On the night Li Ru (李儒) bore in the old story of the Jueyingzhihui (絕纓之會, the meeting of cut cap-strings) and withdrew, Dong Zhuo's heart wavered. An old story of Chu lay upon the reading-desk of his study, and its lesson struck against the seat of his favored concubine.

Dong Zhuo summoned Li Ru again. "Li Ru. The grain of today's story is heavy, yes. Yet if this Diaochan leaves my side, one night at this residence will be as long as a year. Tomorrow I shall move Diaochan to Meiwu (郿塢). Within the walls of Meiwu, Lü Bu's gaze will not reach."

Li Ru bowed his head. "I shall bear my Lord's will." Yet at the end of that line, the corner of Li Ru's lips had quietly set. An old story's lesson had failed, this evening, to cross into the ear of one master.

That same night, Minister over the Masses Wang Yun (王允) was quietly opening a letter in his rear garden. The letter was in Lü Bu's own hand. A few brief lines: "There was a matter at the residence this evening. From tomorrow the Grand Preceptor will take Diaochan to Meiwu. I request an urgent meeting."

Wang Yun folded the letter and laughed quietly. That laugh lay behind the path of this morning's halberd. He wrote a reply and sent it quietly. "I shall see you tomorrow in the small sitting-room of the Minister's house."

The next forenoon, Lü Bu crossed cautiously to Wang Yun's house. Wang Yun met him at the gate and seated him in the sitting-room. Wang Yun opened his mouth first. "Fengxian. Li Ru, they say, bore in the story of the Jueyingzhihui before His Grace last night. How was His Grace's judgment?"

Lü Bu lowered his head. "His Grace intends to take my Diaochan to Meiwu today. He means to shut her inside walls my hand cannot reach."

Wang Yun drew a deep sigh. Then, in a low voice, he brought up a single line. "Fengxian. The lesson of the Jueyingzhihui was a lesson fitting for King Zhuang of Chu's age. Yet today His Grace is not King Zhuang of Chu. His Grace has received the lesson of this story reversed. Where one master does not cut the cap-string for his subject, the subject cuts his own cap-string and seeks the seat of a new master."

Lü Bu's two eyes narrowed. Wang Yun took Lü Bu's hand. "Fengxian. Today I offer one proposal. In all under heaven there is only one hand that can lay a spear upon the Grand Preceptor's neck. That one man is you. On the day your halberd is laid upon His Grace's neck, the breath of the common people will exhale together. After that day, your name will stand in a chancellor's seat. And Diaochan shall be returned to you as your principal wife."

Lü Bu's hand trembled large inside Wang Yun's hand. A single sigh slipped from his mouth. That sigh was the seed of a decision taken after receiving the Jueyingzhihui reversed. In this sigh lay a great deal that a younger Fengxian at Wuyuan would not have recognized as his own breath: the weight of two fathers once changed (Day 15), the weight of a halberd that had left its master's hand in the rear garden (Day 34), and the weight of a single step from a woman upon a railing (Day 33). Three weights now sat together upon the scale against the name of the Grand Preceptor.

"Minister. This Lü Bu shall not forget today's promise. At a seat of the days to come, if I catch a chance, this halberd will surely be laid upon His Grace's neck."

Wang Yun looked upon Lü Bu's two eyes a long while. He did not say more. He had already seen what he needed to see: that the grain of an old story, reversed, had taken root within a young captain's chest. Plans written upon paper are one grain; a decision taken inside a man's sigh is another. The second grain alone could lift a halberd when the hour came. The rest would be matters of timing, of weather, of which doors stood unguarded and which stood watched.

Outside the sitting-room, the city of Chang'an moved in its usual grain this forenoon. Porters carried rice; children followed a seller of sweet wine; an old man read at the gate of a pharmacy. None of the common people passing by knew that inside one small sitting-room, one old story had just been read backward, and one young captain's sigh had just become a seed. That is the order in which history is often planted: in silent rooms, by men who do not wear armor, while ordinary streets walk their ordinary grain outside.

The fifth morning of Book 2 deepened quietly within the small sitting-room of Wang Yun's house. The three characters Jeolyeonghu (絕纓後, the seat after the story of the cut cap-strings) were planted as a seed: the breath in which an old story was read reversed into the seat of a new master. The path of Day 34's thrown halberd (擲戟怒) had crossed, this morning, into the seed of a decision.

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