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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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"I see," Cao Cao murmured, his shoulders slumping. He says, since he has known there would be possible consequences to the reputation of his dynasty, and seeing that Lie Fan had already weighed those risks against the survival of his empire and still chose the blade, then he wouldn't try again in trying to persuade him to change his mind.
There was no argument left to make. The Lord of Wei was a pragmatist to his very core, and he could not fault Lie Fan for executing the exact same ruthless maneuver he would have employed had their positions been reversed.
The atmosphere in the pavilion shifted. The nostalgic warmth of their early days faded, replaced by the heavy, titanic gravity of their final, apocalyptic wars.
"The first big clash," Lie Fan murmured, setting his chopsticks down, his appetite suddenly gone as he recalled the sheer, terrifying scale of the bloodshed. "The war for the central plains."
Cao Cao's face tightened. The memory of that campaign was a wound that had never truly stopped bleeding. "I thought my defenses were impenetrable. I had fortified every river crossing, every mountain pass. I had the finest heavy infantry in the world, commanded by Xiahou Dun, Cao Ren, and Xu Chu. But your war machine... Lie Fan, it was something entirely alien."
Cao Cao looked at him, his dark eyes filled with a mixture of resentment and profound, awe struck respect. "Your logistical supply chains moved faster than my cavalry. You didn't just outfight me, you out engineered me."
"It was the hardest campaign of my life," Lie Fan admitted quietly, offering his rival the absolute truth. "Your generals fought like demons. I lost tens of thousands of men trying to break your lines. But when the walls of Xuchang finally fell..."
"I lost my heartland," Cao Cao finished for him, his voice barely a whisper. He stared blindly at the feast before him, seeing only the burning banners of his former capital. "Losing the central plains... losing Xuchang... it broke the spine of the Wei Dynasty. I was forced to order a total, desperate retreat. We burned the bridges behind us, abandoned the fertile lands we had cultivated for a decade, and fell back to the ancient, renovated walls of Luoyang to make it my new capital."
"It was a brilliant, fighting retreat," Lie Fan praised him sincerely. "Any other commander would have been entirely annihilated. Your army was routed, your supplies were gone, but you somehow managed to hold your core command structure together and rebuild a fortified perimeter around Luoyang. It bought you years."
"Years that you spent tightening the noose," Cao Cao smiled bitterly, shaking his head. "I sat in Luoyang, trying to rebuild an army from stone and dust, while I watched you execute a sequence of expansions that defied human logic."
Cao Cao picked up a piece of fruit, turning it over in his fingers. "I received the intelligence reports, and I thought my spies were lying to me. You marched south and completely vassalized the Sun Clan. The impregnable Yangtze River, the great diplomatic maneuver to the south... you turned it into a Hengyuan shipping lane without fighting a decades long war."
"Sun Ce is a proud man, but he is not a fool," Lie Fan explained. "I offered him a choice between a potential enemy even if they are great lalies and friends with, a place of high honor within a unified empire. He chose the safe future for his family."
"And then you turned your eyes west," Cao Cao continued, his voice dropping as he recounted the final nails in his coffin. "You marched into the treacherous mountains of Yi Province. You ripped the 'Heavenly Kingdom' right out of Liu Bei's hypocritical hands. When the news reached Luoyang that Liu Bei had fallen, I knew it was over."
Cao Cao looked up, meeting Lie Fan's eyes. "I knew that you had surrounded me entirely. The east, the south, the southwest... everywhere I looked, I saw the banners of the Hengyuan Dynasty. My empire was reduced to a fortified island in a sea of your ambition."
"Which led to our final showdown," Lie Fan said softly. "The march on Luoyang, the butter fight in Hongnong, and your final, desperate retreat into the impenetrable fortress of Chang'An."
"I threw everything I had left at you," Cao Cao said, a profound, weary pride echoing in his words. "I commanded my men to bleed you for every inch of stone. We unleashed the fire ships, the rolling logs, the poisoned arrows. We fought until the rivers ran black with blood. But when your thunderous siege engines breached the inner gates, and your halberd shattered the sky... I knew the mandate had finally, truly passed."
The two emperors fell silent. The wind rustled through the weeping willows, a gentle, soothing sound that belied the monumental gravity of the moment.
