At dawn the next morning, at the center of the guest hall at Xinye (新野), Xu Shu (徐庶) stood with his hands clasped before Liu Bei (劉備).

Behind them, Guan Yu (關羽) and Zhang Fei (張飛) had already taken their places. Sleep had not yet fully left Liu Bei's eyes. The dawn guest hall was quiet. Xu Shu stayed silent a long while. Then he set down two characters, first.

"General. My own true name, today for the first time, I shall lay before you. Xu Shu (徐庶), style-name Yuanzhi (元直), I am. A man of Yangcheng (陽城) in Yingchuan (潁川)."

Liu Bei's eyes sank deeper. Behind him, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei caught their breath together.

"Last evening, two letters came down to me. One was true, from my mother's own hand; the other a forgery in my mother's hand. The conclusions of the two were the same. My mother is already in a study-room at Xudu (許都)."

Liu Bei closed his eyes. He kept them closed a long while. When he opened them, a firm strand had already settled at the corner of his eyes.

"Yuanzhi. Go. Not by a single stroke shall I hold your stride. Only one thing I would ask of you."

"What is it?"

"Before you leave me, the true name and the dwelling of the Wolong (臥龍) whom Master Water Mirror spoke of — leave them with me."

Xu Shu lifted his face. His eyes shone clear.

"General. That name was, this morning, the second name I meant to lay before you."

He stepped one pace forward. Then quietly, character by character, he spoke.

"Zhuge Liang (諸葛亮). His style-name is Kongming (孔明). A man of Yangdu (陽都) in Langya (琅邪) by origin, he has followed his uncle and now lives in retirement upon a small thatched cottage (草家) at Wolonggang (臥龍崗) in Nanyang (南陽) of Jingzhou (荊州). He lives as if he were a farmer, but farming is not his true work. Within him, a piece of heaven and a piece of earth have already come together, and have taken their seats."

Liu Bei clasped his hands together. Guan Yu stepped one pace closer beside him.

"Yuanzhi. His age?"

"Twenty-seven."

Zhang Fei opened his eyes wide. Xu Shu smiled quietly.

"General Zhang. Do not measure a man by his years. Of all the men I have met to this day, he alone can lengthen, all at once, the rhythms of the three of you."

After a long while, Liu Bei asked quietly.

"Yuanzhi. If I go to him, will he receive me?"

Xu Shu gave a brief laugh. Within that laugh lay the same grain as Master Water Mirror's single line last autumn.

"General. He will not receive you at the first visit. Not even at the second. Only at the third will his door open for you."

"Three times, you say…"

"Your own three strides, general, will carry his one stride from where it stands to where you are."

Liu Bei bowed his head deeply.

At noon that day, Xu Shu left Xinye.

Not upon Dilu (的盧), but upon an ordinary horse, Xu Shu turned his head north. Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei saw him off before the north gate of Xinye. The corners of Zhang Fei's eyes reddened. Guan Yu clasped his hands in farewell.

Liu Bei tied a small slip to the side of Xu Shu's saddle. Upon the slip, in Liu Bei's own hand, four characters were written.

身心同處.

Body at Xudu; heart here, together. Xu Shu looked down at the slip and bowed his head. Then he turned in the saddle to look back. Then he faced forward again. Only forward. He did not turn back again.

When he had ridden about a li toward Xudu, Xu Shu drew from his breast the true letter and stroked, once more, the end of its last stroke. Then he placed Liu Bei's slip over the forged letter. Three sheets now made one bundle inside his breast. True mother, Cheng Yu's forgery, and true Liu Bei. The three sheets of three persons would each hold one corner of the rest of his life.

The horse kept going north. And yet, somewhere within Xu Shu, the one word he was leaving behind this morning — together with the quiet sob Zhang Fei had held back at the gate — was still sitting at the center of the guest hall at Xinye. The body was moving north; the word was staying south. That gap would be, from today on, the rhythm of the rest of Xu Shu's life. No man lives fully in one direction once a word of his has been anchored in another place. To hold one word in the south while walking north is, perhaps, the single best definition of what it means to be a loyal stranger. It is a condition more people live through than admit — the body dutiful in one room, the word quietly lodged in another.

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