The Shanyue chieftains rubbed their rough, calloused hands together, grinning broadly enough that, from a distance, the gathering might have looked like the beginning of a festival.
The illusion disappeared the moment you looked into their eyes.
Nobody smiled like that unless they expected someone else to start bleeding.
As far as they were concerned, an incredible opportunity had just dropped into their laps. The kind that only comes around once in a generation.
This was their chance to wash away decades of humiliation in one strike, to smash the Sun Wu faction so thoroughly they'd be coughing up blood for years.
To understand why they were so eager, however, you had to go all the way back to the beginning.
A quick look through the old campaign records revealed a rather uncomfortable truth. Much of the Sun family's early rise in Jiangdong had been built upon victories over the Shanyue.
Long before history remembered him as the "Little Conqueror," Sun Ce had been nothing. Just a frustrated young kid stuck serving the arrogant warlord Yuan Shu.
Unfortunately for him, Yuan Shu had never been famous for recognizing talent. He shipped Sun Ce off to Danyang like he was getting rid of unwanted cargo, giving him little beyond a vague instruction to find his uncle, recruit whatever local soldiers he could, and somehow make himself useful. No veteran reinforcements, no overflowing supply depots, no carefully prepared campaign. It was the sort of assignment that looked respectable on paper while quietly ensuring its recipient accomplished absolutely nothing.
Unfortunately for Sun Ce, Danyang was not an empty frontier waiting to be claimed.
The southern mountains belonged to the Shanyue, and they had no intention of welcoming the son of Sun Jian onto their land.
A chieftain named Zu Lang led his warriors out from the forests, ambushing Sun Ce again and again, dragging the young commander into a series of desperate running battles through terrain the Shanyue knew far better than their opponents. More than once, Sun Ce escaped by the narrowest of margins. Zu Lang beat him within an inch of his life, nearly snuffing out the entire Sun dynasty before it could even get started.
After barely escaping with his life, Sun Ce swallowed a tremendous amount of pride and returned to Yuan Shu with a request. This time, he asked for command of his late father's veteran officers. Men like Cheng Pu, Huang Gai, and Han Dang. Commanders who had spent years campaigning under Sun Jian and knew exactly how to turn raw recruits into a fighting force.
Yuan Shu agreed. It was probably one of the worst decisions he ever made.
With real warriors at his back, Sun Ce marched south once more. And that was when the Shanyue's long, miserable run as Sun Wu's personal punching bag truly began. They'd been farming experience for the Sun family whether they liked it or not, getting carved up every time the Wu army needed to sharpen its generals.
Zu Lang, the guy who'd come that close to ending the Little Conqueror's whole career, got completely torn apart by Sun Ce's fresh troops. Surrendering was his only option, and that sting never quite faded.
The years passed.
Sun Ce eventually fell beneath an assassin's blade, but removing one Sun merely made room for another.
Then came Zhou Yu.
When word spread that Red Cliffs had gone up in flames, reducing Cao Cao's supposedly invincible northern fleet to drifting wreckage and floating ash, the story raced from tribe to tribe with astonishing speed.
If Zhou Yu could do that to Cao Cao, what hope did a collection of mountain tribes have? Every Shanyue warrior felt their blood run cold.
Eventually Zhou Yu went and died young too. Typical. But by that point, the war machine he'd built had grown into a proper monster. Armored to the teeth, unstoppable, the real deal. The scattered Shanyue tribes didn't even dare glance toward the flatlands anymore, let alone ride down for a raid.
But here they were now, sweating in the blacksmith's yard, huddled together like thieves, cooking up plans for something nobody'd ever tried before.
"Just listen to this," said a chieftain with scars crisscrossing his face, leaning in so close his breath smelled of roasted boar and mountain herbs. "Old Sun Jian, the 'Tiger of Jiangdong,' was ambushed and killed. His boy Sun Ce, the one everyone said was unbeatable? Took an assassin's arrow through the throat. And that devil Zhou Yu? Dropped dead out of nowhere, like someone had cursed him. Every single one of them met their end in ways nobody saw coming."
The other chieftains exchanged looks that said you read my mind.
"Could it be," another rumbled, his voice like grinding stone, "that their current lord, Sun Quan, is finally going to taste whatever family curse has been following them?"