They sat across from each other at the lavish mahogany table. The feast was mostly untouched, but the wine jugs were half empty. They had recounted a lifetime of unparalleled violence, staggering ambition, and world shaking strategy.
Lie Fan looked at Cao Cao. The Emperor of Wei was the loser of the greatest war in history, sitting in a gilded cage, waiting for the poisoned cup. Lie Fan was the victor, the undisputed master of millions, wearing the silk robes of a living god.
Yet, in this shaded pavilion, stripped of their armies and their banners, they were simply two men who had shared the singular, terrifying burden of trying to hold the world in their hands.
Cao Cao poured the last drops of the aged plum wine into their jade cups. He set the empty porcelain jug down and picked up his cup, holding it out with a steady, unshakeable dignity.
"You won the board, Lie Fan," Cao Cao said, his dark eyes clear and entirely at peace. "You were the better tiger. You have forged a dynasty that will likely outlast the stones of this estate."
Cao Cao offered a faint, respectful smile. "I do not regret the path I walked. And I do not curse the man who bested me. It was a magnificent game."
Lie Fan raised his jade cup, his heart heavy with the profound, melancholy respect that one apex predator holds for another at the end of their days.
"It was the greatest game ever played, Brother Mengde," Lie Fan replied, his voice steady and resolute. "And the world will never see our likes again."
They clinked their jade cups together one final time. In the quiet shade of the pavilion, surrounded by hidden assassins and the ghosts of their past, the victor and the vanquished drank the last of their wine, sealing the end of an era in absolute, undeniable silence.
The sharp, melodic clink of their jade cups coming together seemed to linger in the air, a fragile, ringing note that slowly dissolved into the whispering breeze of the weeping willows.
After that last toast of wine between the both of them, the atmosphere settled into a profound, suffocating silence. It was entirely serene, stripped of the roaring drums of war and the frantic screams of dying soldiers that had defined their relationship for decades.
The world around them, the heavily guarded perimeter, the sprawling gardens, the empire waiting just beyond the estate walls, fell away.
Lie Fan and Cao Cao just looked at each other for a long, quiet moment. Words were utterly useless here. It was as if they were conversing with their eyes alone, transmitting a lifetime of shared understanding, mutual suffering, and the solitary agony of absolute power.
In Cao Cao's dark, piercing gaze, Lie Fan saw the ghosts of Xuchang, the ashes of Luoyang, and the unbreakable pride of a man who had dared to grasp heaven itself. In Lie Fan's eyes, Cao Cao saw the terrifying, unstoppable momentum of a new age, the cold pragmatism required to unify a broken continent, and the heavy, metallic burden of the imperial crown.
They understood each other completely, far better than their own wives, their own children, or their most trusted advisors ever could. They were the last two titans of an era drowned in blood.
And that was when the impenetrable armor of the warlord finally cracked. Cao Cao slowly lowered his empty jade cup to the mahogany table. The fierce, unyielding pride that had defined the Emperor of Wei seemed to recede, leaving behind the tired, desperate features of an aging father.
Cao Cao opened his mouth, his voice lacking its usual commanding thunder. He leaned forward slightly, his hands resting flat against the wood, and says to Lie Fan, "The game is over, Lie Fan. I am ready to pay the price for my ambition. I will drink whatever you pour for me. But... can you not let my sons and the male members of my family live?"
Lie Fan remained perfectly still, his expression carefully guarded, though a flicker of profound sorrow passed through his eyes.
"Do they also need to be executed?" Cao Cao pressed, his voice tightening with a desperate, paternal urgency. He wasn't begging for his own life, he would never stoop so low, but for the continuation of his bloodline, he was willing to shatter his own pride.
"Can't they just also be put under strict house arrest? Strip them of their titles, take their lands, strip them of their wealth. Confine them to a minor estate in the deepest corner of the south, surrounded by your guards. Let them fade into obscurity. Just... let them die in peace as commoners. Let the Cao name survive in the shadows."
It was a heavy, agonizing plea. To wipe out an entire clan was a brutality that echoed through history, a curse that stained the hands of the victor forever.
Lie Fan looked at the empty wine jug, the dark porcelain reflecting the dappled sunlight, and took a slow, measured breath. He, of course, responded by saying he couldn't allow that.
"I cannot, Brother Mengde," Lie Fan said, his voice quiet but echoing with an absolute, terrifying finality. "And you know exactly why."
