Five years had passed since the seat of the prefect of Pingyuan. It was the Luoyang (洛陽) of 189 CE. The Han capital was still the largest in all under heaven. Yet in its deepest place — within the palace of the Emperor — a strange thing had been unfolding for a long time.

In summer, a fly flew over the Emperor's table. In spring, a fly brushed the tip of his brush. In autumn, a fly cried at the head of his bed. At first there were one or two. It did not take long for them to become ten. At first the people in the palace raised their hands to drive them off. Then, from a certain day, no one raised a hand anymore. The flies landed on the Emperor's food, on his paper, on the hem of his robe. Then they began to land beside the Emperor's ear. The feet of the flies were light. No sound could be heard. Yet at every seat a fly landed upon, the Emperor's two eyes grew dimmer by one grain.

The people of the world called those flies by a single bundled name.

The Ten Regular Attendants (十常侍).

Zhang Rang (張讓), Zhao Zhong (趙忠), Feng Xu (封諝), Duan Gui (段珪), Cao Jie (曹節), Hou Lan (候覽), Jian Shuo (蹇碩), Cheng Kuang (程曠), Xia Yun (夏惲), Guo Sheng (郭勝). Ten names. Among them the Emperor called Zhang Rang Afu (阿父), "my father." It was a palace in which the Emperor of a land called a eunuch, not his own begetter, by the name of father.

The ten flies were doing, each at his own seat, his own work. Offices were sold; ranks were sold. The price of selling office (賣官) was set. The seat of grand administrator: two thousand piculs' worth of grain. The seat of provincial inspector: four thousand piculs. The seat of one of the Three Excellencies: one thousand catties of gold. The man who paid received the seat; the man who did not pay received nothing. Where there was merit but no money, no seat came down; where there was money but no merit, the seat came down. One side of the court's balance had been tilted.

That summer, the Emperor took to his sickbed. The name of the illness was never settled. Only, his headaches ran deep, his breath ran short, his two eyes grew often blurred. The Ten kept watch by turn at the door of the sickroom. When the door opened from within, it was surely the hand of a eunuch. When someone tried to open it from outside, a eunuch's line made the door close again.

"His Majesty is at present dreaming. Do not wake him."

Behind that single line, the ten flies were crying quietly, each in turn, beside the Emperor's ear.

The Emperor had two sons. One was Bian (辯), son of the Empress He (何皇后). The other was Xie (協), son of the Honoured Lady Wang (王美人). Bian was fourteen, Xie was nine. One line of succession had split in two. The Ten were pushing one; the Grand General He Jin (何進) was holding the other. Two lanes of a single road had met at the center of the palace.

At the seat of the prefect of Pingyuan, Liu Bei heard this news that evening. The step of rumor was quick. Liu Bei called Guan Yu and Zhang Fei to the rear garden of the office and seated them. The three sat around a single low table.

"Younger brothers. The palace at Luoyang has been occupied by ten flies. A fly sits beside the Emperor's ear. That Emperor will not last much longer. Behind that, the flies will swarm more widely into the midst of the two young princes. Our step, from this place of Pingyuan, is the posture of waiting and reading, from a distance, the grain of those flies."

Guan Yu stroked the tip of his beard. Zhang Fei nodded deeply. The eyes of the three, this evening, looked quietly toward Luoyang.

After a short silence, Zhang Fei offered a low line. "Elder brother. The rod of Anxi would not reach ten flies. A rod is the grain of a single blow; a palace is the grain of a thousand walls." Liu Bei nodded slowly. "Younger brother. For the grain of a thousand walls, neither rod nor blade is the answer. What we must carry from this place is a grain that can walk through a thousand walls without breaking a single wall — a grain that keeps standing even when the walls choose to fall of themselves." Guan Yu laid down his cup quietly. The tip of his beard held still for a long while.

The ninth evening of Book 1 deepened quietly in the rear garden of the Pingyuan office. The three characters Sipseungjeong (十蠅廷, the court of ten flies) were being planted as a seed: the deepest grain inside the palace of Luoyang. The step that had crossed from Gongsun Zan's hearth (Day 8) to the seat of the prefect of Pingyuan was, this evening, looking toward Luoyang for the first time.

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