They all harbored dreams so fierce they'd scorch your ears if spoken aloud. But before they could work themselves into a frenzy, Ma Liang stepped forward and silenced their war talk with calm, hard sense.
"If we're truly going to strike at Jiangdong," Ma Liang said, his voice steady as a mountain, "we need to wait for the right moment."
He didn't waste time explaining elaborate strategies to men who were practically itching for a fight. He put it plainly. Charging down from the mountains right now would be suicide.
These men had finally committed to war. Being told to sit still and do nothing felt like having hot coals pressed against their skin. A chieftain named Fei Zhan couldn't hold back any longer.
"With all respect, Master Ma, what exactly are we waiting for?" Fei Zhan flung his hands up so high his leather vest rode up his back. "Sun Wu's government is falling apart! Our scouts say two of their top generals have vanished without a trace! People are terrified, their army can't even keep its chain of command straight. How is this not the perfect time to strike?"
Of course it wasn't. Ma Liang could see the whole board, every piece, every move, every hidden trap. The truth was, Sun Wu's main army had only just begun to move. Their supply wagons and reserve troops hadn't even left their bases yet.
If the Shanyue started trouble now, it would be a bloodbath. The Sun Wu vanguard could simply turn around, march back into the foothills, crush the poorly equipped tribes, then head straight back to fight in Jing Province. Ma Liang wasn't about to let that happen.
The real opportunity would come later. They had to wait until Sun Wu's armies were fully entangled in the mud and blood of Jingzhou, stretched so thin they could neither advance nor retreat. Only then, when the enemy was looking elsewhere and their homeland lay nearly empty, would the Shanyue strike like tigers.
But Ma Liang decided to save that lecture for a time when their blood had cooled. Right now, Fei Zhan's frantic complaints had caught his attention on something far more interesting. Ma Liang never passed up a chance to listen to enemy gossip. It was often worth more than any spy report.
"Wait. Two high-ranking generals disappeared?" Ma Liang asked, raising an eyebrow. "Tell me everything. Don't leave out a single detail."
Fei Zhan brightened immediately, finally a chance to prove he wasn't just a mountain brute who knew how to swing a club. He talked so fast it was like he was dumping out a whole sack of beans.
"Two days ago, I sent my best smugglers down to Guling on the coast, their purses heavy with copper to buy salt," Fei Zhan began, waving his hands as he spoke.
Ma Liang nodded slowly. The Shanyue could hunt wild boar and dig up mountain roots until the end of days, but when it came to crafting things, they were hopeless. Short on just about everything. They could live without silk or fine pottery, but salt? Salt was a necessity.
Fortunately, getting salt was one thing the Shanyue had mastered. The northeastern edge of their Kuaiji mountains ran straight to the eastern coast, and several counties there produced salt in abundance. With so much available, the black market for untaxed salt was thriving. Easy for Shanyue traders to slip in, load up, and slip away before anyone noticed.
Even Ma Liang used this network from time to time, asking the smugglers to procure rare medicines or mountain herbs when they made their coastal runs.
And since these coastal towns were where all the shady deals went down, they were also the best places to catch wind of what was really happening in the fancy palaces far away.
"My guys were knocking back bowls of rice wine in a backstreet tavern when they caught the buzz," Fei Zhan went on, getting more fired up by the second. "Word is Sun Quan lost his mind back in Jianye! Threw a fit so loud they say it shattered every wine cup from one end of the city to the other! The new fortress is locked up tighter than a drum, everyone's running around like headless chickens. Elite troops are streaming in and out of the gates all day long, searching every alley, every house, like they're hunting for a needle in a haystack."
Fei Zhan leaned in until his nose nearly touched Ma Liang's face, dropping his voice low. "Naturally, the government hasn't said a word. But you know how these things spread. The rumor came from palace servants. They say two high-ranking generals turned traitor. Abandoned their posts, turned their backs on Sun Quan, and fled west to join Liu Bei."
Fei Zhan's story jumped from one thing to another, wine one moment, palace guards the next, but Ma Liang's mind was sharp enough to sort through the noise and grasp what truly mattered.
