[Three Kingdoms 365 · Day 165] An Invitation with a Riddle — Zhou Yu hosts his old friend Jiang Gan at a pavilion banquet.

It was three days later. An envoy came from Cao Cao's (曹操) camp to the main body of Zhou Yu (周瑜). The envoy's name was Jiang Gan (蔣幹). He was an old friend of Zhou Yu, and in their young days a fellow student of the same school. In Jiang Gan's hand he carried an invitation from Cao Cao.

Zhou Yu received Jiang Gan in a room of the main body. The first greeting of the two men held the warmth fitting to twenty years of old friendship. Jiang Gan opened Cao Cao's invitation before Zhou Yu.

"Gongjin (公瑾). This man has come today bearing a line from Chancellor Cao Cao. Liu Biao's (劉表) son Liu Cong (劉琮) has already submitted. That the six commanderies of Jiangdong (江東) should stand together in this current, the Chancellor says, is a road toward tomorrow's peace."

Zhou Yu read the invitation, and read it again. Then he smiled quietly. The angle of the smile at the corner of his mouth was a little deeper than the low angle at the riverside last evening.

"Ziyi (子翼). An old friend has come a long way; it is not courteous to let you go having heard only this one line today. This evening I shall prepare a seat for the two old friends we are, at a pavilion of the main body. Cao Cao's line — let us set it behind this evening's seat for a little while."

Jiang Gan's face brightened. To receive the welcome of an old friend was reason enough to set down the envoy's duty for a while. He gladly accepted Zhou Yu's proposal.

Jiang Gan was guided into a room of Zhou Yu's quarters and unpacked his baggage. Zhou Yu stepped aside into the next room and quietly wrote out a letter. Then he placed a sheet of the naval roster upon the desk. On one side of the roster, the names of the commanders of Cao Cao's navy, Cai Mao (蔡瑁) and Zhang Yun (張允), were marked especially in red ink. The meaning of the mark was: "secretly in contact with Jiangdong."

Zhou Yu folded that letter, then set it at an angle beside the roster. On one side of the desk he placed a book, so that the letter and the roster might appear naturally exposed. This arrangement was made to look like accident, yet was not accident. The name of this arrangement was the content of today's invitation with a riddle.

Evening came. Zhou Yu received Jiang Gan at a pavilion. On the pavilion rested a bronze flask and two cups. It was the same arrangement as the seat with Kongming (孔明) last evening. Only, the cups this evening were a little larger than yesterday's.

Zhou Yu lifted the flask with his right hand and poured into Jiang Gan's cup. Jiang Gan's cup filled. Then he poured into his own cup. The two men met their cups. The sound of bronze rang inside the pavilion.

"Ziyi. This cup this evening is a cup of twenty years of old friendship. Let us not bring out a single line of politics tonight."

Jiang Gan nodded. Yet inside the hollow of his chest, the duty of delivering Cao Cao's line kept rising. Behind each cup of this evening, that duty kept lifting its head.

A few cups more passed. Zhou Yu smiled and brought out old stories. A seat of their young studies, a line of an old teacher, a lane on a street in Xuzhou (徐州). Jiang Gan answered and sank for a while into the old stories. Yet the duty inside Jiang Gan's chest kept stepping forward.

"Gongjin. The seat of an old friend is good. Only, the line of Chancellor Cao Cao that I have brought today is —"

Zhou Yu shook his head.

"Ziyi. Tonight is a seat of friends. Let me hear of politics at tomorrow's dawn. Tonight stay within this pavilion. I have prepared a bed for you in the next room. Rest there for the night, and at tomorrow's dawn we shall bring out Chancellor Cao Cao's line again."

Jiang Gan nodded again. The lodging of this night had been prepared at a position closer than he had expected. The meaning of that closeness was not yet visible to Jiang Gan.

The night at the pavilion deepened. The moon was above the river. Zhou Yu's cup met Jiang Gan's cup once again. The sound of bronze rang once more inside the pavilion. The seat at this pavilion this evening appeared outwardly a drinking seat of old friends; inwardly, it was the inside of Zhou Yu's invitation with a riddle.

The riddle of the invitation had not yet been solved for Jiang Gan. Yet the answer to that riddle already lay, at an angle, upon the desk of Zhou Yu's next room, together with a letter and a roster.

The eighth evening of Book 6 was closing quietly upon a pavilion's seat of old friendship. An invitation with a riddle had already begun to move. That movement did not yet make a sound, yet inside the night that lay between now and tomorrow's morning, a letter was about to come into a man's hand.

—