“Minister Ning. I am a silver coat appointed by His Majesty’s own hand… In a short while I go out on campaign for the country. Are you sure you want to throw that cup?”

“If I am injured and a great matter is held up by it, can you answer for that?”

Ning Chen said it with a cold smile.

He had used the same thing to threaten the Empress, and even she had not dared carry the risk of it… Give Ning Ziming ten times the nerve he had and he would not dare throw that teacup.

Ning Ziming’s hand stopped dead in the air.

Ning Chen was going out on campaign very soon. If he were injured and a great matter were held up by it, Ning Ziming truly could not answer for it.

CRASH.

Ning Ziming threw the cup on the floor and it went to pieces.

“Minister Ning. You are so greedy for power. If I took your power away from you, what would you do? Would you be content to come down to being a commoner? Or would the blow be more than you could stand, and you would hang yourself? I am truly curious.”

As he said it his eyes went over the Chang woman and her sons.

He said it coldly. “That Black King of Hell did not take my life… I will see that you meet the real King of Hell.”

Chang Ruyue, Ning Xing and Ning Mao looked blank… as though they knew nothing about a Black King of Hell.

But Ning Gan went chalk white and his eyes slid away.

None of that reaction escaped Ning Chen.

But he said nothing more. Without proof Ning Gan would never admit it.

The days ahead were long, though, and he had all the time he needed to look into it.

“I am an outsider here. I won’t intrude on your family reunion.”

With that he turned and left.

“Unfilial wretch. Unfilial wretch… You worthless thing, you rank traitor…”

The roaring came after him like a mad dog.

“Master. Master—”

“Father—”

And then the Chang woman and her sons were screaming in a panic.

Ning Chen’s eyebrow went up. That is a great deal of temper. A man of his years, and no care for his own health at all… I wonder whether it has killed him.

He decided to go to the Inspectorate for Gao Ziping and the others, and then to the courtesans’ quarter to mark the occasion.

His horse was at the Inspectorate, so there was nothing for it but to walk.

It was nearly dark by the time he got there.

Gao Ziping had run out of patience waiting.

“Any longer and we were going to send somebody to the Ning house to look for you.”

Ning Chen paid him no attention. He was staring at Pan Yucheng, taken aback. “You’re coming too?”

The corner of Pan Yucheng’s mouth twitched. He cleared his throat. “I have to keep an eye on all of you. There is real work tomorrow. Nobody is drinking too much.”

Good reason. The man looks perfectly serious and turns out to be a quiet one with a taste for it. Ning Chen ranted inwardly.

“Let’s get moving. Go late and there won’t be a pretty girl left to pick.”

Feng Qizheng was pressing them.

Chen Chong made a sound. “You coarse fighting man. As though getting there early would get you a pretty one.”

“It’s one thing when the poets and versifiers say it about us. When you say it too, God damn it… We can’t give up on ourselves.”

Gao Ziping pointed at Ning Chen and laughed. “Who says the Inspectorate is all coarse fighting men?”

They all stopped short, and every eye gathered on Ning Chen.

That’s right. Ning Chen is an immortal of poetry born again.

They stared at him, and there was a heat in it.

Ning Chen quietly covered his backside and said warily, “Here now… You’re not that starved, are you?”

Feng Qizheng came at him and got an arm around his shoulders. “Ning Chen. This one’s on you.”

“Me? On me how?”

“You put that special gift of yours to work, of course.”

Ning Chen looked at him in horror. “How do you know about my special gift… You sick pervert. Have you been watching me bathe?”

Feng Qizheng punched him, laughing, and swore at him. “Get out of here. I meant your talent.”

And then he was pouring out his troubles. “Ning Chen, you don’t know how it is. Those sour scholars are always laughing at us for coarse fighting men.”

“The girls in the courtesans’ quarter and the pleasure houses have no use for us either. They think we’re too rough… They all like those men of letters, thin as chicks, and they like the poetry.”

“When we get there tonight you have to make us look good. Show those mincing men of letters that we are not coarse fighting men, that we are accomplished in both letters and arms.”

Ning Chen let out a breath. So that was all it was… I thought Feng Qizheng had ideas about me. Frightened the life out of me.

Chen Chong laughed. Heh heh. “Ning Chen, with talent like yours you might carry off Miss Nanzhi outright.”

Ning Chen was curious. “Who is Miss Nanzhi?”

They all looked at him with nothing to say.

Chen Chong said, “You virgin chick. You really don’t know anything… Have you never heard the saying? Twelve houses in the courtesans’ quarter, and every house full of beauties.”

