Ning Chen set down the jar in his hand and picked up another one.
This jar held the sort of crystal Nie Liang had tasted.
Ning Chen dropped his voice. “Your Majesty. This one is called autumn mineral… which is to say it is refined and drawn out of the urine of young boys.”
Nie Liang went white in the face, and everything in his stomach turned over.
He turned his head and looked at Geng Jing, who was still retching, and felt a great deal better at once. At the worst of it, what he had licked was boys’ urine, and refined at that… Geng Jing had eaten actual doo-doo.
The Xuan Emperor’s face went black.
He wanted to know whether these things were in the elixirs he had been eating.
But with so many people standing there, he could not bring himself to ask.
“Your Majesty. This one is called night-brightness sand. It is the droppings of bats.”
“This one is moon-gazing sand. It is the droppings of rabbits.”
“This one is pigeon dung. Because most pigeon dung coils to the left, it also goes by the name left-coiling dragon.”
“And this one—”
Ning Chen went through them the way a man recites the family treasures.
But the Xuan Emperor’s face was getting worse and worse to look at, running through green and white by turns.
“Stop talking…”
The Xuan Emperor could not hear any more of it.
If these things were in the elixirs he had been taking, it meant he had been eating dung for a very long time, and dung of several kinds.
He held his anger down and asked, “Are all of these things poisonous?”
“No… These are all medicines, in fact. It’s only that the raw materials are a little disgusting.”
Ning Chen turned and picked up a piece of cinnabar ore, and went on. “The one that is truly poisonous is this. This is cinnabar ore, and no elixir can be refined without it.”
“Burn cinnabar and it becomes quicksilver; let the change gather and it turns back into cinnabar again… There is quicksilver and other poisonous matter inside this.”
“Bring all of this together into a pill, and at first it really does lift a man’s spirits wonderfully — but what is actually happening is that it is burning up his essence and his blood, and drawing his life forward against the future!”
“Take it long enough and a man is poisoned, and the workings of the body are wrecked past mending. At the lighter end he grows more and more violent in his temper and goes out of his mind. At the heavier end… he drops dead without warning.”
Something dropped hard inside the Xuan Emperor, and the color went out of his face.
Eunuch Quan was struck stupid with fright as well.
“Ning Chen. How did you come to discover that the elixirs were poisoned?”
Ning Chen said, “Your subject told Your Majesty before — that when he was small and living by begging, he met a man of great attainments, and all of this was taught to your subject by him.”
“A few days ago, at the house of Hu the degree-holder outside the city, your subject found a great quantity of cinnabar ore, and a doubt started in his mind at the time… because the stuff is poisonous, and because it is used for refining elixirs. So he began looking into it quietly, but nothing came of it.”
“Until today, when your subject met Immortal Master Qiu and thought at once — was the cinnabar at Hu the degree-holder’s house meant for the Elixir Bureau? And if cinnabar had been mixed into the elixirs Your Majesty takes, then they must be pills of poison, and somebody was plotting mischief and meant to murder Your Majesty.”
“So your subject used a small stratagem and got hold of one elixir… and went straight back and ran a test, and it was exactly as your subject had supposed. The pill is poisoned.”
“Because the matter was so grave, your subject reported it at once to Lord Geng. And then, fearing that word would reach the Elixir Bureau first and the evidence be destroyed, your subject decided on his own authority to take the men first and report to Your Majesty afterward.”
The Xuan Emperor’s hard eyes came to rest on the Grand Immortal Master.
The Grand Immortal Master had the face of a man who had buried both his parents, the color of earth in it, and he was shivering where he stood.
“Grand Immortal Master. Have you anything to say?”
The Grand Immortal Master understood that if this were established, he was a dead man.
“Your Majesty, I am wronged… There was no cinnabar mixed into the elixirs Your Majesty takes, so there is no poison in them—”
Ning Chen said furiously, “Grand Immortal Master. At this hour you still dare to twist words and argue… In fact it is not difficult at all to test whether an elixir is poisoned. You have only to dissolve it in water and test it with a silver needle, and then it is plain.”
“Admit it now and His Majesty may yet leave you one way out. Argue, and once it is proved, a thousand cuts would not be enough to answer for it.”
The color went out of the Grand Immortal Master’s face, his lips were trembling, and his nerve broke.
