Chapter 96: Execution for You, Pay Cut for Me
The scattered remnants of the Shu army regroup, all looking like they just got dragged to hell and back. Zhuge Liang gets a little worried when Zhao Yun's troops don't show up right away, until the latter rolls in full of pep and smelling lemony-fresh.
Zhuge Liang is impressed at the condition of his unit, and asks, how are you still in so good a shape?
Zhao Yun replies, yeah, they tried to chase us down but I fought them off real good. You do remember that I'm basically the biggest badass in the book, right? Or at least the only one still alive, if nothing else.
Zhuge Liang tries to give Zhao Yun and his men a bunch of treasure for doing such a good job of not getting killed, but Zhao Yun turns him down because he doesn't feel like he did anything deserving of the praise. Not included in this conversation are his troops, who would probably beg to differ.
Next, Zhuge Liang calls in the general from last chapter who camped on the road instead of the hill and asks what the hell happened out there. The general immediately (and rightfully) proceeds to throw Ma Su under an entire depot's worth of buses in explaining how dedicated the scholar was to the disastrous hill idea and how he could not be talked out of it. In the end, Zhuge Liang has no choice but to execute his favorite pupil for his poor judgement.
"Wait," says Ma Su, "don't other guys majorly botch military operations in this book all the time? Why am I being singled out here?"
"Listen, I appreciate you trying to talk me out of killing you, but I don't make the rules here," weeps Zhuge Liang. And Ma Su is put to the sword.
Then Zhuge Liang remembers, "Wait, shit, I'm the Prime Minister, I DO make the rules." But he decides that he's no longer worthy of the position since he was the idiot who put Ma Su in charge anyway, heedless of Liu Bei's deathbed warning, so he writes a letter to Liu Shan asking to be demoted as punishment.
"Uh... fine," Liu Shan shrugs, creating the new role of Vice Prime Minister, which is basically the same exact job because we're all smart enough not to replace the only person holding this kingdom together.
Meanwhile, Wei considers pressing their advantage against Shu, but decides it would be better to do a rebuilding year, so they call the invasion off. Then they immediately scrap that idea when they receive a letter from one of Wu's administrators along the border looking to defect. Even Sima Yi says it's pretty legit, so Wei marches its army all the way over to occupy the territory and guard against the inevitable counterattack.
Unfortunately, the "counterattack" could be more accurately described as an "ambush", because Lu Xun is in on the ploy and already waiting for them (also: Lu Xun is back from his vacation, apparently). Predictably, he runs literal circles around the Wei army for a while until they have to scamper home in complete disarray, and then he picks up all the sweet loot they left behind in their hurry.
Notably, that's all Wu wins from the encounter; they don't gain any territory or continue the attack, they simply return home as well and have a party. I guess trouncing the Wei army just felt like a fun idea today.