That year was drawing to its close. After the first battle beneath Daxing Mountain, the three brothers had not halted their step. They went to relieve a city of Qingzhou (靑州); on the way back, they saw General Lu Zhi (盧植) slandered by the court and hauled away, locked in a prison cart. Zhang Fei's rage at striking the cart to free the general, Liu Bei quieted with a single line. "Younger brother, the court has its own public deliberations."

After that, the three entered the army of Zhu Jun (朱雋) and fought against the Yellow Turban remnant Zhang Bao (張寶). They broke the siege of Han Zhong (韓忠); together with one young captain up from the south, Sun Jian (孫堅), they struck at Wancheng (宛城). The battles crossed thirty. There were deeds, yet no post.

It was a day in autumn. The three walked in silence along a corner of the capital's street. At the bend of the road, a carriage came slowly down; upon it sat Zhang Jun (張鈞), a langzhong (郎中) at court. Liu Bei stopped. Before that carriage, he spoke quietly the account of his own merit. When the line ended, Zhang Jun's face had set into an astonishment he had not felt in a long while.

That afternoon, Zhang Jun went straight into the palace and prostrated himself before the imperial throne.

"The reason the Yellow Turban rebellion has risen is that the Ten Regular Attendants (十常侍) have sold posts and sold ranks; they grant no office to any not of their faction, and set down no punishment upon any not their enemy. Behead the Ten and hang the heads in the southern suburb, Your Majesty. Then the Four Seas will clear of themselves."

The Emperor gave no answer for a long while. He only drew a deep, long sigh. At the end of that sigh, one of the Ten whispered at the Emperor's ear. "Your Majesty. Zhang Jun is a man who deceives the throne." Before that line had ended, the Emperor's hand lifted and commanded that Zhang Jun be dismissed. A guardsman led him out.

That night, the Ten gathered by themselves and deliberated. "Among those who have raised merit in the Yellow Turban trouble, men not yet appointed have begun to carry resentment. We cannot block them all at a stroke; let us hand down a few nameless seats on the frontier, and, for now, stop their mouths."

And so, beside Liu Bei's name, after long waiting, one line was written down.

Anxi County (安喜縣) of Zhongshan Prefecture (中山府) in Dingzhou (定州), post of County Defender (縣尉).

A seat in charge of the county's policing. The lowest rung on the ladder of office. Yet that, for the first time, a line from the court had been written beside Liu Bei's name; that single line alone made Liu Bei's chest warm, quietly, this night.

Zhang Fei could not swallow his rage. "Elder brother. For the merit of more than thirty battles — only a county defender in one small town? What sort of law is this?"

Liu Bei laughed slowly. "Younger brother. That the name is small may mean that the name has, for the first time, been written. Let us first rejoice in the single grain that tonight our name has been written in a line."

Guan Yu lifted his cup without a word. Tonight too, that cup was not emptied to the bottom.

The three, with some twenty close followers, crossed the gate of Anxi County. During the first month of office, Liu Bei did not touch the smallest thing belonging to any man of Anxi. Not a measure of rice, not a scoop of salt did he receive privately. The customary gifts the previous defender had taken, and even the pheasant brought in for the New Year's greeting — all were returned politely by written reply. In the court of judgment, he listened long to the voice of the weaker side first, before the stronger. He looked upon the face of the one who could not even begin to bring out a line, before the one who ended his lines.

The eyes of the people of Anxi shifted in how they looked upon him. After a month, the children walked behind Liu Bei's back; after two months, the old men bowed before the gate of the office as they turned away.

What the people of Anxi found most strange was another scene. The three ate at one table. They slept upon one bed. When Liu Bei sat at a seat with many guests, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei stood behind him all day in attendance. They did not sit. That standing posture was, for all three, familiar and warm. One aged scholar murmured in his study one evening, "Those two are not the elder brother's subjects — they are the elder brother's shadows."

The sixth seat of Book 1 deepened quietly upon the courtyard of the Anxi office. The two characters Mijik (尾職, the tail post at the foot of the ladder) took root quietly as a seed — a grain of a name set down for the first time. The deed without a name in Day 5 had crossed to the front of a written line today.

—