Chapter 4: Not Human, but a Fiend Among Mortals!
The two of them exited the woodshed and turned left. Passing through a small gate, they arrived at the treasury.
“You may leave now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Waving off the guards, Cao Cao produced a key and unlocked the door to the treasury.
Chen Cong was stunned.
What met his eyes were two enormous stone lions.
Each was over three men tall, so massive that seven or eight men with linked arms could barely encircle one. There was no way such a thing could be lifted by human strength!
Cao Cao clearly held him in high regard, but for a moment Chen Cong didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at such an expectation.
Well, since he was here, he might as well give it a try.
Who knew—perhaps he really could lift them?
Meanwhile, Cao Cao skirted around the stone lions, heading to the northwest corner of the treasury, where a large square bronze cauldron stood.
“This cauldron has an illustrious history. It was used by the Cavalry Commandant to stew meat and reward his soldiers after subduing the Yellow Turbans. Normally, it takes eight or nine men working together to move it. What do you think, young man?”
Silence...
“Young man?”
Silence...
He turned around—Chen Cong was nowhere to be seen.
Baffled, Cao Cao retraced his steps a few paces toward where they’d come from.
And in those few steps, he witnessed a scene he would never forget.
There, in the center of the storeroom, the youth stood with arms wrapped around a stone lion. His sleeves split at the seams, muscles surging beneath the skin like coiling dragons and serpents. With a sharp exhalation, he lifted the lion high above his head!
Consider this: these two lions had been placed outside the Grand Commandant’s residence as symbols of prestige when Cao Song first took office. Each weighed well over ten thousand catties!
Later, when the rebellion at Gepei broke out, Cao Song was dismissed. His successor, Huang Wan, disliked his predecessor’s ostentation and ordered Cao Cao to remove the lions under the pretext that they were inauspicious relics.
Cao Cao remembered it all vividly.
To move those two lions back from the residence, he first had skilled craftsmen build a stone bridge, then yoked ten oxen to haul them across, and finally had dozens of men hoist them onto carts for transport. Seventy-two servants with ropes and poles carried them into the treasury, a process that took over two months. They even raised the ceiling of the treasury just to accommodate these ancestral relics.
Yet here was Chen Cong, dumbfounded himself. He’d always known he had the makings of a mighty general, but never imagined his own body possessed such monstrous strength.
What’s more... lifting a single lion didn’t even seem to be his limit!
With that, Chen Cong pressed his fingers into the lion’s base, pried it up, and switched to holding it overhead with one hand.
Then, turning his back, he rammed forcefully into the other stone lion. The impact made the ground tremble and sent dust cascading from the rafters.
At the same time, the second lion wobbled, tilting at an angle.
Watching closely, Chen Cong grabbed a lion’s leg, set it upright, and wedged a foot beneath the base, giving a mighty upward heave. As soon as the lion rose half a foot from the ground, he crouched low, hooking his shoulder and elbow under the base, and—astonishingly—hoisted the second lion aloft as well.
His legs tensed, back straightening as the dust settled.
“This, this, this...”
Excitement, exhilaration, shock, and a wild surge of emotion overwhelmed Cao Cao.
He wept—truly wept. Tears streamed down his face, soaking his robes in moments.
With his own strength, one man had lifted two stone lions overhead!
Was he even human?
No, he was not—he was a demon god striding among mortals!
One thought spun wildly in Cao Cao’s mind—marriage! Immediately! At once!!
To hell with family alliances—what nonsense!
...
Cao Cao wasn’t sure how he made it back to the woodshed. His legs felt like jelly, as though he were walking on clouds.
He had only drunk three cups of wine, yet he felt utterly intoxicated.
Woodshed...?
Suddenly, Cao Cao realized something was amiss. He all but lunged to Chen Cong’s side, clutching his arm in a panic, stammering, “Why are you staying in the woodshed, young man?”
“Huh?” Chen Cong scratched his head. “I suppose it was arranged by Lady Cao.”
“Outrageous!”
Cao Cao cursed, about to say more, then changed tack.
