Liu Bei POV

“In any case, I’m very thankful to you, Gan Qing.” I said as I returned the towel to her and flashed the blus.h.i.+ng Gan Qing a smile, “Well then, I’ll be going to the main hall now then. Everyone else should be gathering there by now.”

“Ah, un.” Gan Qing nodded. Even though I did not praise her that much, she was already so overjoyed huh? She really is more like a girl than the others when it comes to her expressions and the like.

Alright, next is…

I took a deep breath and continued walking ahead, looking at the rooms as I did so and stopped when I reached Yuan Zhi’s room. I looked, or peeped rather, inside but could not see anyone inside the room. I initially thought that I could not see clearly because I was tiptoeing but even after a few seconds, there was no sign of anyone inside.

I do not know if she returned yesterday but I hope she did, even if her presence will only worsen the atmosphere, I thought as I made my way to the main hall.

Everyone should know about the meeting this afternoon and when I entered the main hall, I found that about half of everyone who should be here was already present. I looked about and found that only those who were at the encampments since last night were not here. Most were already seated and greeted me when I came in.

“Ah, good morning everyone.”

“My lord looks like he’s in pretty good shape today huh?” Zi Zhong smiled at me as she said so before returning her gaze to her abacus. She did not ask about yesterday nor today.

“Ah, thanks.”

If this were the usual Zi Zhong, she would probably be using the abacus so frantically that the sounds would be almost deafening. But now, it seems like she was being considerate and slowed down her pace so it would not be too loud.

Thanks to the hot water Gan Qing got me this morning, I was now fully awake and when I greeted everyone in turn, I think I did it pretty energetically. At times like these, I have to motivate everyone however I can.

As I headed to the main seat, I shot a glance over to where Yuan Zhi’s seat was and saw that it was empty. Right now, apart from the recovering Yi De, just about everyone would be present except Yuan Zhi. She would not have overslept, could she?

“Chen Gong, did you see Yuan Zhi return yesterday?” I asked Chen Gong who eas reading some letters as she ate biscuits.

“No.” She shook her head and replied without looking over. Since no one else spoke, then that means no one knew if Yuan Zhi came back. My guess is that she did not come back at all yesterday. When I thought of this, dark clouds began to gather in my heart.

“Big brother, we’re back.”

“Xuan De.”

Just as I ruminating over Yuan Zhi with my head lowered, several people came in. I looked up and saw that they were still rather energetic and were not as downcast as I had thought they would be, especially Yun Chang. Compared to yesterday, she seemed a lot better and seemed more motivated as well.

“Has everyone had breakfast yet?”

“Not at all~ I’m starving~” Zhou Cang whined as she smiled stiffly and immediately sat down before picking up the chopsticks and food in front of her which she proceeded to demolish immediately.

“Oi, oi! That’s my seat!”

“Eh?” Zhou Cang looked up at Guan Ping who had exclaimed at her. It was indeed Guan Ping’s seat and it seems like Zhou Cang realised this as well but continued to eat.

“Never mind, never mind, we’ll just go with it then.” Guan Ping said a

s she sat beside Zhou Cang on Zhou Cang’s seat. Though this was not a serious incident by far, everyone seemed a little relieved on seeing that it ended amicably. Zhou Cang obviously did not do it on purpose and I am happy to see how this exchange went.

“Alright, thank you everyone for your hard work last night. Please go ahead and have breakfast.” I said as I too picked up my food in front of me. When they saw me do so, the rest who had just came followed suit.

“You all needn’t have so early actually.” I said as I frowned and delivered some food into my mouth.

“We finished what we needed to do last night and we obviously would have wanted to sleep some more but…” Wen Yuan said after eating several mouthfuls and looked at Feng Xian.

“We really couldn’t sleep.” Feng Xian closed her eyes and nodded when she finished.