If this rumor was true, the political fallout would shake Sun Wu to its foundations. The fact that Sun Quan hadn't already plastered wanted posters with their names everywhere meant he was desperately trying to keep it quiet. That told Ma Liang these weren't just some minor officers. They had to be significant figures, respected throughout the eastern military.
What's more, the fact that Sun Quan was trying to suppress the news but it still reached the coastal black markets meant there was scheming happening within Sun Wu. Powerful noble families were likely spreading the rumor deliberately, trying to undermine the Marquis.
Two top commanders disappearing just as the army prepared for war could only mean one thing. These men believed Sun Quan was making a grave error by breaking the alliance to attack Jing Province.
Ma Liang's mind raced through every important name in Sun Wu.
His first thought was Lu Su, the legendary diplomat who had forged the Sun-Liu alliance with his own hands.
But Ma Liang shook his head immediately.
No, he thought, a small smile touching his lips. Lu Su is one of the wisest men I know. Calm, patient, steady as a rock. A man of his intelligence and standing would never do something as reckless as fleeing in the middle of the night.
While Ma Liang stood in the sweltering heat of the mountain forge, quietly admiring his rival's supposed good judgment, the real story was playing out far away on the open sea, where the water stretched to the horizon and beyond.
---
A small, unremarkable fishing boat bounced around like a toy on the big rolling waves.
At the very front of the bow, balancing like he was walking a tightrope, stood Lu Su. He stared out at the endless stretch of dark sea, his eyes empty, his hands gripping the wooden rail. His jaw was locked tight, and his breath came in short, shaky bursts.
Ever since Zhou Yu had passed away, Lu Su had carried the whole weight of Sun Wu's military strategy on his shoulders. But after all those years of fighting tooth and nail in the political trenches, he'd never felt so completely helpless as he did right now.
He squeezed his eyes shut, letting the salty ocean spray sting his face, and thought back to a time when everything made sense. Just two years ago, his grand plan for Sun Wu's future had been as clear as day.
The strategy was rock-solid. Make an unbreakable alliance with Liu Bei, combine their forces to build a wall even Cao Cao couldn't breach, then wait for the north to fall apart, hit them from two sides at once, and take the central plains. He'd carry on Zhou Yu's final wishes and build an empire that would last forever.
But then, little by little, like a clock slowly coming apart piece by piece, that perfect plan started spinning out of control.
The first crack came when Liu Bei expanded faster than anyone could believe. One minute he was just a nobody, the next he'd swallowed up the whole Yi Province fortress region, and before anyone could even write up the full report, he'd turned around and taken Hanzhong, the big gateway to the north.
When the breathless messengers first brought that news, Lu Su felt all kinds of things at once. He had real respect for Zhuge Liang's strategic genius, and a small part of him was relieved. Their shared dream of taking down Cao Cao was actually getting closer. But those good feelings were drowned out by a cold, choking fear. Sun Wu was falling behind the Imperial Uncle, losing the race to get stronger.
Driven crazy by that worry, Lu Su had practically thrown himself at Sun Quan's feet during a fancy banquet in Jianye. He'd risked his own life, shouting over the music, to hand in a petition that might as well have been written in blood, begging his lord to gather their armies at Hefei and launch a test attack north to get back in the game.
And Sun Quan had listened. He marched a hundred thousand of his best troops right up to Hefei's walls.
What happened next was a disaster that scarred Lu Su's soul for good. It ripped the blindfold off his eyes and forced him to stare straight into the huge, gaping hole that was Sun Wu's biggest weakness.
The truth was impossible to ignore. Zhou Yu had led thirty thousand marines and turned Red Cliffs into a firestorm, wiping out Cao Cao's hundreds of thousands of ships. Guan Yu had led thirty thousand foot soldiers north into Jingxiang, pulling off a campaign so perfect it smashed a northern relief force of nearly a hundred thousand veterans. Then there was his lord, Sun Quan, leading a hundred thousand troops that looked unstoppable on paper, only to get completely demolished at Hefei by a mere eight hundred northern cavalrymen who turned them into a screaming, fleeing mob.
Zhou Yu had been so brilliant that he made the whole army look invincible. Nobody had really noticed how weak the southern forces were on land until Hefei, where the slaughter stripped away the illusion and exposed the truth. When it came to real fighting, Sun Wu's ground troops were the weakest among the Three Kingdoms.
