“You…”
The Xuan Emperor fixed his eyes on Ning Chen, angry and out of patience with it.
He had suspected that somebody was standing behind Immortal Master Qiu.
And before there had been any chance to look into it, Ning Chen had gotten the man killed… and every thread with him.
Ning Chen let his head hang, which was his way of saying that he was quite innocent in the matter.
But the man was dead, and cursing Ning Chen would not mend it.
“Geng Jing.”
“Your subject is here.”
“Look into the people around Immortal Master Qiu. See whether anything can be turned up.”
“Your subject obeys the command! Your subject goes at once.”
On his way out, Geng Jing gave Ning Chen a look that said you had better pray for yourself.
Ning Chen gave him a roll of the eyes back.
A dead loss. And this is the head of the Inspectorate? He didn’t even know the man had a poison tooth in his mouth. Ning Chen said it inwardly.
The Xuan Emperor looked Ning Chen over, full of curiosity.
Ning Chen is only fifteen. How does he come to know so much?
“Ning Chen. How did you come to learn these odd crafts and clever tricks?”
Seeing that His Majesty was not blaming him for getting Immortal Master Qiu killed, Ning Chen let out a breath.
“Reporting to Your Majesty. When your subject was small he lived by begging on the road, and he happened to meet a geomancer. He told me all this as stories.”
“There are jianghu diviners who will paint eel blood on a man’s door to swindle him, and then offer to drive the evil off, and take his money for that.”
The Xuan Emperor nodded slightly. “So that is how it goes.”
The Ninth Princess looked puzzled and asked:
“Ning Chen. Aren’t you the fourth young master of the Ning house? Why would you have been out begging?”
Ning Chen hesitated, and then said, “Because there was a beast who was greedy for power and in love with his own vanity, and he deceived a woman who loved him deeply… The poor woman even bore him a child, and the beast walked out and left, and went off after his own rank and riches.”
“Afterward the poor woman pined away and died, and the child was orphaned, and there was nothing left for him but begging on the road.”
The Ninth Princess’s lovely eyes went wide. “Living by begging on the road? You’re talking about yourself, aren’t you?”
Ning Chen smiled and said nothing more… Some things are best said up to a point and no further.
The Xuan Emperor’s glance went over the crown prince and the Ninth Princess. “That will do. The two of you go on out… This emperor has something to say to Ning Chen.”
The crown prince left with a sour look on his face… What is it that not even I, the crown prince, may hear?
Once the two of them had gone, the Xuan Emperor said to Ning Chen, “The parts for those three thousand muskets are very nearly forged… Tomorrow you will go to the Ministry of War and teach them the assembly.”
Ning Chen nodded. “Your subject obeys the command.”
“Ning Chen. This emperor grants you a few days more… Set out when you are ready.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty!”
“Very well, go on out… This emperor is a little tired.”
Ning Chen hesitated, with the look of a man who had something to say and had stopped himself.
The Xuan Emperor said, out of temper, “If you have something, say it. Don’t shuffle about.”
Ning Chen looked at the Xuan Emperor. “May your subject ask whether Your Majesty is taking elixirs?”
The Xuan Emperor gave a single nod.
“Could Your Majesty let your subject have a look at one? Your subject has never seen one.”
The Xuan Emperor was taken aback for a moment, then said offhandedly, “Quan Sheng. Fetch one and show it to him.”
“Yes!”
Eunuch Quan was gone a little while, and came back carrying a brocade box.
He came up to Ning Chen and opened it.
A golden pill about the size of a glass marble, giving off a clean fragrance, came into Ning Chen’s view.
Ning Chen leaned in curiously and smelled it, and then put out his tongue and licked it.
Eunuch Quan’s face changed on the instant. “Ning Chen. You forget yourself—”
Ning Chen scratched his head, embarrassed. “Your Majesty’s pardon. It smelled so good that your subject couldn’t help himself for a moment.”
The Xuan Emperor had nothing to say to that.
“Very well. This golden elixir is given to you. Take it and get out.”
Ning Chen had licked the thing. How was His Majesty supposed to eat it now?
