Ning Chen took her hand, feeling for her.
“You don’t need to apologize. They’re the ones who should apologize.”
Ning Chen pointed at everyone below. “Pay no attention to what they say. Count it as so much wind out of their backsides.”
“A pack of sanctimonious hypocrites. Never mind that they’ve got the shape of men — down in the bone they are low-bred filth, every damned one of them, dirty and base and sickening to look at.”
That speech of Ning Chen’s had the whole room in a rage.
“You— you are a silver coat of the Inspectorate, and you parade a woman of the wind and dust about in public, and stand there with a mouth full of filth. What sort of behavior is this?”
“The Inspectorate is charged with inspecting the officials of the court. With conduct like yours, what fitness have you to inspect anybody? To see justice done for the common people of the empire?”
“Steward, if you don’t put these two out, I will never set foot in this Heavenly Blessing Tower again.”
“That’s right, none of us will… Men of our standing, made to eat in the same house as a woman of the wind and dust. We can’t afford the shame of it.”
The steward of the Heavenly Blessing Tower was a very fat man, and his face was full of difficulty.
The Inspectorate was not a thing he could afford to offend.
But neither were these diners.
Ning Chen smiled coldly and said loudly, “You needn’t be afraid of shame, because in my eyes you don’t amount to men at all.”
“You— how can you insult people like that?”
Ning Chen said coldly, “And what if I do? Come up here and see whether I take the flat of the blade to you… There is nothing in this world I hate like a hypocrite with a man’s head and a dog’s face.”
“You ask me how I see justice done for the common people of the empire? Go and ask the people of Chongzhou.”
Chongzhou?
Miss Yudie?
The quicker minds in the room changed color. They had a fair idea now of who Ning Chen was.
“You— you are Ning Chen? Ning the Silver Coat?”
Somebody asked it, testing.
Ning Chen made a cold sound in his nose. “The same!”
The whole room was thrown into shock!
Who in the capital did not know Ning Chen, Ning the Silver Coat, by now?
He had put a blade into the Empress’s brother for the people of Chongzhou.
Any poem he tossed off was a work for the ages, and they called him an immortal of poetry reborn.
Ning Chen’s face was all contempt, and he said with a cold smile, “And what are you, that you should be fit to teach me my business?”
“For talent — every one of you stands before me like children just learning their letters.”
“For seeing justice done for the common people of the empire — set against you sanctimonious useless articles, who can do nothing but move your lips, the common people of the empire will judge for themselves.”
“And today I take my own woman out for a meal, and that soils your noble standing?”
“I should like to ask you where the nobility is. Is there a man here who has never been to that side of the city? I dare say when you go you run faster than mad dogs… All virtue and morality on the surface, and behind it a belly full of thieving and whoring.”
“Let one of you stand up and tell me — character, talent, standing. In which of them are you noble?”
“To think yourself noble is itself the proof of being base… In my eyes you are nothing but birds and beasts wearing human skin, standing on the moral high ground.”
The whole room went red in the face under Ning Chen’s abuse, and could not think how to answer him.
For talent, all of them together could not have written one poem like Ning Chen’s.
For force of arms it was further beyond comparison still.
For doing anything for the common people of the empire, they could move their lips and nothing more; Ning Chen, for the common people, had dared cut down the Empress’s own brother.
An old man hesitated, and then said, “Ning the Silver Coat, we are all men of letters here, and we ought to be decent… To parade a woman of the wind and dust about in public is truly unbecoming, and it dishonors Ning the Silver Coat’s own standing. We say it out of concern for you.”
“You can keep your dog’s stinking wind. I am no man of letters, because I would be ashamed to be counted among you and could not afford the disgrace… You call yourselves men of letters. Every word of the sages you ever read has gone into a dog’s belly.”
Ning Chen paused, then said loudly, “Let me tell you what a real man of letters is.”