For a man as smart as Lu Su, this was just a problem to fix, not a reason to give up.
If their infantry was weak, they'd swallow their pride, send spies out, and study how Guan Yu trained his men.
If their officers didn't have enough battle experience, they'd send them to the southern mountains to fight the Shanyue and learn real tactics with real blood on the line.
Besides, Sun Wu had advantages nobody else could match.
Their farms produced more food than anyone, and their top archers were feared all over the empire as the deadliest shots around. They could bounce back from this.
What Lu Su never saw coming was the political mess that followed.
After the shame of Hefei, instead of leaning on his top strategist, Sun Quan had pushed him to the side.
The ambitious Lu Meng was promoted to take over Lu Su's command at Jiangxia, and Lu Su himself was called back to Jianye and stuck with a desk job that meant absolutely nothing.
Fine. A useless desk job was just a temporary bump in the road.
Lu Su refused to quit.
He spent months locked in his study, going over every single mistake from the Hefei campaign, and wrote up a manifesto that laid out exactly what was rotting Sun Wu from the inside along with a step-by-step plan to build an army that could take on anyone. H
e waited, sure that the moment Sun Quan finally swallowed his pride and came looking for him, he'd pull out this masterpiece and guide his lord back to the path of greatness.
But then, on a freezing cold New Year's Eve night, the pirate Gan Ning kicked his front door open and destroyed every single plan Lu Su had carefully put together.
Looking back now, it was all so clear.
The defeat at Hefei had traumatized Sun Quan too, but it had pushed the Marquis down a paranoid path.
Instead of fixing his army to fight the north, Sun Quan had picked the easy way out. Team up with Cao Cao to destroy Liu Bei.
Ha! Lu Su wanted to scream at the ocean. Why couldn't his lord see how stupid that was?
Cao Cao controlled the central plains and the rich farmlands of Jizhou, had more men and grain than he could ever use.
If you make friends with a wolf to kill a tiger, what do you think the wolf is going to do the very next day after the tiger's dead? The strategy was so dumb it actually hurt, like asking a starving fox if you could borrow its fur to make a coat and being surprised when it says yes.
Heavy, sure footsteps thudded on the wooden deck behind him.
A big, broad-shouldered guy wrapped in a crazy expensive fox-fur coat walked up and stopped right beside him.
The man stood there in comfortable silence for a while, staring out at the rolling waves. Finally, he let out a long, dramatic sigh.
"You know," he rumbled, his voice sounding like he was spouting deep wisdom, "I've spent my whole miserable life stuck in the muddy rivers and cramped lakes of Jiangdong, but only now, standing here like this, do I really get how huge and amazing the ocean is."
That one casual, overly poetic sigh was like lighting a fuse on all the anger building up in Lu Su's chest.
He spun around so fast his robes whipped around his legs, his eyes blazing.
"GAN XINGBA!" Lu Su roared, practically spitting out the pirate's formal name.
Gan Ning lazily lifted one heavy eyelid, looking like he couldn't care less about the furious strategist standing in front of him.
He reached up with a thick finger and dug around in his ear, making a face like Lu Su's shouting was nothing more than a pesky mosquito buzzing by.
"I haven't gone deaf yet, old Lu," Gan Ning drawled, flicking whatever gunk he'd found in his ear into the wind. "No need to yell at me like I'm some crazy fish seller screaming in the market."
Lu Su's hand shot down to his hip on instinct. He wished he'd strapped on a sword this morning so he could slice this arrogant pirate to bits.
His words turned sharp as knives, oozing with contempt. "Damn you. Do you have even one shred of shame in that miserable soul of yours?"
Gan Ning turned his eyes back to the ocean and ignored the insult completely.
Instead, his mind drifted hundreds of miles west, thinking about the handful of letters he'd gotten recently from his troublemaker son, Gan Gui.
The kid's handwriting was a mess, but he wrote with way too much enthusiasm. That boy, who had inherited every bit of his old man's aggressive, smart-mouthed attitude, had even dared to mock him in his last letter.
"Old man, you're nothing but a sad turtle stuck in a muddy ditch," the note had read, "while real dragons are out here swimming in the open sea."
Then the little monster had gone on to declare, all full of himself, that he'd grow up to rule the oceans and take over the whole world.
