The court fell to whispering.

Why would His Majesty put the imperial sword in the hands of a nobody like Ning Chen?

“Your Majesty. Your subject does not understand. Ning Chen is only a little silver coat. Why give the imperial sword to him?”

A censor asked what every man in the hall was wondering.

The corner of the Xuan Emperor’s mouth lifted. That was the question he had been waiting for.

He was silent a while, and then he spoke, sick at heart with it.

“Because this emperor thinks highly of Ning Chen’s talent. That is why he was given the imperial sword… And he has disappointed me badly.”

The officials, civil and military, looked at one another and put their heads together.

Thinks highly of Ning Chen’s talent?

What talent has a little silver coat got?

The Xuan Emperor said, low, “You will all have heard by now. Several works for the ages have come out of the Top Scholar Tower.”

“A thousand hammers and ten thousand chisels, and it comes out of the deep mountain; the fierce fire burns it and it counts that as nothing…“

“Ten paces, one man dead. A thousand miles, and nothing in his way…“

The poems that had set the capital alight came into every man’s head at once.

These works for the ages had spread fast in the last few days, and their author was the Lan Xing they had all been hunting.

A good many of them had sent men to the Top Scholar Tower to ask where Lan Xing could be found, and to offer big money for a poem… and every one of them had come away disappointed, because nobody had ever seen what Lan Xing looked like.

There was even talk that Lan Xing was an immortal of poetry born again into the world.

Everyone thought it a reasonable thing to say, because every poem and lyric of Lan Xing’s was a work for the ages, and short of an immortal of poetry born again, who else could write anything so fine?

The Xuan Emperor let out a deep sigh. “Just so. Ning Chen is Lan Xing, and Lan Xing is Ning Chen.”

One stone, and a thousand waves.

Every official in the hall was stunned, and every eye in the place turned on Ning Chen.

The immortal of poetry we have hunted so hard for is Ning Chen?

They stood with their mouths open and their eyes bulging like a toad’s.

Ning Ziming above all. He too had been sending men out to find Lan Xing, hoping to buy a single poem so that his name would carry its fragrance… and the man was the son he had never once given a thought to.

And he remembered all at once why Ning Gan had lost his post. He had stolen two lines of poetry from Ning Chen.

I am stupid. Stupid past saving. I should have seen it long ago — why else would His Majesty show Ning Chen such favor? Ning Ziming felt like the biggest idiot under heaven.

Stunned as they were, they were still half believing and half not.

Ning Chen belonged to the Inspectorate, a coarse fighting man. Was he really the one who had written all those works for the ages?

“I can witness to it. Ning Chen is Lan Xing… Drunk, I trim the lamp to look at my sword; in dreams I am back among the camps, the horns calling down the line. That lyric was written for me by Ning Chen.”

Old General Chen said it at exactly the right moment.

Every breath in the hall caught.

They fixed their eyes on Ning Chen and would not look away.

The heat in those looks belonged to a convict ten years without a woman who has just caught sight of a naked beauty.

They all knew Old General Chen was hard and upright and would not stoop to a lie.

The military men were one thing. But the civil officials looked at Ning Chen the way a man looks at a piece of flawless jade.

The Xuan Emperor stared at Ning Chen and said angrily, “Ning Chen. You have disappointed this emperor bitterly. You dared cut down the Empress’s brother? Now the whole court, civil and military, is telling me to kill you. Have you anything to say for yourself?”

Ning Chen would have had to be a great deal more stupid than he was to miss it now… His Majesty and Old General Chen were singing to each other’s tune, and they were doing it to save him.

The stage is built. Now it depends on how I sing.

Ning Chen let out a deep sigh. “Your Majesty. Your subject knows his fault.”

“But your guilty subject had no help for it. The Empress’s brother was about to kill innocent people in front of your subject’s own eyes. Your subject has received deep favor from the throne and had the imperial sword in his hand. How could he stand unmoved and watch it happen?”