Cao Cao's jaw clenched, his eyes dropping to the table, but Lie Fan did not let the silence stretch. He needed his rival to understand that this was not an act of petty malice, but a cold, mathematical necessity of empire-building.
"Because Brother Mengde himself has known that his sons would never rest easy," Lie Fan continued, his gaze piercing through the older man. "Cao Ang, Cao Pi, Cao Zhi, Cao Zhang... they are brilliant, capable men and boy. They have your fire in their veins. You raised them to be conquerors, to believe that the mandate of heaven belonged to the Wei Dynasty. Do you truly believe that stripping them of their titles and locking them in a manor will extinguish that fire?"
Lie Fan shook his head slowly. "They will want to avenge their father. And they will want to revive the Wei Dynasty. It is their duty as sons of a sovereign. Even if I locked them away, even if I surrounded them with ten thousand guards, they would become martyrs in waiting. Every disgruntled official, every ambitious warlord seeking to fracture my empire, would look to them as a banner of rebellion."
Cao Cao closed his eyes, the painful truth of Lie Fan's words hitting him like physical blows, because he knew exactly what his sons were capable of.
"Maybe your sons wouldn't succeed in their lifetimes," Lie Fan elaborated, mapping out the generational nightmare that haunted every founding emperor.
"But what if they manage to smuggle their children out? What if a loyal retainer spirits away an infant grandson in the dead of night, hiding him in the northern steppes or the southern jungles? They would be raised with nothing but tales of your stolen glory. They would be planted with the absolute seed of revenge."
Lie Fan leaned forward, meeting Cao Cao's defeated gaze. "That is a massive problem, Brother Mengde. A problem that would erupt twenty, thirty, or fifty years from now. I am bleeding this continent dry to forge a lasting peace. I cannot leave a glowing ember in the dry brush of a new dynasty."
Lie Fan paused, acknowledging the political danger of his own decision. "I assure you, I do not take joy in this. While I do not want to be remembered for doing a smaller version of familial execution, I know exactly what the historians will write about me. I know this could severely stain my dynasty's reputation. I know it could be used by opportunistic lords as a reason to rebel, branding me a ruthless tyrant who slaughters innocent children."
He tapped his index finger against the mahogany table, the sound mimicking a judge's gavel. "But despite all of that... this is still the necessary move needed, in my opinion. To spare them is to guarantee a civil war for my successors. To execute them is to carry the sin entirely on my own shoulders, ensuring the realm has a chance to heal without the shadow of the Cao clan hanging over it."
Cao Cao listened to the brutal, flawless logic of his conqueror. He searched Lie Fan's face for any sign of hesitation, any weakness he could exploit, but found only the cold, unyielding bedrock of imperial duty.
Cao Cao let out a long, shuddering sigh that seemed to age him ten years in a single moment.
"I see," Cao Cao murmured, his shoulders slumping. He says, since he has known there would be possible consequences to the reputation of his dynasty, and seeing that Lie Fan had already weighed those risks against the survival of his empire and still chose the blade, then he wouldn't try again in trying to persuade him to change his mind.
"You have the heart of an Emperor, Lie Fan," Cao Cao said softly, accepting the eradication of his bloodline with a terrifying, stoic grace. "Cold enough to forge iron, hard enough to shatter bone."
Lie Fan nodded his head at that, a silent acknowledgment of the terrible burden they both understood. "Then this is our last conversation, Brother Mengde."
Cao Cao nodded his head at that. The finality of the statement settled over the pavilion like a heavy shroud. The great game was definitively over. Before then he goes to say, "Then I can take my leave now."
Cao Cao stood up slowly, the silk of his robes rustling in the quiet air. He did not look like a defeated prisoner being led to the slaughter, he stood tall, his back straight, maintaining the regal, imposing bearing of the warlord who had terrorized the central plains for decades. He turned his back to the mahogany table and took three slow steps before leaving the pavilion.
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Name: Lie Fan
Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty
Age: 36 (203 AD)
Level: 16
Next Level: 462,000
Renown: 2325
Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 11)
SP: 1,121,700
ATTRIBUTE POINTS
STR: 1,010 (+20)
VIT: 659 (+20)
AGI: 653 (+10)
INT: 691
CHR: 98
WIS: 569
WILL: 436
ATR Points: 0