Staring out at the vast water now, remembering his son's cocky words, a weird mix of fatherly pride and mild annoyance washed over Gan Ning.
Thanks to that warm feeling inside him, even as Lu Su screamed in his face about shame, Gan Ning couldn't work up a single drop of real anger.
"I'm a mercenary captain," Gan Ning said casually, like this was the most obvious thing in the world, "not some house slave that belongs to Marquis Sun Quan. Since the Marquis won't trust my judgment and his favorite lapdog generals keep plotting against me behind my back, I made a choice. I'm not stealing a single coin or grain of rice from Jiangdong's treasury. I'm just quitting my job and heading back to my hometown. Why would I feel ashamed about retiring?"
Lu Su let out a harsh, barking laugh that dripped with disbelief. "Ha! Going back to your hometown?" he sneered, his voice sharp as poison. "Don't treat me like I'm stupid! Are you really going to stand there and pretend you're not sailing straight into Liu Bei's arms?"
Gan Ning shot back a sneer of his own, flashing a grin like a hungry wolf. "Once I'm officially back home and a regular citizen, whatever work I decide to take on is my own damn business."
Satisfied he'd won the argument, in his own head anyway, Gan Ning brushed off the furious strategist and leaned over the rail, already figuring out how to make this whole ocean thing work.
He was checking if their small boat was strong enough. Flat-bottomed river designs just weren't made for the open sea. They needed deeper keels and different sails. Right now, their smuggling boat was way too flimsy. They had to hug the coast, creeping slowly south, terrified to go too far out where a real storm would snap them in two.
"Don't ignore me, you pirate!" Lu Su suddenly yelled, his voice cracking under all the stress. "You admit this betrayal is all about your own selfish wants, right?! So tell me, what did I ever do to you that made dragging me into this nightmare?"
Lu Su sounded genuinely hurt.
Even though he'd technically been kidnapped, back in the capital it would look exactly the same.
To Sun Quan's paranoid mind, being taken by a defector was no different from betraying the state willingly. Decades of building his reputation carefully, his whole life's work, gone in one night.
How could he ever show his face anywhere again?
"Foolish child!"
A sharp, commanding voice cut through the wind and tension like a knife, coming from the dark cabin behind them. The huge, raging statesman instantly deflated. All the murderous anger vanished from his face, replaced by the scared look of a kid who'd just been scolded.
He bowed his head meekly, turned his back on the pirate, and shuffled into the cramped cabin to listen to his mother.
Left alone on the bow, Gan Ning shook his head in awe. Even in his wildest pirate days, he'd never imagined a frail old noblewoman could be so cold-blooded and smart about planning things out.
Not long after New Year's, Madam Lu had secretly used her network of loyal servants to slip a coded, urgent letter into Gan Ning's hands.
She didn't ask for political favors.
She'd pleaded like any terrified mother, begging the notorious pirate to get her son out of Jianye, that toxic mess of a court where politics were eating everyone alive.
She wasn't blind.
She saw her son's spirit slowly dying every single day and could feel the dangerous political currents swirling around the Marquis's court.
She didn't understand grand strategy or warring empires, but she had a mother's perfect sense for keeping her child safe. She'd made a tough choice to save him from being ground up by men who didn't care about how smart he was. She'd rather run away from the country, give up all their wealth, find some quiet farmland, change their names, and let her son spend his days teaching kids to read. Anything was better than watching him pour his brilliant soul out for a Marquis who'd happily kill him the moment his advice wasn't politically useful anymore.
For Gan Ning, the request was like an unexpected gift. He'd secretly wanted to go back to his real home in the west for years. If he could bring a genius like Lu Su along as a bargaining chip, why would he say no?
As for convincing the stubborn, loyal Lu Su to commit treason, Gan Ning had found the solution hilariously simple.
He just used the old lady as a hostage.
Lu Su was famous across the empire for being a perfect example of filial piety. He'd never leave his mother behind. Wherever she went, he had to follow.
Honestly, Gan Ning thought, rubbing his chin, this hostage trick is almost exactly like the one my son wrote about, the one with that advisor Xu Shu.
And as for worrying about ruining his reputation by kidnapping an old woman, Gan Ning almost snorted out loud. I'm a river pirate. When have I ever cared what people think about me ?
