The next day, a guest came to Wang Yun's house: the Grand Preceptor Dong Zhuo. Wang Yun went out to the gate, met him, and led him to the seat of honor in the rear hall. After the wine had gone two rounds, Wang Yun offered a low line. "I shall long hold in my heart the honor of Your Grace entering this house. There is a child in this house; I wish to have her greet you."

Soon Diaochan came out, adorned. Dong Zhuo's eyes widened. "Who is this child?" "A daughter of the house. If Your Grace finds her agreeable, I shall offer her to you in this very seat." Dong Zhuo laughed greatly. "Minister Wang. For the price of this child's face I shall repay you more than what you have done for me." That evening, Dong Zhuo set Diaochan upon a carriage and took her to the chancellor's residence.

Lü Bu (呂布) heard the news late that night. Greatly startled, he mounted his horse and rode to the residence with his halberd in hand. Before the great gate, Wang Yun was waiting for him. "Fengxian. Do not mistake this. His Grace saw the child's face first and said, 'I shall return her to Your Lordship first,' and only took her along. Wait a few days; His Grace will send her to Your Lordship." Lü Bu bit his teeth and turned his horse back. The tip of the halberd at his waist trembled low.

At dawn the next morning, Lü Bu rode toward the rear garden of the residence. There lay Dong Zhuo's bedchamber, and below its window a narrow pond had gathered. On the water of that pond, two shadows met in a cross. One was the shadow of a woman combing her hair inside the chamber; the other, the shadow of a man looking down upon her from outside the window, one pace away.

The woman was Diaochan. Sitting below the window, she was combing out her long hair. The beat of her combing was slow and even. Within that combing, yesterday's fatigue had settled earlier than her fingertips.

The man was Lü Bu. A pace's distance outside the window, he looked down upon that combing. One pace. The thickness of a single sheet of window-paper. That, this morning, was the only distance between two names of Chang'an.

Lü Bu's shadow upon the pond lengthened a little into the chamber. Diaochan read the tip of that lengthening shadow first upon the pond. She deliberately knit her eyebrows. Drawing out a scented silk (香羅), she wiped her eyes with it repeatedly. A shallow stain of tears spread upon the silk. She lifted the silk into the sunlight beside the window.

Outside the window, Lü Bu saw the silk. The knit of her brows and the wet stain upon the cloth bent sharp inside his chest.

Then Diaochan's hand paused its combing, and she laid it lightly upon her own chest. Her hand next pointed toward the inside of the chamber where Dong Zhuo sat. Then once more she laid her hand upon her own chest. It was a single line without words. "My heart is with you. Only this body is held inside that man's hand."

Lü Bu's hand moved large upon the shaft of the halberd. Its tip tilted toward the window of Dong Zhuo's chamber. Between the tip of the halberd and Dong Zhuo's neck lay the length of a single halberd. Within that length, this morning, two men's names and one woman's body all stood together.

Lü Bu bit his teeth. He lowered the halberd. Upon the roof of the residence, a banner of Dong Zhuo hung. The reason he did not strike that banner down at once this morning was Wang Yun's single line, and the knit of the brows of one woman within a sheet of window-paper's thickness. That reason remained, this morning, as the distance of one spear.

He turned his horse and rode away slowly. Behind him, upon the pond, two shadows still lay crossed. Inside the chamber, Diaochan returned to the even beat of her combing; the hand that had pointed twice toward her own chest now closed around the comb. Outside the gate, Lü Bu's halberd rested at its old angle upon his waist. Yet nothing this morning was as it had been yesterday. A single sheet of paper's thickness had been set between his waist and the Grand Preceptor's throne.

The second morning of Book 2 opened quietly upon the two shadows on the pond in the rear garden of the residence. The three characters Ilgeokgeo (一戟距, the distance of one spear) were planted as a seed: the breath by which two men's names and one woman's body stood together within the length of one halberd. The two feet of Day 31's Wolhanyeo had this morning narrowed to the thickness of a single sheet of window-paper.

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