“Put down that fire extinguisher,” snapped Zhuge Liang. “You’re making me nervous. Anyway, that’s not how omens work – you have causality backwards. Wei Yan, if they’re attacking, go do something about it.” He flopped down on the couch.
Jiang Wei angrily tossed the fire extinguisher in the corner, and Wei Yan went off to deal with the Wei soldiers. It was only Xiahou Ba’s scouts, so he chased them off without too much trouble.
“Send him back to his own camp,” said Zhuge Liang.
“How do you feel?” asked Jiang Wei anxiously.
“This is my death scene, how do you think I feel?” Zhuge Liang rummaged around under his mattress and pulled out a pile of papers. “I leave this to you. It’s a 104,112 word essay containing all my opinions about everything. Make sure you read it!”
Jiang Wei burst into tears.
“I also have some more blueprints,” said Zhuge Liang. “You’ll find them on my desk. They’re plans for a repeating crossbow, that fires multiple bolts.”
“Oh, like the ones the Mang had in Chapter 90?”
“You mean like the ones I invented just now,” said Zhuge Liang. “Let me see, what else was I keeping under my hat? Oh, yes. The Yinping mountains. I know they seem impregnable, but they’re actually an important strategic point that will be the downfall of Shu. Where’s Ma Dai?”
“Here!” Ma Dai raised his hand.
“Secret orders.” Zhuge Liang whispered in his ear. “Not writing that down. Yang Yi, I have a manila envelope with your name on it.” He handed it to his secretary. “After I die, Wei Yan will backstab all of us. When that happens, open the envelope. Make sure you do it at the most dramatic possible moment.”
With a thud, he passed out again for several hours, only waking in time for dinner. He wrote to Liu Shan, who panicked and sent High Counselor Li Fu to check on Zhuge Liang at once.
“Holy shit, are you okay?”
“No, I’m dying. What part of that is so hard for everyone to understand?” Zhuge Liang held up the paper he was writing on, which clearly read ‘Last Will and Testament.’ “Jiang Wei has the battle plans. When I’m gone, leave all my people in place and just keep serving the Emperor, mkay?”
“Gotcha.” Li Fu slunk off, and Zhuge Liang struggled into his golf cart for one last surprise inspection. “It’s cold out. When will this death scene end already?”
“You’re basically the main character,” said the narrator. “Just keep going a bit longer.”
“There are sixteen chapters left,” said Zhuge Liang. “I can’t do that many!”
“Can you manage another two pages?”
“No!”
“All right, all right, I can fill it in with some poetry or wrap-up or something,” said the narrator testily. “Compromise: one more page?”
“All right.” Zhuge Liang lay down on his couch again. “Yang Yi, just to make sure: you can trust Ma Dai, Wang Ping, Liao Hua, Zhang Yi, and Zhang Ni. Keep them around. Leave Jiang Wei to cover the retreat. He knows what he’s doing.”
Yang Yi nodded, in tears.
“That’s not a page!”
“I’ll read my will,” said Zhuge Liang. “Here you go.”
Everybody dies, even me. What matters most is my loyalty to the Han. I tried to lead a northern campaign – well, more like five northern campaigns – but they all got fucked up for reasons totally beyond my control. Looks like there won’t be a sixth.
Liu Shan, try to be a good Emperor. Don’t waste money on shiny things, don’t be a dick, be respectful to Liu Bei’s memory, etc. Get advice from weird hermits in huts like me.
Don’t give my family anything, they’ll be fine. I don’t want anyone to accuse me of corruption.
That’s pretty much it.
Zhuge Liang turned to Yang Yi. “I just thought of something. When I die, don’t wear mourning or throw a funeral. Keep it a secret. Fill my body’s mouth with rice so it doesn’t drool, put me in a closed casket, and light a fire at my feet. Then my ghost will be able to mess around with the stars. I can keep Sima Yi from getting an accurate astrology report!”
“He’ll notice something’s up, though,” said Yang Yi.
“Check the closet.”
Yang Yi opened it and screamed.
“Realistic, isn’t it?” smirked Zhuge Liang. “I had it made ages ago.”
Yang Yi prodded the body double suspiciously. “It looks exactly like you.”
“Yup. Put it in my golf cart. Retreat little by little, starting from the back. If Sima Yi starts to attack, turn round, line up for a fight, and roll the body double out in my golf cart. It’ll freak him out.”
“It’ll freak anyone out,” said Yang Yi.
