Chapter 61
As the saying goes, even if the dogs bark, the carriage keeps rolling.
Kim Yul, though tormented, did not stop serializing, and Guan Yu raced toward the glory arranged for him step by step, and then toward the death that would follow.
But it had been slightly rewritten.
It meant scattering foreshadowing and hints of death everywhere, indiscriminately.
“Isn’t that the scene where he’s playing Go and shouting for a three-three like a little girl?”
“You seem to know memes better than history.”
“Exactly. You should’ve unplugged the LAN cable when you were building the model. Do you know how many abysses I’ve been forced to peer into because of you?”
Kim Yul felt sin sliding down his spine, but ignored it and focused on writing.
The basic outline was the same.
At the Battle of Fancheng, Pang De’s arrow, with the grand “A Singular Strike” sound effect, shattered Guan Yu’s shoulder.
The story that Hua Tuo, who should already have died in the official history, was revived with the Reanimation Technique and came personally to treat Guan Yu.
Here.
- General, you have already wielded power that transcends a mortal body, so your flesh has reached its limit. The treatment will only ever be a temporary measure.
- I’m fine. Anyway, my body was something I meant to burn up for my elder brother and the grand cause; I would rather stand and die than lie down and live. Ma Liang? Care for a game of Go?
By mentioning that his lifespan was already over, he flicked a little cushion of foreshadowing at the readers.
Of course, there were many people who merely skimmed through it, so it could easily get buried.
There are even heavy readers who read more novels than anyone else in a day and, unless they drop a series, chew through those novels with gusto.
“Kiiim Yuuuuul!”
“Welcome back, Nureongi.”
“How dare you call this body Nureongi! Mm, but putting that aside, surely Guan Yu isn’t dying...?”
“Uh, um....”
Kim Yul’s heart softened a little at the illusion of an unseen tail slowly drooping.
Still.
Even if Nureongi cried, Kim Yul kept running.
Again.
Although something similar had happened in both the official history and the romance, he made the temporary alliance between Cao Cao and Sun Quan much more dramatic.
- If Guan Yu is still alive, we’ll never be able to scheme for the Central Plains, let alone Jingzhou, for the rest of our lives. Even if the nation’s very framework is shaken, even if we have to join hands with old enemies, we must seize Guan Yu now!
And along with the plotline where, enraged by Pang De’s death, Cao Cao sent out wave after wave of the Tiger and Leopard Cavalry, the Cao army’s ultimate weapon that had appeared again and again.
- As Zhou Yu said before he died, if we cannot defeat Zhuge Liang and Guan Yu, we cannot reach the future. So we must first make a secret pact and beat Guan Yu before there can be a tomorrow. Even if the stigma of cowardice is left to posterity, we have no choice but to strike at his back here!
Sun Quan, too, was given a blatantly backstab-for-backstab kind of development, as shameless as a Skaven.
A hair-trigger situation, with him far from his brothers and forced to bear the malice of two great powers head-on.
Now even that dimwitted Chloe had recognized the seriousness of the situation.
“Th-then, Kim Yul? This one is a little worried, but surely Guan Yu isn’t going to die, right...?”
Though she had a somewhat sharp-faced look about her, Chloe was surprisingly weak to plots where the lead died, and she carefully poked Kim Yul’s back.
“Uh, um....”
Yet again, seeing Chloe’s eyes and ears droop for once made Kim Yul’s heart soften a little.
Still, Kim Yul couldn’t stop.
* * *
The third son of Duke Vertus.
Regios believed there was something to learn from failure.
The achievements of his father that he’d heard about since childhood.
Not all of them were successes, but they possessed a kind of magic that could turn small failures into even greater successes.
Naturally, when Duke Vertus educated him, there was one thing he repeated over and over.
Before you plot anything, make sure you fully gauge the enemy’s capability.
And always think about where to strike to hurt them most.
The very man who’d said that had ended up poking hedgehog Kim Yul in the wrong place and suffering a fiery “ouch,” but Regios decided to take even that failure as a lesson.
“So you’re saying you’ve kept reading that guy’s novel all this time? Haha.”
“To know the enemy.”
The other man did indeed possess unprecedented brute strength.
But from the way he moved and the things he chose to devote effort to, he was fundamentally a novelist.
To challenge the man who had humiliated him once more, he needed to analyze him.
Then wasn’t reading the novel he wrote and watching the magical stage play the perfect way to “understand the enemy”?
When he took “Basics of Literature” as a required liberal-arts course at the academy, honestly, he couldn’t understand why he had to learn this crap.
But only after meeting the man who seemed as though he’d become his lifelong rival did he finally understand.
A work is the expression of the author’s emotions, ideas, and experiences.
Therefore, when analyzing a work, one needs to analyze what the author wanted to express.
A work reflects the reality the author wishes to reflect.
