By the time the Xuan Emperor was on his way, Ning Chen’s end of it was already finished!
The immortal masters of the Elixir Bureau had been gathered together in one place with silver coats set over them.
Out in the courtyard stood a great many chests, and jars and pots of every kind, holding medicinal herbs and a whole range of other things.
Ning Chen was standing in front of one chest, and what was in that chest was cinnabar ore.
He turned his head and saw Geng Jing open a jar, lean in and smell it, and then take out of it a short length of something like a stick of moxa.
Nie Liang, meanwhile, had picked up a thing like a lump of crystal and was holding it under his nose and smelling it. “What in the world is this?”
Ning Chen shut his lips tight in a hurry, for fear of laughing out loud.
He said, with a perfectly straight face, “Taste it and you’ll know.”
Geng Jing gave him a glare. “And if it’s poison?”
“It won’t be. Everything here can go into medicine… Used right it’s a good drug, used wrong it’s a poison.”
Nie Liang did in fact give the thing in his hand a lick, and smacked his lips over it a few times, and shook his head. “It hasn’t much taste.”
“Mine’s quite fragrant. There’s a faint smell of apple about it.”
Geng Jing gave the thing in his hand a lick too. “Sweetish. It tastes pretty good.”
Ning Chen could not hold it in any longer and burst out laughing.
Seeing the two of them turn their heads to look, he turned his own away fast and clapped a hand hard over his mouth.
Geng Jing and Nie Liang caught each other’s eye and understood that something was not right.
Ning Chen was laughing so hard his shoulders were shaking. Whatever this thing in their hands was, it could hardly be anything good.
And just as they were about to ask, a thin high voice rang out. “His Majesty is here!”
The Xuan Emperor had come.
Every face in the courtyard changed, and they all went hurriedly to their knees to receive him.
“Presenting ourselves to Your Majesty!”
The Xuan Emperor’s face showed nothing. His eyes went round the courtyard, and he was plainly holding his anger down.
“Your Majesty, you’ve come at last… These men had no imperial edict. They forced their way into the Elixir Bureau for no reason and beat us. I beg Your Majesty to see justice done for us!”
The moment the Grand Immortal Master saw the Xuan Emperor he began pouring out his grievance.
He had been thoroughly beaten by Ning Chen, and then had two of his back teeth pulled bodily out by Feng Qizheng, and his face and mouth were all blood, and he did look a genuinely pitiable object.
The Xuan Emperor held his anger down and said heavily, “Can somebody tell this emperor what exactly has happened here?”
Every eye came to rest on the three of them — Geng Jing, Nie Liang and Ning Chen.
The rest of them truly did not know. They were carrying out orders.
Pan Yucheng and the other gold coat did not know either — why were they taking the whole Elixir Bureau?
“Geng Jing. Nie Liang… You are very bold indeed, to investigate this emperor’s Elixir Bureau on your own authority and without his consent. Do you mean to rebel?”
That sentence of the Xuan Emperor’s very nearly frightened Geng Jing and Nie Liang to death.
“Calm your anger, Your Majesty. Your subject would not dare!”
“Calm your anger, Your Majesty…”
The Xuan Emperor looked at the two of them coldly.
“This emperor gives you your chance to explain… If the explanation is not a reasonable one, do not blame this emperor for setting old service aside.”
Geng Jing and Nie Liang were frightened white in the face, and the cold sweat came out on their foreheads.
Ning Chen said clearly, “Your Majesty. Your subject can explain.”
“You hold your tongue! What has this got to do with you?”
Ning Chen laughed drily. “Your Majesty, it has to do with me because the whole thing was your subject’s idea… Lord Geng and Commander Nie were both talked into it by me.”
The Xuan Emperor’s brows drew together.
“Is this because of Immortal Master Qiu?”
Immortal Master Qiu had come very near getting Ning Chen killed, and the Xuan Emperor supposed this was Ning Chen paying it back.
Ning Chen said, entirely serious, “No! We did this for Your Majesty, and for the empire itself.”
“For this emperor? Say it more plainly… Ning Chen, do you understand how serious this business is? If you cannot explain yourself, this emperor will give you something to remember it by.”
The Xuan Emperor was truly angry!
