Wu Tiezhu was silent a while.

Then he looked back at his parents’ graves, and only then did he speak. “Little Chen. I want to go to the war with you.”

Ning Chen shook his head. “No. You’re the only seedling left in your family, and now Uncle Wu and the rest of them are gone… You have to stay. There has to be somebody to keep the incense burning for the Wus.”

Wu Tiezhu said, low, “Little Chen, let me come with you.”

“Pa and Ma are gone, and Chuntao with them… I don’t want to be left all on my own.”

“Little Chen, I don’t have any other skill to speak of, but I’ve got the strength in my arms, and I’ve hunted up that mountain all my life. I’m good with a bow… You settled the score for me. I want to stay by you and keep you safe.”

Ning Chen hesitated. “Have you really thought it through? On a battlefield the blades have no eyes. Go there and you may not come back alive.”

Wu Tiezhu nodded. “I’ve thought it through.”

“All right. I’ll take you.”

A simple, honest smile came onto Wu Tiezhu’s face. He knocked his head on the ground once more before his parents’ graves, then got up and went with Ning Chen.

Ning Chen and Wu Tiezhu went to Aunt Lan’s house.

Aunt Lan had the food ready.

Ning Chen drank two big bowls of wild-greens gruel, and only then did he leave, well satisfied.

He did not go to the Yang’an county office.

Ma Bing was not the sort of trash he needed to question himself.

Back in Lingzhou he found Jiang Zhengyang and had him send men to the Yang’an county office to do the questioning.

Ning Chen left two instructions.

First, every coin of bandit tax the Ma family had taken was to be returned in full… The rest of their property was to be forfeit to the state.

Second, every male of the Ma family over twelve was to be sent to some bitter cold place to build walls, and the women were to go into the courtesans’ quarter.

Zhang Yuancang and the rest had been beheaded in public that day at the market crossing.

The real Zhang Yuancang and the rest had been hidden away.

Ning Chen had Qi Yuanzhong and Yuan Long put the army aboard the ships to set out first thing the next morning.

He himself would stay in Lingzhou a day and see to the small business left over.

In that time he wrote a memorial, and had it carried to the capital with all speed along with the charge sheets of Zhang Yuancang and the rest.

He had beheaded that many officers of the court in one stroke. It was a thing he had to report to the Xuan Emperor himself.

Feng Qizheng and Chen Chong came looking for him.

One look at the leers on the two of them told him these two animals had nothing good bottled up in them.

“Ning Chen. The courtesans’ quarter tonight?”

Feng Qizheng’s smile was pure lechery. “Let me tell you, we went last night… The girls at the Lingzhou courtesans’ quarter are nothing short of the capital’s.”

Chen Chong nodded over and over. “We even saw the reigning beauty last night… God damn, that woman had something about her. One look and the bones went out of me.”

“Ning Chen, if you went… with your gifts you’d have her for certain.”

Ning Chen glared at them with nothing to say.

“Is there anything at all in your heads besides what’s hanging below your waists?”

Feng Qizheng did not care in the least. “My parents died long ago and I’ve never married… In our line of work it looks fine from the outside, but any day could be the day you go down. I’ve nothing tying me and nothing hanging over me. Finding a little fun is hardly out of line, is it?”

Ning Chen: “???”

There was something in what Feng Qizheng said, all the same.

He looked at Chen Chong. “You have both your parents above you and a wife and children below. What reason have you got for chasing pleasure?”

“I’m in good health… Besides, my whole salary goes home. Every time I go to the courtesans’ quarter one of you is paying. Not going would be a waste.”

Chen Chong thumped his own chest. He said a thing that shameless like a man in the right, with pride all over his face.

Ning Chen gave up entirely.

Feng Qizheng laughed through his teeth. “Ning Chen, you needn’t spend a coin tonight. It’s on me.”

“On you, my foot. Go on, beat it… Whatever else I am, I’m in command of an army. What sort of thing is it to be running to the courtesans’ quarter every day of the week?”