“You—your surname is Chen, given name Cong, styled Zining. Nineteenth-generation descendant of Marquis Chen Ping of Quni. Because your seventeenth ancestor, Chen He, lost his title through a crime, your family moved to Qing Province. Then, in the chaos of the Yellow Turbans, all your kin perished. Therefore, you cut your hair in mourning and swore never to rest until your family’s vengeance was complete.”
He added, just to be sure, “If anyone asks, say your family records were lost in the chaos.”
Not that Cao Cao minded the taint of criminal ancestry or was loath to marry his daughter to a man of such background.
He was, in fact, laying the groundwork for his future son-in-law in earnest.
With a proper family background, Cao Cao would have room to maneuver—he could have the young man’s name restored to the rolls. Henceforth, whether by filial recommendation or military merit, he could rise to rank and title as a matter of course.
Rather than skulking about nameless, living in the shadows as he did now.
“Huh? Isn’t that falsifying family pedigree?”
“Exactly, exactly!”
Cao Cao burst into laughter, nearly delirious, his face flushed with excitement. “Zining puts it perfectly.”
To Cao Cao, the notion of faking a pedigree was nothing at all.
Chen He had lost the ancestral title through his own failings; now, the Chen clan was merely lending the name to his prospective son-in-law. In a few years, with a new title, the family would gain far more than they’d given.
Chen Cong smiled.
Cao Cao had bestowed a courtesy name and planned his future—surely, he’d now latched onto the mighty leg of Wei Martial.
Still, he had to keep up appearances a while longer.
“Uncle Jili’s arrangements are, of course, impeccable. I only wonder at the reason for them.”
Cao Cao’s face broke into a broad grin. Pointing at the wooden slips scattered on the ground, he played his trump card: “A beauty’s favor is a heavy debt, Zining—how could you repay it with ingratitude?”
Chen Cong: ...
What was going on?
Had he transmigrated into a high-martial Three Kingdoms world?
One moment, he was lifting two lions, proving his unmatched strength; the next, Cao Cao wanted to sell him as a servant in the Cao household?
The beauty’s favor was indeed heavy—he was to be a literal beast of burden!
But wait—why go to the trouble of inventing a pedigree for a household servant? Cao Cao couldn’t be that deluded, could he?
Seeing Chen Cong silent, Cao Cao grew anxious and shouted, “Zining, are you as heartless and unfeeling as Sima Changqing?”
Chen Cong: ...
What did this have to do with Sima Xiangru?
He truly didn’t understand—how had Cao Cao managed to tangle together two completely unrelated matters?
Since arriving in this world, the only woman he’d met was a maid named Zhihua. To speak of romance...
Wait—Zhihua!
Chen Cong’s sharp mind seized on the crucial point. He quickly picked up a wooden slip from the ground. “Uncle Jili, may I ask what is inscribed on this?”
Cao Cao let out a long breath.
He’d never been so grateful that the man he valued couldn’t read.
Indeed, with no parents or family tutors, where would a son-in-law learn his letters?
No wonder the token of betrothal was left carelessly on the ground.
Had Chen Cong refused to cooperate, Cao Cao would truly have been at a loss.
As things stood, to the world outside, he was a reviled traitor and the Emperor’s lackey. He had no idea what, besides his beloved daughter, could possibly bind this demon-god to his cause.
If he let Chen Cong slip away, whatever Cao Cao offered today, others would offer more tomorrow.
Cao Cao smiled and replied, “The words are: ‘Green, green the young robe.’”
“‘Green, green the young robe’?”
Chen Cong was surprised, but it seemed there was no point in probing further.
Whether Lady Cao had arranged this on a whim or out of sudden infatuation, at least the mystery plaguing his heart was resolved.
“To tell you the truth, Zining, I am Cao Cao, Commandant of Cavalry, styled Jili. When I asked you to call me Uncle Jili, it was no deception.”
With that, Cao Cao folded his sleeves and made a deep bow.
With heartfelt sincerity, he said, “These days, wolves and tigers roam the land; loyal and upright men lie unburied in the wilds. Year after year, disasters and war ravage the people, famine is everywhere, the realm is in dire straits. Four centuries of Han rule now teeter on the brink. I, Cao, bear great ambition—to turn back the tide, to prop up the crumbling edifice. To pacify the world and restore the land to its former glory. I beg you, Zining, lend me your strength!”