Chapter 113
— Ding Feng Makes A Plan To Slay Sun Chen; Jiang Wei Arrays A Battle To Defeat Deng Ai.
Delivers the chapter's verdict on Shu, and it is the most quoted passage in it. Sent as Wu's return envoy to Chengdu, he reports: 'All affairs of state are in the hands of a certain eunuch named Huang Hao, and all the courtiers look up to him as to a father. At court plain truth is never heard, and the country people look sallow and starved. The whole country appears on the verge of destruction. The birds on the roof do not know that the building is about to be burned.'