Chapter 104: When You Wish Upon a Star
Following the failure of the ritual last chapter, Zhuge Liang starts getting sicker. He recognizes that, yep, it's about time for me to die.
He assigns his advisor Yang Yi to succeed him as Prime Minister, which I don't think is a name that's too critical to remember beyond the next few chapters, but also the number of names you have to keep track of is getting progressively smaller anyway, so. Zhuge Liang tells Yang Yi, okay, I don't actually know what Wei Yan is going to do but I know he's definitely going to do it soon, and when he does, here's how you handle it.
Then he pulls Jiang Wei aside, gives him everything he ever wrote about military strategy, and tells him, yeah, I know you used to serve Wei until I basically ruined your life and made you come work for us instead, but I need you to continue my fight against those traitorous dogs, which, again, you were one once and also thought the same of us. Fortunately Jiang Wei is a pretty chill guy, so he's going to do it.
And then Zhuge Liang passes away, and everybody is really sad. One guy even dies out of grief.
...But the army isn't allowed to mourn yet, because there is still one last trick to pull off.
Yang Yi sends a guy to Wei Yan, telling him, hey, we have to pull the troops out since Zhuge Liang is dead and all, and we need you to guard the rear because Sima Yi is obviously going to come after us while we're vulnerable. But Wei Yan thinks, haaaaang on here. The stupid advisor is ordering this retreat? Nah-uh. Didn't we come here to attack Wei? Shouldn't we be doing that? Isn't that what Zhuge Liang wanted all along?
The messenger tries to explain that Zhuge Liang was the one who organized the retreat, but Wei Yan is kind of over it. He figures that if Zhuge Liang had just listened to him in the first place during their first expedition, and attacked the Wei capital through northeast Shu rather than dicking around in the northern hills for years, they would have had Wei wrapped up ages ago, so maybe he should be the one calling the shots around here. The messenger isn't quite sure how to respond to this, so he says, well, let me go talk to Yang Yi, maybe he'll hand over military authority to you?
But the messenger has been in the anti-Wei Yan-camp this whole time, so he and Yang Yi decide, eh, let's just have Jiang Wei guard the rear instead and we'll deal with Wei Yan later. Of course, since the messenger pretty much just ghosts Wei Yan and never sends him any sort of follow-up, Wei Yan gets suspicious and takes his troops off elsewhere.
Through all this, Sima Yi is constantly monitoring the stars, and he finally sees one star in particular flicker out and fall through the sky. And with that, he realizes that Zhuge Liang is dead.
His commanders try to get him to authorize an attack, but he's cautious at first, telling them, hang on, Zhuge Liang can probably control the stars or some shit like that because nothing would surprise me at this point, let's get some more intel first just to be sure we're not walking into another trap. But eventually he gets word that the Shu retreat is actually, truly underway. And he knows, that's it, Zhuge Liang is done. Let's go get 'em, boys!
Of his commanders asks, hey, you think maybe one of us minor characters should attack instead? But Sima Yi says, nah, I have to see this for myself.
He takes the army out, and finds the Shu camp abandoned; yep, they're withdrawing all right. He presses the march and eventually runs into Shu.
BUT.
Zhuge Liang is still sitting perfectly upright in his carriage, with all of his officials flanking him, ready to fight! And Jiang Wei launches the ambush he had laying in wait!
Sima Yi is FLOORED that Zhuge Liang is still alive, and that, once again, he fell right into ANOTHER one of his traps. He makes it out, but the losses are heavy.
...Meanwhile, the Zhuge Liang in the carriage is actually one of the wooden statues he'd used to trick Wei a couple chapters ago.
With Sima Yi chased off once again, Shu is free to retreat unhassled. They finally hold a funeral, and a couple soldiers mourn so hard they die too.
But they do not quite make it home without incident. Because Wei Yan has burnt the road closed and blocked off their main route home.