, I could ferry you across.”
Sun Ce sniffled, and his tears poured out at last.
“How’s my mother?” Sun Ce asked once he could speak again.
“She doesn’t know,” Zhou Yu said.
Sun Ce filled up Zhou Yu’s wine. “It’s okay. When I found my dad’s body, I sent Fei Yu to General Cheng, but I didn’t expect it would fly to you instead.”
“Fei Yu thought you were trying to find me.”
After Sun Ce drank the wine, they fell into silence again.
Finally, Zhou Yu asked, “What are the military reports looking like?”
“You can read them later. They’re in my tent,” Sun Ce said. “When my dad died, the troops’ morale plummeted, and no one wanted to fight. Right now, the situation is like our enemy is a butcher’s knife, and I am fresh meat on the chopping block. We need to find a way to retreat to Yang Province and return another day to seek revenge.”
“Yes,” Zhou Yu agreed. “This situation is not yet totally devoid of hope. Let’s see what the circumstances are before coming to a decision. Let’s go—stop thinking about anything else. I’m here now, and whether we live together or die together, both can be considered a happy ending.”
Sun Ce began to smile. They left the yard behind, walking along a small path under the light of the stars as they slowly headed back toward the main military tent. Sun Ce suddenly stopped in his tracks, and Zhou Yu’s heart thumped as he turned to look at him.
Sun Ce’s hands were clenched tightly into fists, and he was sobbing. Zhou Yu didn’t say anything. Instead, he stepped forward and hugged him, the two grown boys tightly embracing each other in the quiet night. Sun Ce gave voice to his mourning, and the sound of his pain echoed under the night sky.
✦ ✦ ✦
It was midnight when Zhou Yu draped his outer robe over the soundly sleeping form of Sun Ce. Then, under the light of an oil lamp, he flipped through the military reports.
After Sun Jian died, no one stepped up to lead this group of dragons. There were many concerns to take care of, but no main commander to deal with them. Right now, the troops were stationed seventy miles from Jiangxia. Jinyang was close on their left, and the secret envoy headed for Shouchun with a military report for Yuan Shu that needed to be sent out. This truly was a mess to tackle.
It was an extremely dangerous situation for the Changsha troops. Within, their wills were scattered, and without, the enemy watched their every move with hostility.
Retreat? Jinyang, Gong’an, and the rest of the surrounding regions would send troops to lie in ambush, and they would probably not even make it out of Jing Province before their entire army perished.
Attack? None of the cities nearby were targets they could afford to fight. Jinyang had twelve thousand troops, while Jiangxia had six thousand. The Art of War stated it was necessary to have ten times the forces to besiege a city. To conquer Jiangxia, they needed an army of at least sixty thousand. As of today, Sun Ce had less than four thousand men left at his disposal, and a large portion weren’t listening to orders. If they were to attack the city now, it would be equivalent to using an egg to smash a rock.
Writing a letter to Yuan Shu asking for aid was even more impossible. The Sun family was completely out of favor with Yuan Shu. Though their split wasn’t publicly known, Yuan Shu would, at most, absorb the men and horses Sun Jian left behind. After swallowing them, he wouldn’t hand them over to Sun Ce to command.
“What should we do?” Sun Ce asked. “Tell me.”
Sun Ce’s eyes were closed, and he lay quietly on the bed in the tent.
“Sometimes I would rather be done with it all. I would not have to bear any burdens, nor would I have to do anything. It would be peaceful at least,” he said.
“As long as they are mortal matters, there is always a way to resolve them,” Zhou Yu responded. “Sometimes, the heavens force people to the brink before giving them a single thread to escape. It will depend simply on if you can grasp that hope or not.”
Sun Ce smiled bitterly. “Let’s surrender. Either to Liu Biao or Yuan Shu. Draw lots for me, and we’ll send out a messenger tomorrow.”
“Surrender? Why?” Zhou Yu asked. “Your words don’t deserve consideration.”
“The soldiers are human. Those are lives,” Sun Ce said. “I, however, am alone in the world, and I have no more regrets or burdens to resolve.”
“The generals can surrender, but you must not.”
Zhou Yu flipped the military report to the next page and pulled a map over it, losing himself in his thoughts as he studied the geography of the riverbanks.
A moment later, he spoke. “If they surrender, they are still generals. If you surrender, you think Yuan Shu will let you be? That’s nothing more than the dream of an idiot.”
Lifting his brush, Zhou Yu drew a circle on the map, and Sun Ce didn’t respond further.