“Your Majesty’s pardon, I beg Your Majesty’s mercy…”
The Xuan Emperor’s face could not have been uglier.
This Grand Immortal Master hasn’t the nerve for it, Ning Chen said inwardly, with a cold smile. One small fright and he can’t hold up under it.
In fact the silver needle test works because sulfur in a substance turns the needle black, and a great many poisons contain no sulfur, so a silver needle cannot detect them at all.
The Xuan Emperor’s fists were clenched tight and the bones of his knuckles showed white, and you could see the anger in him by it.
He had never imagined that the elixirs he had been taking all this time were pills of poison.
If Ning Chen’s mind had not been so fine, if he had not found the cinnabar ore and looked into it quietly… he, an emperor, would very likely have gone to his death without ever knowing what had killed him.
“Ning Chen. How do things stand with this emperor?”
The Xuan Emperor watched Ning Chen tensely, and even his breathing stopped for a moment.
Every other face was tense as well.
Ning Chen asked, “How long has Your Majesty been taking these elixirs?”
The Xuan Emperor thought about it. “Five or six years.”
“Was yesterday the first time Your Majesty fainted?”
The Xuan Emperor nodded.
Ning Chen smiled a little. “Your Majesty need not worry. If it was only the first fainting, that proves the poisoning in Your Majesty is not deep.”
“That said, Your Majesty has been taking them a good while, and there is bound to be some damage to the workings of the body. But there is no need to worry about that either. Your Majesty is in the prime of life, and if you use your subject’s method, your subject guarantees Your Majesty a hundred years of life.”
The Xuan Emperor let out a heavy breath.
So did everybody else. A moment ago they had been so tense they had forgotten to breathe.
The Xuan Emperor asked, with some urgency, “Ning Chen. What is this method of yours?”
Ning Chen said, smiling, “Drink water. Exercise.”
“Water is the source of life and can undo a hundred poisons… From now on Your Majesty should drink a great deal of water and pass a great deal of urine.”
“And of course it has to be matched with exercise. Practicing the fist, running, that sort of thing… But you must sweat. Sweating is another way the poison goes out.”
“Beyond that, have the imperial physicians make up some medicines to clear the poison and build the body… Though medicine is not as good as food. Later on your subject will write out a food cure for Your Majesty, and the imperial kitchen need only follow the prescription.”
The Xuan Emperor said, “And that will be enough?”
Ning Chen nodded. “I ask Your Majesty to trust your subject… Your subject will stand surety with his own life that Your Majesty’s health will be strong and that Your Majesty will live a hundred years.”
A smile appeared on the Xuan Emperor’s face, which was a rare thing.
“Ning Chen. You really are a lucky star heaven gave to this emperor.”
Hearing Ning Chen speak with such sincerity, the heart that had been hanging in the Xuan Emperor came down at last.
“Geng Jing?”
“Your subject is here!”
“Have your men take all of them back with them, these things lower than a pig or a dog… This emperor will give you your instructions in due course.”
Geng Jing said quickly, “Your subject obeys the command!”
“Nie Liang. Seal and impound everything here. Close the Elixir Bureau and post men on it. Without this emperor’s order, nobody is to go near it.”
“Yes. Your subject receives the command!”
The Xuan Emperor glanced at Ning Chen. “Ning Chen. Come with this emperor.”
The Xuan Emperor rode in the palanquin, and Ning Chen went along beside it looking very pleased with himself, and so they came to the Hall of Cultivated Heart.
The Xuan Emperor had the others withdraw, leaving only Ning Chen and Eunuch Quan.
The Xuan Emperor sat down behind the dragon desk and looked at Ning Chen.
Ning Chen kept his eyes down and his manner meek. He put out his tongue and licked his lips, and said in a small voice:
“Could Your Majesty bestow a cup of water on your subject? I’ve been at it all night and my throat is dry enough to smoke.”
The corner of Eunuch Quan’s mouth twitched. Ning Chen was the first man ever to dare ask His Majesty for a drink of water… not even the great lords and ministers would dare.
The Xuan Emperor glanced at Eunuch Quan.
Eunuch Quan took his meaning at once, and went off to one side to make tea.
The Xuan Emperor hesitated, and then could not help asking, “Ning Chen. Were any of those things you spoke of mixed into the pills this emperor has been eating?”
(End of Chapter 111)