Therefore, when analyzing a work, one needs to analyze how the author perceives reality.
“Regios, you got a C+ in Basics of Literature, remember.”
“Be quiet. You’re getting in the way of my concentration.”
After giving a solid kick to the backside of his academy classmate and fellow capital-guard colleague, who had been needling him nonstop since earlier.
Regios focused on the novel again.
“I’ll thoroughly dissect and tear you open, Ulysses...!”
With a faintly feral smile at the corners of his mouth, he gnawed through the latest installment of the two heroes that he’d let sit for three days.
And.
He saw it.
The influence on the battlefield that a man nicknamed the “War God”—a title earned through a thoroughly built-up narrative—could wield.
A combat level far beyond the Five Passes and Six Slayings he’d previously seen and admired, a realm of battle only an absolute being could display.
He slew Pang De and captured Yu Jin.
He fought Cao Ren head-on and drove him back, and he also fought Xu Huang on equal footing.
Even so, because he prized righteousness.
- Whoever takes Guan Yunchang’s head shall be rewarded with a thousand taels of gold!
- Lord Xu, what is the meaning of this!
Though they had met on the battlefield, he even showed respect to Xu Huang, with whom he had a personal acquaintance.
Truly the bearing of a great hero!
That wasn’t all.
Amid breathless battle and pursuit, and while retreating under rear harassment with bitter tears, he did not lose his valor even when facing the soldiers of Sun Quan who had betrayed him cowardly.
In Wu as well, the famed generals Lü Meng, Zhu Ran, and Pan Zhang personally stepped in and began driving Guan Yu back.
“Hah....”
Though the story ended there for now.
From that sequence of events, Regios felt emotions surging that words couldn’t capture.
No matter how he thought about it, no matter how much he chewed it over.
It wasn’t merely the heroic narrative of Guan Yu as an individual.
Although the Empire had achieved the grand cause of unification, countless bits of noise and small-scale conflicts remained along the way.
Even in places where the Empire’s influence did not reach, various forces were forming and breaking apart, clashing with one another.
“Yes, then that makes sense now.”
Though there was probably quite a bit of embellishment.
That brute force that had blown him away in one shot before.
And considering Guan Yu’s martial prowess as depicted in the work.
Guan Yu was surely a character onto whom the writer, Ulysses, had projected his own personal experiences.
Maybe he was a war hero from one of the countries destroyed during the Fifteen-Year Great War.
Then that would also explain why his earlier movements couldn’t be traced, and his personal acquaintance with the saintess as well.
The reason he fled to the Empire was also probably because in nations tied to the Great War, his identity would be exposed in no time...!
“At last, you’ve shown your tail, Ulysses.”
The name Kim Yul was definitely an alias. Of course, Ulysses was an alias too.
With this clue, he should be able to uncover the true identity of the man called Ulysses.
Regios smiled and set the newspaper down.
And thought.
Then Guan Yu wouldn’t die, even in this crisis.
* * *
Having shaken off all worries and doubts.
Kim Yul’s hand, racing straight toward the development he had decided on, moved without hesitation.
But if there was one part he worried about just a little.
Guan Yu’s final fate.
“The Luo Guanzhong version is... a bit much, isn’t it?”
“You might as well use the Mao Zonggang version.”
There were two versions of Guan Yu’s end.
One was.
- Yunchang had already transcended into divinity, yet he had stayed in the mortal world for too long. By decree of the Jade Emperor, do not compete with commoners—return to Heaven.
A version in which he ascends to Heaven and becomes a true immortal.
The other was the well-known version in which his head was chopped off, salted, and packed into a lacquered lunch box before being delivered to Cao Cao.
From Kim Yul’s point of view, since he’d already twisted the plot, twisted the battle schedule, and gone overboard with the madness, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to add a flashy ascension ending as well.
“Wouldn’t Lady Roseline end up carving another heretic mark into Kim Yul’s forehead? And besides, wouldn’t the genre suddenly change?”
“That makes sense.”
The icon of blunt honesty, the greatest lump of intellect in this era.
Historeye’s apt advice grabbed him by the collar.
.
.
.
The right to be the first to enjoy the completed final manuscript naturally belonged to the editor-cum-president.
With a faint hope that, surely, since he’d gone that far to stop him, Guan Yu must have survived.
Chloe rustled through the manuscript.
“It’s death, desuwa...!”
Thud!
Chloe let out a shrill cry and toppled backward like Cao Cao seeing Guan Yu’s severed head.
Kim Yul hurriedly caught her in his arms, but.
“Kim Yul... how am I supposed to trust you.... You went and killed Guan Yu after all, desuwa....”
By then, Chloe’s soul had already half melted away.
The next day.
The imperial capital received Guan Yu’s obituary in two lines.
- We ran together toward a happy dream.
- Now, our brothers’ dream will remain forever.