Vol 8 Chapter 1 (1/2)

VOLUME 8 CHAPTER 1: DON’T TELL ME THIS IS THE PROLOGUE OF VOLUME 8 (1)

Meng De POV

The moon outs.h.i.+nes the spa.r.s.e stars; the crows fly southward

As I stood on the terrace, these words sprang to mind for some reason. After thinking through for a long while, I decided that these weren’t from a pa.s.sage I’d read from some scroll or book and boldly concluded that they were a poetic line of my own creation. And so, I wrote these words down into my ‘new book’. The more I looked at them, the more I felt pleased. I didn’t know where my inspiration came from though. All I knew was that I was very pleased with it.

“Are you composing?”

“Ah, Cheng Yu is here.”

I don’t know where Cheng Yu sprang out from but I did indeed get a shock from her sudden appearance. It was a good thing that I was used to it already so my shock didn’t appear on my face. But when she looked at the poetic line I’d just jotted down, I calmly closed the book so that she wouldn’t be inspired by them to give me a lecture on language or whatever.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but ever since they switched from reconnaissance to administration– Perhaps they weren’t used to it at first– Xun Yu and Cheng Yu have shown remarkable capabilities in strategies, policy-making and other such areas.

And so, I have to admit that I have been neglecting talent for various reasons, and Feng Xiao really saved me with her keen eye for talent.

Perhaps I should have given these 2 more administrative, logistics-related, or strategy-related work earlier. The reason why I haven’t is probably because Feng Xiao was too effective working with these 2.

“What are you think about, my lord?” Cheng Yu tilted her head as she looked at me, her hands out of her sleeves by her sides. Cheng Yu didn’t smile and just looked at me wordlessly.

“No, nothing. I was just looking at the stars.” I said as I turned and looked upwards, and rolled the book before tucking it into my sleeve.

(TL: By stars, she means astrology.)

“The stars…” Seems like she was doubtful of my answer, but she did not ask me what I was doing. She then looked up at the sky before she asked me, “My lord, what do you think about the stars lately?”

Honestly, I only began to seriously study astrology after Ben Chu joined the Imperial Court so I’m not too knowledgeable about reading the stars. On astrology, I have to admit I’m not as knowledgeable on it as Yang Xiu and the rest who have just pledged allegiance to Xuchang.

But since she asked, I’ll give her a reply then.

“Un… The stars to the south are particularly bright. They are not uniformly bright but there is order amongst the chaos. This means that the south is still chaotic but is gradually strengthening. The stars seem to be gathered about a single point, which means we will be seeing a large-scale battle before long.”

“Large-scale battle? What would that be?”

“I heard that the Sun family of Jiangdong is about to invade Jing state for vengeance. The large-scale battle should be referring to that.”