Besides, if his crazy son really planned to lead a fleet and smash the Sun Wu navy, and Gan Ning stayed behind out of dumb loyalty, he'd just become a hostage to use against his own kid. That would be unbelievably stupid.
Gan Ning had pulled off the escape with brutal efficiency. He'd waited until Madam Lu left the city gates in her carriage to do her New Year ancestor rites, ambushed the convoy, thrown the old woman over his shoulder, and vanished into the wilds. The escape route had been planned and paid for months in advance. He'd spent a fortune in stolen gold to hire over a dozen decoy ships, sending them racing up the Yangtze to make a big show and draw Sun Wu's navy chasing west.
Meanwhile, Gan Ning had captained this tiny boat himself, slipping into the huge marshes of Lake Tai. He'd spent three nerve-wracking days hiding in the reeds, holding his breath as two military search fleets passed right by.
Finally, under cover of a pitch-black storm, they'd slipped down the Song River and disappeared into the southern sea.
Now, having pulled off the biggest heist of his life and staring at the endless blue horizon, Gan Ning felt a great sense of freedom.
The heavy depression that had hung over him in Jianye was gone.
He even found that pushing Lu Su's buttons and watching the proper statesman lose his cool was pretty fun. A new hobby.
"General Gan," the old lady's frail but dignified voice drifted out of the cabin, "how much longer until we reach the South Sea?"
Hearing the voice of the real mastermind behind all this, Gan Ning dropped his arrogant pirate act, stood up straight, and spoke with real respect. "Madam Lu, if the coastal winds stay good and we don't hit any reefs, we should drop anchor in Panyu in about six or seven days."
The southern land of Jiaozhou was split into several regions.
The trading port of Panyu sat right on the border between Nanhai and Cangwu, a place where everyone was fighting for control.
This mattered because the Governor of Cangwu, a warlord named Wu Ju, and the province's Imperial Inspector, Lai Gong, were both good friends with Liu Bei. This wasn't some secret spy info. Everyone knew about it. Thanks to this western influence, the big boss of the deep south, warlord Shi Xie, played it safe and stayed neutral, trying to keep both sides happy.
In Gan Ning's opinion, the jungles of Jiaozhou were the perfect safe spot, a place to hide out and wait for the war in Jingzhou to burn itself out.
As for marching into the governor's mansion and demanding special treatment by saying he was Gan Gui's dad, Gan Ning actually shivered at the thought. He'd rather sail all the way back to Jianye and turn himself in than go through that kind of embarrassing dad stuff.
"That's good enough." The old lady's voice trailed off, sounding tired but finally at peace. Gan Ning could hear quiet talking from the cabin as she started gently comforting her heartbroken son.
Deciding to give them some privacy, Gan Ning walked to the back of the boat, unrolled a long fishing line, dropped a baited hook into the churning water, and leaned back to soak up the sun.
He'd spent months getting this boat ready for a long escape, so it was like a floating survival camp. Hidden compartments held crossbows to fight off anyone trying to board, and the deck was covered with fishing poles, heavy nets, and enough salted food to last through a siege.
The further south they sailed, the hotter the tropical sun got. The heat coming off the deck was thick and heavy, slowly lulling the tired pirate into a comfortable daze.
He was almost asleep when slow, hesitant footsteps came closer.
He opened one eye to see Lu Su awkwardly stop beside him, staring silently at the water. Gan Ning grinned. "Want to try your luck, old Lu?"
Lu Su didn't say a word. He reached down, picked up a spare bamboo pole, grabbed a small wiggling shrimp from the bait bucket, and with a flick of his wrist threaded the hook and sent the line flying far out over the waves. A sharp, practiced motion.
"Damn! Nice throw!" Gan Ning cheered, actually impressed.
Lu Su gave a stiff, forced smile. Awkward silence fell over the stern as they stood side by side, watching their bobbers dance on the water.
After a long while, Lu Su spoke, his voice quiet with none of its old aristocratic pride. "My father died when I was young. My mother had to pull me through all the hard times and raise me on her own. Back then, when we were starving and desperate, the other village boys would spend their days standing in the creek up to their knees, trying to catch small river shrimp just to have something to eat."