The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched. Is not knowing something to be ashamed of?

“Ning Chen, the girls of those twelve houses are peerless in talent and art, every one of them, and beautiful as flowers, and they sell their art and not their bodies… Put any one of them anywhere else and she would be the queen of the quarter… And of them all, Miss Nanzhi is the finest. Her flute is the best in the capital.”

That stopped Ning Chen. “I thought they sold their art and not their bodies? And she’s blowing a flute, and she’s the best in the capital at it.”

They looked at him strangely.

“Ning Chen. What has blowing a flute got to do with selling her body?”

“Ah… Nothing. Nothing at all. Heh.”

Christ… Modern culture has left me touchy about that particular phrase.

Just then Gao Ziping cleared his throat and glanced at Pan Yucheng.

The others seemed to remember something all at once, and went quiet.

Ning Chen did not understand. “What is it?”

Feng Qizheng dropped his voice. “The Chief has had a particular thing for Miss Nanzhi all along and we forgot about it… Every time he goes he never calls for a girl. He goes to look at Miss Nanzhi.”

Ning Chen was taken aback.

“A gold coat of the Inspectorate, and he can’t carry off one woman of the pleasure houses?”

“Miss Nanzhi is no ordinary woman of the pleasure houses. Peerless in talent and art, and a face to topple a city… Is there a great man in this capital who does not want her in his household? The Chief earns well enough, but set against the truly rich he is nowhere… And the women of the pleasure houses have no use for coarse fighting men like us to begin with.”

Chen Chong took it up, quietly. “And the Chief is no good with words. Every time, all he can do is look at her from a distance.”

Ning Chen glanced at Pan Yucheng and nodded slightly. “He does look like a great gawping goose.”

Feng Qizheng and Chen Chong could not hold the laugh in, and then clapped their hands over their mouths.

“Can none of this wait until we get to the courtesans’ quarter? Stop wasting time. Move.”

Gao Ziping was pressing them.

Ning Chen said, “Wait for me. I’ll be right back.”

He ran into a room, and a little while later ran out again, laughing. “Let’s go.”

The whole party rode straight for the courtesans’ quarter.

In the whole capital the only men who dared visit the pleasure houses in official’s robes were the Inspectorate.

Officials had denounced them in memorials any number of times, and it made no difference at all.

Ask them, and they were there on a case.

And the Xuan Emperor did not press it far… An Inspectorate man who ate well and played well would not turn to squeezing money or fall in with the officials, and could serve him with nothing else on his mind.

On the way Ning Chen quietly pushed a slip of paper into Pan Yucheng’s hand.

“Old Pan. This is as far as I can help you. The rest is up to you.”

Old Pan?

The corner of Pan Yucheng’s mouth twitched. He opened the slip quietly and looked at it, and his eyes lit at once.

On the slip was a poem, and the title of it was To Nanzhi.

What Ning Chen did not know was that not long after he left the Ning house, Chang Ruyue left it too.

She went to the chancellor’s residence.

The Left Chancellor waved the maids out, leaving only the two of them, father and daughter.

He looked at his daughter. “You don’t look well. Has Ning Ziming been mistreating you?”

Chang Ruyue shook her head. “It’s Ning Chen.”

“That bastard? What has happened?”

There was fright in her eyes. “Father. He seems to know already that it was Gan’er who put that Black King of Hell in his bed.”

The Left Chancellor’s brows drew together. Something jumped in him.

Because that Black King of Hell led back to one man. The Poisoner.

The Poisoner worked with poison, had dozens of lives on his hands, and was a wanted man of the first rank.

And the Poisoner was now in his service.

If the trail ever reached the Poisoner, it would certainly reach him.

Chang Ruyue went on. “Father, this bastard is a silver coat of the Inspectorate now. I am truly afraid that one day he will find out how his mother really died, and then I—”

The Left Chancellor made a cold sound and cut her off. “Frightened now, are you? What has become of the nerve you had then?”

She said it in a panic. “I never thought that bastard would end up a silver coat of the Inspectorate.”

There was something vicious in the Left Chancellor’s eyes. He said, mildly, “What is there to panic about? One little silver coat. Pinching him dead is easier than pinching an ant dead.”

“He probably only suspects that Gan’er put that Black King of Hell in his bed. If he had proof, Gan’er would be in the Inspectorate’s cells already.”

“That’s enough. Go home… I will deal with this.”

(End of Chapter 74)