“His Lordship the Empress’s brother was in league with the officials of Chongzhou, high and low. They butchered the common people and treated a human life as so much grass, and they left Chongzhou with no way to live… The trees in Chongzhou stand bare. The people have eaten the bark off every one of them, and it has come nearly to trading children to eat.”

“Those are Your Majesty’s people. When people have no way left to live, what do they do? I believe my lords know the answer better than I do… What is left to them but rebellion?”

Every face in the hall changed.

Has it gone as far as that in Chongzhou?

“This is nonsense, and it is raising alarm to frighten people… There is a clean sky over our heads. Where does this talk of no way to live come from?”

“Ning Chen. Do not stand there exaggerating in order to get clear of the charge.”

While the court was still taking it in, a short, thickset official stepped out.

Qian Xingguo, Minister of Revenue, Second Rank, Senior Grade.

He glanced at the Left Chancellor, then spoke in a tone of high righteousness.

“Ning Chen. This minister has charge of the empire’s lands and fields, its household registers, its taxes, its salaries and stipends, and every matter of revenue… If Chongzhou were truly as you say, with no way to live, this minister would have known of it before anyone.”

“And for years now Chongzhou has been the first prefecture to hand in its taxes. What you describe is simply not possible.”

“It is plain that to get clear of the charge you are inventing facts, exaggerating, slandering the Empress’s brother and deceiving the sage sovereign… What punishment does that deserve?”

Qian Xingguo opened his mouth and clapped hats of every size on Ning Chen.

Ning Chen turned his head and looked hard at him.

“My lord. Have you ever been to Chongzhou?”

That stopped Qian Xingguo for a moment, but he stiffened his neck. “This minister has not been, no. But the yearly taxes show plainly that the people of Chongzhou live settled and content, and in plenty. What you describe is not possible.”

“That’s horseshit.” Ning Chen was in a fury. “You sit high up and you are fed until you’re fat in the head and the guts. What do you know of what the people of Chongzhou suffer?”

“Ning Chen, you—”

“Don’t you fucking point at me. You aren’t fit to.” Ning Chen gave him no chance to speak. “What the ear hears is empty and what the eye sees is real. You have never been to Chongzhou. What standing have you got to speak at all? A frog at the bottom of a well makes the whole world up out of its own head… Go outside and sit in the sun sometime. Darken yourself up, and then nobody can call you skin-deep and pale-witted.”

“Ning Chen, you—”

“You what? A dog of an official like you in the Great Xuan Empire is a grief to the common people and a wound to the court… You know nothing at all and you still dared jump out here. I have seen men pick money up off the ground. I never saw one pick up a cursing. Tell me you aren’t asking for it.”

Qian Xingguo’s lips shook with anger and his finger trembled as he pointed at Ning Chen. “You— you—”

Ning Chen laughed coldly. “You can’t even get your words out straight, and you dared jump out here playing at upright and unbending, playing at wholly selfless? You want to stand on me to make a name for yourself… Are you fit for it?”

“There is only one end for a man like you… You and your name will both be wiped out; the great river runs on for ten thousand ages all the same.“

The anger set Qian Xingguo’s head roaring. His vision went black and he swayed on his feet. The skin of his face and his lips would not stop shaking, and he came near to going down in a faint.

You and your name will both be wiped out; the great river runs on for ten thousand ages all the same?

The court turned the two lines over carefully and could not help admiring them. A fine poem. A fine poem.

Then, a second later, came the other reaction. It was a cursing. And a vicious one.

What the two lines meant was this: a clown brings his own shame down on himself; after you are dead not one scrap of your name will remain; so go on dreaming.

Every eye came to rest on Qian Xingguo, full of pity for him.

With those two lines spoken, he was nailed to the pillar of shame.

From now on, whenever anyone saw Qian Xingguo or heard him mentioned, those two lines would come to mind.

A man of letters holds his name dearer than his life.

Qian Xingguo could give up any hope of holding his head up again.

Ning Chen really was an immortal of poetry born again. He opened his mouth and a man was ruined, name and all.

(End of Chapter 67)