“Get out. Go by yourselves… Remember we set out in the morning. Don’t hold up the real business.”

Feng Qizheng said, “You really won’t come?”

Ning Chen shook his head.

“That reigning beauty is nothing short of Miss Yudie…”

Ning Chen said sourly, “One more word out of either of you and you can get back on the ship.”

Neither dared say anything more, and off they went in a streak.

Ning Chen shook his head helplessly. “Real animals.”

The next day Ning Chen and the others went aboard, ready to set out.

Feng Qizheng and Chen Chong had come back early.

Lecherous as the two of them were, they had never once dropped the chain when it came to real work.

They still had ten days and more to drift on the water.

They would reach Chenzhou first, then go over to the land road.

On a forced march they could reach Beilin Pass in five days.

Beilin Pass was where they were bound.

While the days lasted Ning Chen taught Wu Tiezhu to use a musket, and taught him something of hand-to-hand fighting too.

Wu Tiezhu took things in well and learned fast.

His bow above all. He had hunted that mountain for years, and he shot better than the ordinary soldier.

The capital. The back court of the chancellor’s residence.

A carrier pigeon came in and settled on the rail outside the dovecote.

A dovecote is a place kept for the raising of carrier pigeons.

The pigeon keeper came out quickly, took the bamboo tube off the bird’s leg and went to find Steward Ding.

“Steward Ding. Word from Lingzhou.”

Steward Ding made a sound of assent and waved him away, then took the secret letter to the Left Chancellor.

The Left Chancellor was in his study drinking tea with his big belly stuck out in front of him.

When he saw what was in the letter his face changed all at once and he shot to his feet.

“Damn it. That bastard… He crosses this chancellor at every turn.”

Flying off the handle, the Left Chancellor caught up his teacup to dash it on the floor.

Steward Ding had braced himself to get out of the way, and then the Left Chancellor’s hand stopped, and he set the cup down again, gently.

He sat down with nothing showing in his face, and his eyes were dark and cold.

Steward Ding was curious, but he did not dare ask.

After a while the Left Chancellor spoke of his own accord. “There’s trouble in Lingzhou… Our road to money is cut.”

It startled Steward Ding. “The gold mine?”

The Left Chancellor nodded. “Ning Chen found it.”

Steward Ding’s face changed. “How could he have found out about the mine? He shouldn’t have… Unless somebody carried word to him.”

The Left Chancellor waved that off. “That bastard’s home is in Lingzhou. I guessed he would break his journey there, and warned Zhang Yuancang in good time to be careful how he handled it… I never thought the good-for-nothing would let Ning Chen take him, the whole pot at once.”

“That road to money is cut for good now… There is something to the bastard after all.”

Steward Ding was alarmed. “Your Excellency, what happens now? Ning Chen is certain to report this to His Majesty. We must find a way clear of it.”

“What is there to panic about?” The Left Chancellor glanced at him and smiled coldly. “There may be something to Ning Chen, but he is young after all. Now and then he acts on impulse and does something stupid.”

“He has beheaded Zhang Yuancang and everyone concerned with him… Zhang Yuancang was the only man who could name me, and now the man is dead. There is nobody alive to testify.”

Steward Ding let out a little of his breath, and then said with a sneer, “This Ning Chen really is a fool… With Zhang Yuancang dead the whole thing becomes a case with no head to it. Even if His Majesty calls for an accounting, nothing in it can reach Your Excellency.”

The Left Chancellor’s eyes narrowed slightly. “With that road to money cut, certain people are no further use… Go and wipe the backsides clean. Don’t leave so much as a spider’s thread or a horse’s track.”

Steward Ding hesitated, then asked, “Your Excellency, what’s to be done about Ma Kaicheng?”

The Left Chancellor glanced at him and said mildly, “This business touches the lives and households of every one of us. Every danger in it has to be cleared away… Tell Ma Kaicheng this chancellor will see his family well looked after.”

Steward Ding nodded, and there was a dark cruelty in his eyes. “Yes. This servant understands. I’ll see to it at once.”

(End of Chapter 153)