That night, Zhuge Liang had his men carry him out, so he could look at the stars one last time. “That one’s me,” he said, pointing to one that looked suspiciously like it was about to fall. He started muttering a spell, then passed out again. The generals laid him on his bed, and stood around it blubbering.
Then, Li Fu burst in in a panic. When he saw that Zhuge Liang was in a coma, he fell to his knees.
“I was going to ask you who the next Prime Minister should be,” sobbed Li Fu. “But I totally forgot!”
Zhuge Liang’s eyes flew open. “Yeah, that’s kind of important. It’s Jiang Wan.”
“What if he dies?”
“Then Fei Yi.” Zhuge closed his eyes.
“But what if Fei Yi dies?” pestered Li Fu. “It’s the third century. People randomly die all the time! I was kind of hoping for a list that’ll last the next hundred years.”
“What am I, a fortune cookie?” snapped Zhuge Liang. “I’m trying to die here.”
“There, there,” said the narrator soothingly. “You’ve made it through at least half a chapter. Just give them your last words, and we’ll be off.”
“The heck with these guys and their last words,” said Zhuge Liang. “I’ve given you more than enough cryptic hints. Figure it out yourselves for once.” He rolled over and huffed out his last breath.
Hundreds of miles away, Li Yan was killed in a blast of Zhuge Liang’s residual narrative energy, and a rando named Liao Li was knocked flat on his ass. This has no bearing on any other part of the story, but the narrator needed just a couple more lines to fill in Zhuge Liang’s last page.
Jiang Wei and Yang Yi hid the body in a coffin at once, and set three hundred of their best redshirts on guard. They kept everything as quiet as possible, sent Wei Yan to guard the rear, and began to move the soldiers out, camp by camp.
The star didn’t fall, but the moon did become significantly darker, which was a bit suspicious. Sima Yi watched the sky like a hawk. Then, one night, a star flew across the sky, settled above the Shu camp, and began to sink. As Sima Yi watched eagerly, it shuddered to a halt, then rose back up into the heavens. He sighed, just as it slipped again. After it rose and set three times, Sima Yi realized what was happening.
“Zhuge Liang’s dead! Time to attack…”
Then he stopped. “But the guy did do his PhD with a wizard. What if it’s a magic trick?” He turned to Xiahou Ba. “Sneak over and see what’s going on over there.”
A few nights earlier… Wei Yan started awake. That was a weird dream! Everything was normal, except that he had horns. No one else seemed to find it strange, either. He wandered out, and happened to see minor general Zhao Zhi, who, he remembered, was good with omens.
“Hey, bro! I dreamed I had horns. What does that mean?”
Zhao Yi paused awkwardly. “Well, dragons and linlions have horns, so it’s probably a good omen.”
“What’s a linlion?”
“It’s what the translator keeps insisting qilins are called.”
“Ah, okay,” said Wei Yan. “Well, if it’s a good omen that’s a relief. Thanks, buddy.”
He went back to sleep, and Zhao Zhi hurried to the main camp, where he happened to run into Fei Yi.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was just talking to Wei Yan,” explained Zhao Zhi. “He just dreamed he had horns.”
“That’s a pretty funny mental image,” said Fei Yi. “Like, curly ones? Or really long ones, like an ibex? Did they have branches?”
“I didn’t ask,” said Zhao Zhi. “I was busy coming up with a cover story. Horns are sharp things, over your head. It basically means you have a knife over your head! I didn’t want to tell him, though.”
“Yeah, he’s better off not knowing,” agreed Fei Yi. When Zhao Zhi was gone, he went to talk to Wei Yan.
“Zhuge Liang died last night.”
“I’m crushed,” snorted Wei Yan. “Just devastated.”
“I’m sure you are,” said Fei Yi. “He left some last orders. The army will retreat back to Shu. Your division will cover for us. Oh, his death is a secret for now.” He handed Wei Yan an envelope. “Here’s the marching orders.”
“Wait, what?” said Wei Yan. “Who says we’re leaving?”
“Yang Yi,” said Fei Yi. “Zhuge Liang left him in charge of the operation. Jiang Wei’s got all the campaign plans and Zhuge Liang’s notes.”
“Who the hell is Yang Yi?” said Wei Yan. “Did he even get an introduction scene?”
“I don’t think so, but he was in Zhuge Liang’s inner circle.”