為天地立心， 為生民立命， 為往聖繼絕學， 為萬世開太平。
To set a heart for heaven and earth, to set the course of life for the living people, to carry on the learning the sages left broken off, and to open an age of peace for ten thousand generations.
“That is what a man of letters ought to be doing… and not what you do — one moment on top of a woman out of a pleasure house, the next moment with a mouth full of virtue and morality, condemning her for selling herself. A pack of experts. No — a pack of human garbage.”
Every man there was struck dumb!
Not one word of what Ning Chen said afterward went into them. There were only those four lines in their heads.
It was not like a poem and it was not like a lyric either. It was more like a saying out of the classics… and it was loud enough to make the deaf hear, and it left them standing there like posts.
Ning Chen had cursed himself into a fine humor, but he had not finished.
He let Yudie’s hand go, set one hand on the hilt of the saber, flicked his thumb lightly, and three inches of the long blade came clear of the scabbard. He walked down the stairs and came to stand in front of Luo Youkang, and fixed hard eyes on him, and said hard:
“Apologize to my woman. And if you dare say one word against it… I’ll have your blood on this floor!”
The color went out of Luo Youkang’s face. From the moment he learned who Ning Chen was, his nerve had broken altogether.
The man in front of him had dared cut down the Empress’s brother.
If he did not apologize, Ning Chen really would take his head off.
A wise man does not take a beating he can avoid.
Luo Youkang decided to apologize first, and afterward to join with the others and find a way to impeach Ning Chen in a memorial.
He raised his head and looked at Yudie, and then lowered it and said, “Miss Yudie, I had drunk too much just now and behaved rashly… I beg Miss Yudie’s pardon.”
A film of mist came over Yudie’s great liquid eyes.
Ning, dear had gone so far as to offend all these people for her sake, and there were sons of great houses among them.
If he had asked her to die for him at that moment, she would not have hesitated.
Since she was twelve, since the disaster came on her family and she entered the courtesans’ quarter… nobody had ever been so good to her.
Yudie swore to herself silently that so long as Ning Chen did not cast her off, she would follow him her whole life, though it were as slave or servant.
Ning Chen said heavily, “Get out!”
Luo Youkang and the rest held each other up and fled in a sorry state.
Ning Chen looked at the steward of the Heavenly Blessing Tower and said loudly, “One roast duck, and put up some food that will carry well. We’ll take it with us… A room full of birds and beasts is enough to turn a man’s stomach.”
The steward hurriedly sent his men off to see to it.
Ning Chen walked back to Yudie. “What are you crying for?”
Yudie looked at him, lost in him, and shook her head gently. “There’s sand in my eyes.”
“And here I thought I’d been so handsome I’d made you cry.”
That made Yudie laugh.
“What, am I not handsome?”
“Ning, dear is the handsomest and the best man under heaven.”
Ning Chen pinched her small cheek. “That’s a sweet little mouth. I’ll have to taste it properly tonight.”
Yudie’s face went red with shyness.
The whole room stood with heads down and faces flushed, unable to lift their eyes after what Ning Chen had said to them.
It was not long before the steward had the food he had asked for packed up.
Ning Chen threw down a few taels of silver, took Yudie by the hand and left.
At the door Ning Chen looked back. “Pah… a pack of experts!”
The room was silent, every head down. They had not understood it, but not one of them dared make a sound.
“Ning, dear, what does a pack of experts mean?”
On the road, Yudie put her small head out of the carriage and asked him, curious.
Ning Chen said, smiling, “Gold and jade on the outside and rotten stuffing within. Men who eat a man’s food and do nothing a man should. Who understand not one damned thing and love to point their fingers and wave their hands about. A crowd who go out of their way to do others harm without any profit to themselves.”
Yudie said oh. She had the general idea.
“Ning, dear, where are we going?”
“Out of the city. A picnic… Last time I was running for my life I found a place with green hills and clear water, and the views are very fine. And toward evening… you can watch the sun go down there.”
(End of Chapter 118)