Ning Chen and the crown prince did not stay much longer.
The Ninth Princess gathered up her skirts and ran into her room, where she took up a brush and wrote down the poem Ning Chen had given her, in case she forgot it.
“Heye, all of you come and look. This is the poem Ning Chen gave this princess.”
Several of the maids came over to admire it.
“Well?”
“Princess, these servants do not know much about poetry… Is it a very good one?”
The Ninth Princess lifted her head in triumph, like a proud pullet. “Of course it is. It is a work for the ages… It describes this princess’s beauty, her sweetness, her dignity and her talent perfectly. It might have been cut to measure for this princess.”
“Actually this Ning Chen isn’t so hateful after all. Hee hee.”
The more she looked at it the better she liked it.
Then she jumped up, excited. “I’m going to show Father Emperor.”
“Princess, go slowly. Don’t fall.”
The maids went hurrying after her in a fluster.
Elsewhere, Ning Chen parted from the crown prince and went out of the palace alone.
He had meant to go straight to the Inspectorate, but it was still early by the look of the sky, so he turned back to the Ning house instead, meaning to have a bath before he went to find Gao Ziping and the others.
The servants of the house saw him and were astonished.
Somebody had overheard the master saying that the Fourth Young Master had killed His Lordship the Empress’s brother, that it was a capital crime, and that he was shut up in the Inspectorate’s cells.
They had all been very sorry about it, because the Fourth Young Master was a good man who had made Steward Wu give them back every coin he had skimmed off their wages.
“Fourth Young Master. You— you’re out of the cells?”
“Hush.” Ning Chen made a mystery of it and dropped his voice. “Not so loud. I broke out. I’m on the run.”
That one sentence drained the color out of every face in the yard.
Broken out?
That is a capital crime.
No — wait. Killing the Empress’s brother was already a capital crime… The Fourth Young Master really does have ability, to get himself out of the Inspectorate’s cells. They say the place is the Hall of the King of Hell, and nobody who goes in ever comes out alive.
One of the servants ran to shut the front gate.
“Fourth Young Master, don’t you worry… We promise we won’t tell. Whoever asks, we won’t say a word.”
Another came up beside him and said quietly, “Fourth Young Master, you had better run for it… If the lady and the three young masters find out, they will report you and have you taken.”
Ning Chen could not help laughing out loud.
The truth is that the common people at the bottom are the most likable of anyone. Whoever is good to them, they are good to in return. Excepting the ones born rotten, of course, and there are plenty of people who are poor and vicious with it — poor hills and bad water breed troublesome people.
“I’m messing with you. His Majesty is wise and my name has been cleared. Not only am I not guilty of anything, I’m still a silver coat of the Inspectorate.”
The servants were astonished all over again.
He killed the Empress’s brother, who is imperial kin, and nothing has happened to him at all… The Fourth Young Master is a wonder.
Just then Steward Wu came running up.
“Fourth Young Master. You’re back at last… The master said you were to go and see him the moment you got in.”
Ning Chen laughed coldly. “Let him wait… Get hot water ready for me now. I want a bath. I’ve gone sour.”
Steward Wu looked pained. “Fourth Young Master, hadn’t you better see the master first and wash afterward?”
Ning Chen narrowed his eyes and said, with a smile on his mouth and nothing behind it, “Steward Wu. Or I could wash at the Inspectorate. You could come along and scrub my back, and afterward I could take you for a walk around the cells.”
“This old servant will get the Fourth Young Master’s hot water at once.”
Steward Wu shuddered with fright and could not get it out fast enough.
In the room, Ning Chen lay in the tub with his eyes half shut, entirely comfortable.
“Steward Wu, are you scrubbing my back or stroking it? Haven’t you eaten? Put some strength into it.”
Steward Wu bowed and scraped and kept a smile on his face. “Fourth Young Master, these are clumsy hands of mine… Shall I find you a maid instead?”
“Come to that, the Fourth Young Master has nobody of his own about him at all. What sort does the Fourth Young Master like? This old servant will pick one out for you.”
Ning Chen rolled his eyes. “I like them eight hundred pounds. Sit on her for a chair, lie on her for a bed.”
“Eh?” Steward Wu went blank. Eight hundred pounds? Is that still a human being? He looked pained. “Fourth Young Master, that… eight hundred pounds would be hard to come by.”
Ning Chen’s forehead was full of black lines.
“Are you a pig? Can you not tell when I am joking?”
“Steward Wu. Try acting like a human being… Do you not know there is a difference between men and women? The maids in this house have to marry one day. If her husband’s family found out she had washed a man, they would look down on her. Do you understand?”
“I am not a piece of human garbage like Ning Gan and the rest of them, who take their own comfort and never mind a girl’s good name… And another thing. If I catch you bullying the maids in this house again, I will twist your head off and make a chamber pot out of it… All right. You’re useless with your hands. Get out.”
Ning Chen turned him out of the room.
He finished his bath and changed into clean clothes.
It was lucky he had squeezed a hundred taels out of Ning Ziming last time and had a few new things made, or he would not have had a change of clothes at all.
Ning Chen ambled over to the East Court.
Ning Ziming was already waiting for him in the main hall.
Chang Ruyue was there, and Ning Gan and the rest.
Chang Ruyue and her sons saw him and their eyes slid away. There was some fear in it. He killed the Empress’s brother and nothing came of it. This little mongrel really is hard to kill.
Ning Ziming set his face and made a cold sound at the sight of him.
Ning Chen went over lazily and sat down. “Did Minister Ning want something?”
Ning Ziming looked at that slack, careless manner and could not hold his temper down any longer. “Ning Chen. I may have done you a thousand wrongs and ten thousand, but I am still your father… Today, in front of every official at court, you shamed me. That is unfilial in the extreme.”
Ning Chen looked at him, amused. “Minister Ning, you are supposed to be a well-read man. Do you not even understand the father kind, the son filial? The father has to be kind first.”
“If Minister Ning called me here to discuss who is filial and who is not, I suggest you save your breath… After the rotten things you have done, you are not fit to be anyone’s father.”
Ning Ziming’s face went livid. “Ning Chen. Don’t imagine that because His Majesty thinks well of you, you can leave your father out of your reckoning… Say what you like, I am still your father, and whatever my thousand faults, they are not for a son to sneer at.”
Ning Chen let out a cold laugh. “Minister Ning. Do you know where my mother is buried?”
Ning Ziming’s expression froze. He had never once cared enough to ask. How could he know?
Ning Chen stood up and fixed a cold eye on him, and said it one word at a time.
“Ning Ziming. When you went home that year to sacrifice to the ancestors, you could perfectly well have made things clear to my mother… And what did you do? Your head was full of lust. You took her body, you walked away the next morning, and you threw her aside like a worn-out shoe. To call you a beast would be an insult to beasts.”
“You are greedy for power and in love with vanity. All of that I can understand… But how could you bring yourself to hurt somebody who truly loved you? Ning Ziming, you are not fit to be called a man.”
Ning Ziming’s lungs were fit to burst. He wheezed, dragging in air, and pointed at Ning Chen and roared, “Unfilial wretch. You worthless thing. Rank treason. Defying your elders… I— I’ll beat you to death.”
Ning Ziming snatched up the teacup from the table.
(End of Chapter 73)