That’s understandable. No matter what, all of them should have a lot on their minds after the last battle. I could guess as much from my last conversation with Feng Xian and Yun Chang. If they have chosen to come early, then that means that they should have come to terms with the issues that were troubling them which is a good thing,

“Thanks to Zi Long and Chen Dao for your hard work yesterday as well.” I said as I looked at the 2 sitting some distance away, “Though you were both supposed to be resting, you both ended helping everyone out here and there.”

“There’s no need to say such things as we are a team after all.”

“That’s right, that’s right!” Chen Dao nodded and agreed with Zi Long.

“But Xuan De, where is Lord Xu Shu?” Zi Long asked when Chen Dao finished and looked at Yuan Zhi’s seat. When Zi Long finished, the others looked at Yuan Zhi’s seat as well. Even Zhou Cang looked over while shovelling food into her mouth.

Wu… This made it very difficult for me to answer as I did not know where she was right now.

“Yuan Zhi is… She could have left the mansion in the morning.” But at this time, I could not admit this and gave a vague reply before changing the topic, “But now that everyone is here, let’s get to business. Yun Chang, Feng Xian, what’s the final number after yesterday’s count?”

Apart from the 2-3,000 troops left in charge of defending the city, there were about 20,000 or so troops deployed this time.

“After doing a final count and reorganising our troops, we have about 10,000 or so.” Feng Xian replied immediately.

“After the ambush and subsequent battles, my troops number more than 3,000. Lord Lu Bu has more than 6,000. If we exclude the ones who are too sick and injured to fight, we have slightly less than 10,000.” Yun Chang added.

When they finished, I could feel that the atmosphere became much heavier. Compared to the festive atmosphere in the 2 banquets before, it was like heaven and h.e.l.l. I had thought that it might have been difficult for them to speak about this but they did so without any hesitation. Looks like they really have resolved the issues that had been plaguing them before.

“Un… But that means we only have about 10,000 that we can use huh?”

“No, you can’t say that.” Wen Yuan interrupted me with a helpless look.

“Yes, we still need more troops for city defence construction works.” Huang Zu spoke up, “Now that the situation has worsened, we need to hasten work on the fortifications as much as e can.”

“Wu…” Wen Yuan grimaced. Looks like Huang Zu has the upper hand when it comes to borrowing troops and has been doing so rather liberally.

“So how many troops can we use?”

“8,000 at the maximum.” Yun Chang explained, “Lord Lu Bu and I have divided our troops amongst us and we have done away with the idea of 2 main divisions. For now, there are 4 smaller battalions with 2,000 men each to be led by Lord Lu Bu, me, Wen Yuan and Lord Zhao Yun. This will allow us to move quickly.”

“But I’ll still be acting alongside my lord (Lu Bu).” Wen Yuan added and leaned over to Feng Xian, “My lord (Liu Bei) should just think of us as a larger 4,000 man battalion.”

“Oi… Don’t come so close…” Feng Xian muttered, seeming rather embarra.s.sed by Wen Yuan’s attack from up-close as she blushed. She tried to push Wen Yuan away but could not find it in herself to apply strength into her push. Feng Xian is really shy at these times huh? Though I must say that even I feel a little embarra.s.sed watching 2 beautiful girls cling to each other.

But even 4,000 is considered large now huh? Of the troops we had gathered from Xu state to Jiangdong to Jing state, less than half remain now. It feels like the efforts by Zi Long and the xu state 3 in recruitment have all evaporated in an instant. When I thought of this, I felt rather disheartened.

“Then how many troops does the enemy still have?” I asked.

“In the frontal battle, they lost about 3,000 or so, so the enemy forces deployed to the frontal battle are about 1,000 more than our equivalent.”

7,000 huh?

“As for the troops that ambushed us, they should have lost a few thousand as well. Lord Guan Yu and I encountered forces numbering several thousands each so they should total 10,000.” Zhou Cang added while she continued to eat.

“That’s how it was,” Yun Chang nodded, “We did not manage to eliminate too many of their troops and they lost in total only about 2,000 or so, 3,000 at best.”

3,000. That means that the ambush still has 7,000 troops left. The situation truly is dire huh?