He paused, a small self-deprecating smile touching his lips. "I was a really wild kid. I hated sitting still to study the classics, so I'd sneak out and join them in the mud just to get out of doing my homework."
"It turns out," Lu Su went on, his voice softening with memories, "I was pretty good with a bamboo rod. One good afternoon, I caught four carp in a row. The whole village came to watch, calling me a genius. I was so full of myself, strutting around like I owned the place."
"And then what?" Gan Ning cut in, a grin spreading across his face. "Your mom caught you playing in the mud, dragged you home by your ear, and spanked you so hard you couldn't sit down for a week, right?"
Lu Su choked on his next words and shot Gan Ning a look of burning annoyance. "My mother," he said stiffly, trying to save face, "was concerned about my education."
He sighed, the anger draining away and leaving only tiredness. "I'm not stupid, Xingba. I know my mother was worried about my safety in Jianye. It's just that..."
Gan Ning shook his head, cutting off whatever emotional speech Lu Su was about to give on duty and politics. "You've got a bite! Pull it up!" he yelled, pointing frantically at the bobber diving under the water.
Lu Su choked again, his train of thought completely derailed. Panic hit him as the bamboo pole nearly flew out of his hands. He planted his boots against the rail and pulled back with all his strength. Ocean fish were way stronger than river carp. The rod bent into a scary curve. Seeing the scholar struggling, Gan Ning laughed, stepped up, grabbed the middle of the pole, and helped haul the thrashing silver fish over the rail.
As it flopped around on the deck, Gan Ning spoke, all his mocking sarcasm gone. "Listen to me, Zijing," he said quietly, using Lu Su's courtesy name with real respect. "You hate yourself because you couldn't be the strong wall that Zhou Yu was. You feel like you failed because you couldn't fix Jiangdong's politics and keep your mom safe and happy in the capital. I get it. I know how that hurts."
Gan Ning looked down at the flopping fish. "And your mother? She watched the son she gave everything for slowly wasting away under the pressure of a lord who didn't appreciate him. She watched your brilliant mind getting poisoned by failure and backstabbing. She was scared for who you were becoming. I understand her pain too."
He let out a slow breath, a rare look of sadness crossing his scarred face, and shook his head. "Honestly? The bond you two share, it's something I envy."
He meant every word.
A sharp pang of sadness hit him as he thought about his own parents, who'd died too early, long before he became a warlord.
He wondered, with a jolt of worry, if his idiot son Gan Gui had remembered to fix up the family graves like he'd told him to. But thinking about that disrespectful kid made an affectionate smile break across his face anyway. He glanced at Lu Su, a man who'd dedicated his whole life to his country and who was still unmarried, with no wife or children.
Well, Gan Ning thought proudly, at least when it comes to having a son, I'm way better than this genius.
"Xingba," Lu Su asked, breaking the silence, his voice calm and steady now, "once we reach Panyu, what do you plan to do long-term?"
Gan Ning raised an eyebrow, shocked there was no anger left in the man's voice. "Wait," he said, his eyes wide, "are you actually letting this kidnapping thing go?"
Lu Su stood still, his face impossible to read. He locked eyes with the pirate for three long seconds, then, moving faster than anyone would expect, stepped forward and punched Gan Ning square in the shoulder.
"Consider us even," Lu Su said.
Since Lu Su had no training in fighting, the punch felt like a wet sponge hitting a brick wall, but Gan Ning had great timing for drama. He clutched his shoulder, dropped to his knees, and started wailing like he was in agony, claiming his arm was broken.
Lu Su stared down at the groaning pirate, unable to keep his serious face any longer, and let out a heavy sigh of defeat.
A second later, Gan Ning burst into roaring laughter. It was contagious. After a lifetime of suffocating political stress, the ridiculousness of it all finally got to Lu Su. He threw his head back and laughed, the sound lost in the ocean wind.
Behind them, the silver fish, having saved up its energy while the two men were distracted, threw itself against the deck. With one last big flop, it sailed over the railing.
Splash.
The fish hit the churning water and vanished beneath the dark waves, pulling off its own impossible escape. But neither man noticed. They didn't care.
And deep inside the cramped cabin, listening to her son laugh for the first time in years, the old Lady Lu let a peaceful smile spread across her weathered face.