chapter 83

[?]: You won’t fight and you won’t surrender!
[?]: Li Jue! You’re a yellow-belly crook!

Yellow-belly crook!
Yellow-belly crook!

chapter 83 Farewell, Hero

[Ma Chao]: Can you eat any more, father?

[Li Jue]: Keep eating! Eat your heart out!
(“…eat until your intestines and stomach burst”)

[LJ]: Hell, look at your gluttony!
(“look at how gluttonous you are”)
[LJ]: You want a fight? Fine. I’ll give you one!

[LJ]: Who will go? A three-rank promotion if you do!

Fuck. Three-rank demotion for the lot of you!

{sfx: pong~}

[LJ]: Damnit! Damnit!

[LJ]: Find Jia Xu!
[LJ]: Somebody get Jia Xu! Hurry!

[?]: General Li, look!

[?]: Is… isn’t that?

Is he suicidal…?

[Ma Teng]: I can still eat.

[?]: Jia Xu! You rebel! Rebel! Rebel!
[MT]: No matter how much more.

[Jia Xu]: Fill the stomach with the world. General Ma, that’s quite a bone-chilling analogy.

[MC]: Listen, boy. You better be courteous if you intend to surrender.

[JX]: Why surrender? I haven’t lost yet.

[MC]: I’ve never seen an assassin like you.

{sfx: zing~}

[JX]: General Ma,

[JX]: how tasty is that bowl of noodles?

[MT]: What?

{Liangzhou}

[?]: This is our Lord’s handwriting, no doubt about it.
[?]: Lü Bu’s mutiny rings clear as a bell!

[?]: Comrades, what do you think of this edict?

[?]: Shit!

[?]: It’s the twentieth one! This is definitely meant to create mistrust between us!

[Lü Bu]: And the wording is getting harsher. Those guys sure don’t give up easy!

[?]: Don’t worry, Duke of Wen! We won’t believe any more of such edict!
[?]: Li Jue’s faction has shown its ambition. Let’s head out!

[LB]: I think we should wait a bit longer.

[LB]: Right now we need to stabilize Liangzhou before dealing with external factors.
[LB]: I heard that the harvest is good this year!

[?]: You mean we should send rations to Ma Teng and put off mobilization?

[LB]: Yes. We don’t have enough funding while Li Jue’s men are prepared.
[LB]: This is a long campaign. The other warlords will take advantage of the situation if we don’t plan carefully.

[?]: You mean…

[LB]: Keep it to yourself.

[?]: This way we could care less what the Sima clan will send.
[?]: Fools. They can’t even tell who the real culprit is. Haha!

[LB]: What about the other fool?

[Zhang Liao]: Our spy says Li Jue is too busy dealing with Ma Teng to care about us.
(simplified)

[LB]: This stalemate means Jia Xu has lost control.

[ZL]: Yes. So his “dark art of war” is for naught.

[LB]: Suppose not. How do you think he will use it?

[ZL]: How many fools like Niu Fu could there be?

[LB]: Yet I met one somehow.

[ZL]: Two dogs fight for a bone, and a third runs away with it.

[MC]: So, how do you like the taste?

[MT]: I say it’s wasted on a man who knows nothing about noodles.
[captain]: Chef, get another bowl for our Lord.

[JX]: A persuader must come armed with convincing arguments.

[JX]: You must have a retreating strategy if you dared to come.

{sfx: foo~}

[MC]: Why would we retreat? We’re on the verge of victory!
(“…it’s only a matter of time before we take Changan”)
[MC]: Listen, boy, my skills are above that of Lü Bu!

[JX]: Yes, he wants you to be above him!
[MC]: What do you mean?

[LB]: Ma Teng…
(“Ma Teng’s noodles”)

[LB]: should soon be out of noodles.
(“should soon be eaten”)

[ZL]: Yes. Once his rations are cut off, his army will collapse.

[ZL]: One must have a strong foundation in order to retake the world.

[JX]: Too eager to win makes you forget to go home. Lü Bu is after your base, not Chang’an.

[MC]: You mean this is Lü Bu’s plot? Non… nonsense!

[JX]: Not nonsense. Lü Bu said Liangzhou hasn’t been stabilized, right? So he’ll send rations before he send troops…?

[?]: Master, the chef says flour hasn’t arrived. Would you mind another dish?

[MT]: Huh.

[MC]: A fancy speech can’t cover up utter nonsense!
(“don’t think having a way of words gives you the right to say nonsense”)
[MC]: You can’t treat me like you did Niu Fu!
(homonym word-play on Niu Fu’s name, “cow flesh” versus “Niu Fu”)

[MT]: You have another sacrificial lamb?
(“you have more beef?” word-play on Niu Fu’s name)

[JX]: My scheme is still in play!
(“…not over yet”)

[LB]: Wait… Zhang Liao,

[LB]: has all of our men reached Liangzhou?
[ZL]: Yes, along with all our funding. So… should we take action?

[LB]: I remembered Dong Zhuo’s edict.

[ZL]: Edict? It’s useless by now, right?

[LB]: Damnit, why didn’t I think of that…

[LB]: Wang Yun had the edict the whole time!

[LB]: Jia Xu… has already confiscated the edict after Wang Yun’s death.

[LB]: They kept it to themselves… His only goal is…

[ZL]: My Lord, you mean…

to round up our entire faction and kill us all!
But in order to fool me…
the edict is not enough; he needed to get rid of another eyesore of mine…
He needed another Niu Fu!

“Jing Ke‘s mission requires the young master’s head.” The dark art of war…
[Dong Yue]: Jia Xu said Lü Bu’s assassin is coming.

[DY]: This is the only way to ensure the roundup of Lü Bu’s faction.
(simplified)

[DY]: Generals, soon I’ll be accompanying Niu Fu to see our Lord.

{decoration reads: to pay homage to the dead}
[DY]: Will you be able to uproot Lü Bu for good?

Farewell! Hero!
(to echo the alternate interpretation of the title, one can say “We shall meet again! Hero!”)

Jia Xu!

KILL~
Lü Bu is no match for you!
(“…accept (my) downwind status to (you)”)