He felt Ning Chen had been presuming on favor, and that he needed taking down a peg, and thoroughly, or there would be far bigger trouble out of him later.
Ning Chen said gravely, “Your Majesty gave your subject an elixir today. Do you still remember it?”
The corner of the Xuan Emperor’s mouth twitched slightly. You cheated it out of me with a cheap trick, is what happened.
“Don’t keep it back. Say it straight out!”
Ning Chen nodded. “That elixir is poisoned… Every elixir Your Majesty takes is poisoned!”
The Xuan Emperor’s face changed on the instant.
Eunuch Quan was frightened too, and stood there with his face gone slack.
Every man in the courtyard who heard it was frightened out of his senses.
The elixirs were poisoned?
To poison His Majesty was a crime punishable to the ninth degree of kin. Nobody could carry a thing like that.
“You are talking nonsense… Those elixirs were refined for His Majesty by this immortal master himself, at the cost of years of his own immortal life, taking the rarest drugs under heaven, gathering the spirit of the world and the essence of the sun and moon, pouring out heart and blood into them. How could they possibly be poisoned?”
The Grand Immortal Master roared it back at him, hysterical.
Ning Chen glanced at him and said mildly, “Old fake holy man. Being right isn’t a matter of being loud.”
The Xuan Emperor’s face was ugly with it. “Ning Chen. What proof have you that the elixirs this emperor takes are pills of poison?”
“Reporting to Your Majesty. Because your subject ran a test. That elixir Your Majesty gave me, I fed to a rat and to ants… In less than two hours they were all dead. Pan the Gold Coat can bear witness to it.”
Pan Yucheng’s body gave a jerk, and he said quickly, “Your subject can witness it. Every word Ning Chen has said is true.”
The Xuan Emperor’s face went white, and his eyes turned by degrees to something with an edge on it.
“Nonsense, wild talk, a mouth full of lies… Rats and ants are creatures of the common dust. There is the essence of heaven and earth in these elixirs, and filthy things like those cannot bear the immortal force in them, and naturally cannot live.”
The Grand Immortal Master argued for himself, shaking as he spoke.
“The essence of heaven and earth?” Ning Chen turned, walked over and picked up a jar. “Grand Immortal Master. Tell me what this is.”
“This, this—”
The Grand Immortal Master went on with his this, this for a long while and never got out one whole sentence.
Because if he said it, he was a dead man.
The Xuan Emperor asked heavily, “Ning Chen. What is this, exactly?”
Geng Jing was very curious as well, because he had had a lick of the stuff here himself, and it tasted pretty good.
Ning Chen hesitated, and said in a low voice, “Your Majesty had really better not ask.”
The Xuan Emperor frowned. “Speak!”
Ning Chen looked thoroughly reluctant, and it was a moment before he dropped his voice and said, “It is renzhonghuang.”
“And what is renzhonghuang?”
Ning Chen was blank for a moment. That Geng Jing and Nie Liang, a pair of rough soldiers, did not know it was one thing… but the Xuan Emperor, with five cartloads of learning in him and eight pecks of talent, did not know it either?
“Er… to put it plainly, it’s human dung.”
Ning Chen’s words came down like a thunderclap, and left the Xuan Emperor and the rest of them frozen stiff on the spot, as though a spell had been laid on them to hold them still. The expressions on their faces were something to see.
It was not until a bout of retching started up that they all came back to themselves.
It was Geng Jing, down on the ground, retching and retching.
“Your subject has forgotten himself before the throne. I beg Your Majesty’s pardon— urgh—”
“Your Majesty’s pardon. Lord Geng ate a mouthful of this stuff a moment ago. It’s hardly surprising he feels a little sick.”
Ning Chen explained it for Geng Jing, out of pure kindness.
But Geng Jing, far from being grateful for it, wanted to beat him to death.
I did not eat it. I only licked it— Geng Jing was screaming it inwardly.
And the point was that Ning Chen had plainly known what the stuff was, and had told him to taste it… The worthless thing. He would settle with him later.
The Xuan Emperor did not blame Geng Jing. What he wanted to know now was whether this thing had been put into the elixirs he had been eating.
Nie Liang was looking at Ning Chen too. What he wanted to know now was what that lump of crystal was that Ning Chen had tricked him into licking.
(End of Chapter 110)