If I were a boy, I’d be living a dream. I could fight mecha-aliens in my own giant transforming war machine, be loved and praised as a celebrity, and get serviced by a watchtower full of concubines.

But I am not a boy, and this value only means I’d survive a few more battles than most concubine-pilots.

Which is not what I came here to do.

I raise my voice. “There are other girls who have done this?”

Sima Yi tilts his head. “Well—”

“Strategist Sima,” Chief Strategist Zhuge warns. His eyes flick at me. “Please excuse us for a moment, Consort Wu. We’ll have to consult with the Sages.”

I bristle. The Sages, the council of old, wrinkly scholar-bureaucrats who spout nothing but “morals,” “harmony,” and “family values” while governing Huaxia, will have nothing good to say about what I’ve done.

There is a kind of bird in the mountain with only one wing and one eye. To take flight, it must join with another bird of the same kind.

—Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海经)