In the spring that followed the three breaths laid upon the white stone of Baimenlou (白門樓), a morning of hunt opened upon the plain of Xutian (許田).

Xutian was an imperial hunting ground laid to the southeast of Xudu (許都). Each spring, it was the custom for the Son of Heaven's (天子) carriage to go out upon this plain and hold a hunt together with the hundred officials (百官). In the spring of the fourth year of Jian'an, this custom opened beneath a different grain.

Emperor Xian (獻帝) laid his body upon the carriage. The Son of Heaven's bow was placed at his side. Liu Bei (劉備), Guan Yu (關羽), and Zhang Fei (張飛) stood together beside the carriage. Cao Cao (曹操) reined his horse at the head of the carriage. His two bodyguards, Xu Chu (許褚) and Dian Wei (典韋), stood on either side of him.

The hunt began. A deer rushed out from one corner of the plain. Emperor Xian raised the bow and loosed three arrows. All three went wide. He swallowed a low sigh, and a quiet word slipped from his mouth. "I ask an arrow of Lord Cao. With your bow, bring down this deer."

Cao Cao bowed his head low. His hand took up the haft of the Son of Heaven's bow. Upon the bow was a mark of gold inscription. He laid the bow across his own shoulder. Another deer ran across the plain.

Cao Cao loosed a single arrow. It struck the deer's flank, and the deer fell to the ground. The hundred officials cried out together, Long Live (萬歲). The shout rang great across the plain of Xutian. Toward whose name the shout was directed — that was not plain.

Emperor Xian bowed his head low upon the carriage. His eyes grew lightly wet. Guan Yu looked on, and his one eye sank deep. His hand gripped the haft of the Green-Dragon Crescent Blade (靑龍偃月刀). Zhang Fei looked at his side and let slip a low word. "Elder brother. Shall one more arrow be loosed today?"

Liu Bei laid a hand upon Zhang Fei's shoulder and spoke low. "Youngest. Today is not yet for our decision. The arrow to be loosed today is not the deer upon this plain. Today will be decided on a later day at another seat. Store deeply, within your chest, the meaning of today's Long Live." Zhang Fei nodded. A quiet flame rose in his eye.

Cao Cao lowered the Son of Heaven's bow from his shoulder and did not return it to Emperor Xian's hand. He laid that bow upon his own attendant's cart. It was an evening on which the Son of Heaven's bow was laid upon a subject's cart. Xu Chu and Dian Wei stood beside the cart.

On the road back to the main camp of Xudu, Dong Cheng (董承) reined his horse beside the carriage. His eye was sunk deep. The hem of Emperor Xian's robe waved lightly in the wind. Dong Cheng's hand quietly took the hem of that robe. "Your Majesty. Please come to my house tonight. Tonight, what lies within this hem will be passed into Your Majesty's hand."

Behind them, at a distance, Cao Cao rode with the attendant's cart visible at the corner of his eye. He did not turn his head to watch it. A minister who has just laid a Son of Heaven's bow upon his own cart rarely turns his head to admire it. He rode straight. Yet the haft of the bow, when a small stone rocked the cart, gave a soft sound against the wood — a sound no one else on the road noticed, which Cao Cao marked without marking and filed at the back of his ear for the long season ahead.

Emperor Xian's hand, inside the carriage, did not release the hem that Dong Cheng had just grasped. It was a spring evening with the light slanting low across the plain, and the carriage-wheel made a quiet, doubled sound upon the packed dust of the returning road. Inside that sound, a plan began to move between two hands without speaking its own name. For tonight it was only the hem of a robe, only what the hem held, passed between two men who knew that what lay beneath could not yet be spoken. The Son of Heaven's eyes did not meet Dong Cheng's again during the ride. Some promises are best kept by not looking up.

The seventy-sixth morning of Book 3 was opening quietly upon the plain of Xutian. The three characters Heojeon-ryeop (許田獵, the hunt of Xutian) were planted as a seed: the breath of three arrows gone wide, the passing of a bow, the shout of Long Live, and the hem of a robe — all lay at one seat. The white stone of Day 75's Poemalsik (布末息) had, this morning, been laid beneath a shout of Long Live upon the plain.

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