“Thank you for Your Majesty’s gift!”
Ning Chen took the brocade box in his arms and left the palace looking very pleased with himself.
“Your Majesty. Are you not too indulgent with Ning Chen? He plainly did it on purpose, and a golden elixir is no easy thing to refine—”
The Xuan Emperor waved a hand and stopped Eunuch Quan’s fussing. “It is one golden elixir. There is no great harm in it.”
Ning Chen came out of the palace and rode his beloved Diaochan back to the Inspectorate, hooves going clop, clop, clop.
Back at the first department, Ning Chen had Feng Qizheng catch him some ants, and a rat as well.
Feng Qizheng’s face was one large question mark.
“What do you want those for?”
“I’ll tell you later. Go on, quickly.”
“In this weather, where am I supposed to find you ants and a rat?”
Ning Chen smiled. “A clever man like you is bound to think of something… Do it, and tonight it’s the courtesans’ quarter, on me.”
“Daddy, I’m going right now.”
The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched hard several times.
Christ!!!
There is no bottom to this man at all.
Ning Chen found a small bowl, crushed the elixir His Majesty had given him and set about studying it.
His Majesty’s sudden fainting was partly last night’s fright. The other part had to do with these elixirs, he was sure of it.
In his memory, emperors who wanted elixirs and everlasting life almost never came to a good end.
Above all, there was the cinnabar ore they had found in Hu Maode’s house.
That stuff is what elixirs are refined from.
Yesterday he had killed Hu Maode, and today Immortal Master Qiu had come very close to getting him killed.
Hu Maode was tied to the Elixir Bureau. He was certain of it.
And if these elixirs were refined from cinnabar ore, then there was bound to be quicksilver and other poisonous matter in them.
The recipes that get used for this are folk formulas out of the hands of village diviners, and they are all built out of tiger-and-wolf drugs, the fierce ones.
Take them, and for a while a man really does feel his spirits rise — what is actually happening is that he is drawing his life forward against the future… and by the late stages it does not only send a man out of his mind, it means he can drop dead at a moment’s notice, and no immortal alive could cure him.
Nearly two hours later, Feng Qizheng came back.
He really had managed to find ants and a rat.
“My thanks!”
Ning Chen took the things and went along to Pan Yucheng’s room.
Pan Yucheng looked at Ning Chen with a rat in one hand and ants in the other, and looked thoroughly puzzled.
“What is it you’re doing?”
Ning Chen dropped a few crumbs of the elixir into the bowl with the ants in it, then covered it with another bowl so the ants could not climb out.
The rest of the elixir he dropped into the cage with the rat.
“Old Pan. Keep an eye on them… If the rat dies, or the ants do, remember to tell me straight off.”
Pan Yucheng set his face and looked at him. “Which of us is the chief of the first department, exactly?”
The boy has no sense of rank at all. Now he is giving me jobs to do?
Ning Chen laughed. “You’re the chief, of course… Do me the favor. Feng Qizheng and those blockheads can’t be relied on. There’s nobody but you for it.”
Pan Yucheng said, with nothing else for it, “Remember to go to the fourth department.”
Ning Chen slapped his own forehead. “That’s right. I almost forgot the whole thing.”
Chen Lezhang was to take the rod, and he was to oversee the punishment.
“Old Pan. Can I pick the men who carry it out myself?”
Pan Yucheng thought about it. “Take Gao Ziping and the rest of them.”
“Right you are!”
Ning Chen went back to the first department, called Feng Qizheng and the others out, picked up the punishment rods and went to find Chen Lezhang.
Feng Qizheng was even more excited about it than Ning Chen.
To take the rod to a gold coat — chances like that do not come often… It would keep him in stories for years.
The whole group of them came to the fourth department.
Ning Chen came through the door shouting, “Chen Lezhang! Come out and take your beating!”
The silver coats and red coats of the fourth department, busy at their work, all turned their heads to look.
Ning Chen said loudly, “Get that gold coat of yours out here to be beaten. Everybody’s busy… When it’s done we still have to go and drink to it.”
(End of Chapter 106)