“Last I checked, I was second-in-command of this mission,” said Wei Yan. “Yang Yi’s a fucking paper-pusher. I barely know him and I certainly don’t trust him. He can take his boss’s coffin home. Are we seriously going to throw away all our success because one guy died? Zhuge Liang wasn’t the only person in this army, you know.”
“He was in charge, and those were his last orders,” said Fei Yi.
“Fuck that guy, and fuck his so-called last orders!” exploded Wei Yan. “If he’d listened to me back in Chapter 92, we’d have won by now. I was second-in-command of this mission, and now that he’s dead, I’m in charge. That’s how the chain of command works.”
“Okay, okay,” said Fei Yi. “Don’t be childish. I’ll go talk to Yang Yi and see what he thinks. Maybe he’ll put you in charge.”
“Fine,” said Wei Yan. “I’ll wait.” He sat down and glowered.
Fei Yi scampered back to Yang Yi and told him everything.
“Zhuge Liang told me he’d backstab us!” said Yang Yi triumphantly. “I count this as a backstabbing. You didn’t leave those orders with him, did you?”
“No.” Fei Yi held them up.
“Give them to Jiang Wei. We’re leaving, right now! No one tell him. Tee, hee.”
Several hours later, Wei Yan, bored and frustrated, left his tent. “What the heck is going on? Fei Yi should have called me back ages ago. Ma Dai, can you go find him and ask him what’s up?”
“Why me?” said Ma Dai.
“Well, if I go I might punch someone,” explained Wei Yan.
“Sounds fair, I’ll go.” Ma Dai came back in minutes. “Everyone’s already left! Jiang Wei’s covering the retreat.”
“They did what?” roared Wei Yan. “They just left me here?”
“Looks like it,” said Ma Dai.
“How could they do that? This is literally the front line!”
Ma Dai shrugged. “I dunno, but they’re all gone.”
“I’m going to kill Yang Yi,” snarled Wei Yan. “Will you help me, or no?”
“I’m with you on that,” agreed Ma Dai. “Fuck Yang Yi. Let’s go cut them off.”
Xiahou Ba came running back to the Wei command tent. “They’re gone! They’ve all left!”
“He really is dead,” said Sima Yi, still hardly daring to believe it. “Let’s go kick their asses!”
“Wait, you?” said Xiahou Ba, as Sima Yi started struggling into his armour. “Isn’t it kinda risky?”
“No, I need to do this personally,” said Sima Yi. He and his sons rushed to the Shu campsites, and found, sure enough, they were all empty.
“I’ll run ahead,” he ordered Shi and Zhao. “You two lead the reserves.” He whistled over a chunk of redshirts and raced south.
Just when he came within sight of their retreating backs, a bomb went off. The army stopped, and every man wheeled around and charged towards him. Then, the rushing tide of men parted, and out rolled a small golf cart, with a familiar figure inside.
“Fuck! He’s alive!”
“He sure is!” called Jiang Wei. “And you fell into his trap. Why are you running?”
But now all the Wei redshirts were stampeding. They trampled on each other, and Sima Yi’s horse panicked and bolted. His generals only managed to catch up fifteen miles later. Xiahou Ba caught his bridle, while Hui grabbed his spear, which he was flailing dangerously. “Calm down! Calm down!”
“Is my head still on?” screamed Sima Yi, clutching it. “It’s still on, right? Do I have any stab wounds?”
“It’s just us,” they reassured him. “Let’s get you back to camp.”
Sima Yi refused to leave camp for the next few days – until rumours from the peasants began to trickle in. Some tales were about body doubles, others about secret retreats. There was also an odd ghost story about falsified astrology reports.
“He tricked me,” said Sima Yi, disgusted. “Even dead, he tricked me. Let’s see if we can catch up.”
But they couldn’t, of course. All that was left were empty tents and a few abandoned flags. Eventually Sima Yi gave up and returned to the capital to make his report.
Soon the Shu army was deep into the mountains. Yang Yi and Jiang Wei finally breathed a sigh of relief, knowing they were in the clear. When they approached the Plank Road, so-called for obvious reasons, they finally stopped for a break.
“Funeral time!”
Everyone dropped to the ground, screaming and wailing. Several redshirts died of broken hearts on the spot. White clothes were donned, white facepaint passed around.
In the middle of this touching scene, one of the redshirts happened to look down the road.
“Guys? What’s that?”
The Plank Road was on fire, and an army was marching through the flames to meet them.
Saxo Dramaticus 