On the dawn after the first of the ten slips reached Cao Cao's (曹操) desk, the second slip arrived.

The second slip was shorter than the first. At its head, three characters stood.

遼東候 (Await Liaodong).

Beneath them, six lines were written in Guo Jia's (郭嘉) hand, neatly. All six ran as a single passage. Cao Cao read the six lines slowly. He read them twice. At the third reading, his right eyebrow trembled lightly.

The six lines ran as follows.

First. After Ye (鄴城) falls, Yuan Shang (袁尙) will not die. Together with his second brother Yuan Xi (袁熙), he will flee to the north.

Second. The place to which their stride turns will be Gongsun Kang (公孫康) of Liaodong (遼東).

Third. Gongsun Kang will not receive them gladly. On the surface, he will feign welcome.

Fourth. My lord, do not strike Liaodong directly. If you strike, Gongsun Kang will join hands with the two.

Fifth. If you do not strike, Gongsun Kang will, of his own accord, take the heads of the two and send them to the main camp.

Sixth. That day will come two and a half years from today, in the summer of Jian'an 12 (207 CE).

Cao Cao set the slip down upon the desk, and for a long while could not move.

Outside the tent, Xun Yu (荀彧) quietly entered. Cao Cao handed him the slip. Xun Yu read the six lines through without a sound. When he finished, he too could not move for a long while.

"Wenruo (文若). Fengxiao's (奉孝) slip this morning is the quietest sheet in the whole camp."

"My lord. Upon this one slip alone, for the next two and a half years, we can resolve not to move a single soldier toward Liaodong."

"So it will be. Only, as Fengxiao was writing this slip, I wish to ask, this morning, whether his hand did not tremble."

Cao Cao stepped out and turned toward Guo Jia's tent. Snow was falling. A little thicker than last night's fall, it lay quietly upon the path of the camp. When he reached the front of Guo Jia's tent, Guo Jia was already up. He had removed the glove from his right hand, and ground ink instead with his left.

"Fengxiao. Is this morning the third slip?"

"Yes, my lord."

"The second slip was so clear that it left me, for a moment, without words. How could you write a matter two and a half years hence in that shape?"

Guo Jia smiled. The smile was small but warm.

"My lord. I did not see two and a half years ahead, but into the inner mind of one man, Gongsun Kang. A single man's mind, in broad outline, does not easily shift across three years. Gongsun Kang's mind today will, most likely, still be his mind two and a half years from now."

Cao Cao nodded. Foresight was not a grand thing. It was only this: one who had long looked into a single mind had, before others, noticed that this mind would not shift easily for a stretch of time.

"Fengxiao. If so, the 'man from the south' whose name is to be written on the last of the ten slips — is he too a mind you have already been looking into?"

Guo Jia did not answer. He set his brush down and joined his two hands upon his knees. Only after a long while did he speak quietly.

"My lord. The man from the south is one whose name I cannot precisely call today. Only, on the day when that man seats at his own side a Commander-Counselor of his own, the breath of that counselor's plans will resemble the breath of my plans today. When that breath reaches your camp, my lord, please recall this slip once more."

Cao Cao nodded slowly. His right eyebrow trembled again, lightly. Outside, the snow was thickening quietly upon the roof of the camp.

On the following morning, the third slip reached Cao Cao's desk. Its title was short.

江東主周 (The lord of Jiangdong is Zhou Yu).

So the ten slips, one each morning, began to sketch out Cao Cao's year ahead, piece by piece. In one corner of the snow-covered camp, the left hand of a young strategist ground ink each morning. The glove upon his right hand remained thick. Inside that thick glove, his fingers grew a little thinner each day. Cao Cao did not speak of the glove aloud. Xun Yu did not speak of it. Even Xun You, who saw it most often, did not speak of it. A silence grew around that single glove — the kind of silence that gathers around a thing one wishes to keep longer by not naming.

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