Ning Chen came out of the palace and went back to the Inspectorate.

Geng Jing was back!

He had been at it most of the day and had not turned up a single clue.

“Ning Chen, do you think the Left Chancellor could already be out of the city?”

Geng Jing scratched at his head in his irritation and asked it.

Ning Chen thought about it and shook his head. “I think he is still in the city.”

“The gates on all four sides open at seven in the morning, exactly, and I found the Left Chancellor gone at about the same time. His Majesty’s decree sealing the gates came at nine… I think that if the Left Chancellor meant to get out of the city, the time was a little short for it.”

“Besides, after a thing that size yesterday, the gate garrison would certainly be sharper than usual. The Left Chancellor is a very careful man. He would not risk going out of the city at a moment like this.”

“My guess is that he is somewhere in the city now, and will not leave until we have let our guard down.”

Geng Jing said furiously, “So long as he is still in the city, I will drag him out of it… I have commanded the Inspectorate a long time and there has never been a hole in it this size.”

Ning Chen nodded slightly. He wanted the Left Chancellor caught more than Geng Jing did.

“Old Pan, does that body give us anything?”

Pan Yucheng shook his head. “We looked. Nothing so far.”

Ning Chen smiled bitterly. “It seems that lead has gone cold too.”

All they could do now was wait for word from the Ninth Princess and find that eunuch.

Night came down, and still there was no word.

Ning Chen came to the courtesans’ quarter, worn out.

Yudie could see how tired Ning Chen was, and thoughtfully had a good meal made ready for him.

Ning Chen ate and drank his fill, pulled Yudie into his arms and lay back against the couch to rest, stroking her soft little face with his fingers.

“Hm? No paint today?”

Yudie asked in a small voice, “Is this girl very ugly?”

Ning Chen shook his head and said, smiling, “You were born lovely. You look well painted or not… Not like other women, before the paint and after it, two different women.”

Then, all at once, Ning Chen’s eyes contracted.

“Before the paint and after it, two different women?”

Ning Chen said it under his breath, and at the same moment a light went off in his head. He steadied Yudie into her seat, then stood up and said in his excitement, “I understand what happened. So that was it. I finally understand!”

Ning Chen bent down, kissed Yudie hard on her small red mouth, and then ran out like a madman.

Leaving Yudie with her whole face at a loss.

Ning Chen rode hard the whole way back to the Inspectorate.

“Are Lord Geng and Pan the Gold Coat here?”

Ning Chen threw the reins to the red coat at the gate and asked it urgently.

“Nobody saw either of them leave. They should still be here!”

Ning Chen went at a trot the whole way and came to Geng Jing’s room.

Both of them were indeed still there.

The two of them looked at Ning Chen, who was out of breath, and then at each other.

“What is so urgent? Is there word of the Left Chancellor?”

Ning Chen’s voice was urgent. “Old Pan, where is that body found in the cell?”

Pan Yucheng, not understanding any of it, said, “In the sixth department!”

“Come on, take me there, quickly!”

The three of them hurried off to the sixth department.

On the way Geng Jing asked, puzzled, “Ning Chen, what do you want with that body?”

“That is no body. That is the Left Chancellor.”

Geng Jing and Pan Yucheng were badly shocked!

“What do you mean? How could that be the Left Chancellor? The two of them were only of a similar—”

Geng Jing was still speaking when his voice stopped short, as though something had come to him, and he asked, “You mean… face-changing?”

Ning Chen nodded.

“That is the only possibility now… Otherwise there is no explaining at all how a whole living man like the Left Chancellor could vanish into thin air.”

“When I was in the cells, Tao Qizhi told me a few curious things out of the jianghu… and the art of face-changing was one of them.”

Astonishment filled Pan Yucheng’s face, but he still said doubtfully, “But I examined that body. There is no possibility it was a living man.”

Ning Chen said, “Those practitioners have all kinds of strange methods. There may well be some drug that counterfeits death… A man takes it and loses his breath for a short time.”

“Of course, this is only my guess. I have to see the body to be certain.”

The three of them came to the sixth department.

But when they asked, they learned that the body had already been disposed of.

The men of the sixth department told them the body had given off a thick, foul stink, and that never mind the whole sixth department, even the men next door in the fourth had been made dizzy and sick by it.

The men of the fourth department could not stand it at all, and had come over several times making a noise about it, telling them to get rid of the body quickly.

The men of the sixth department could not bear it either, and an unclaimed body was no use to anybody, so they had carted it out of the city and dumped it in the burying ground outside the walls.

Christ!!!

Ning Chen’s face went black.

“Who carried the body out of the city?”

A silver coat said, “It, it was me!”

Ning Chen pointed at him. “You are taking us to find that body.”

“Nobody else in the sixth department leaves the Inspectorate!”

“Old Pan, take men and arrest Chen Lezhang, and hold every man of the fourth department until we get back.”

Pan Yucheng checked. “Why arrest Chen Lezhang?”

Ning Chen said heavily, “If they had not been pressing for it, the body would not have been disposed of so fast… Whether or not they are caught up in this, we take them first and talk afterward.”

Geng Jing said, “Do as Ning Chen says!”

Pan Yucheng nodded.

“Lord Geng, we go out of the city to find the body.”

Geng Jing picked a dozen or so silver coats, and the party rode out of the city and ran hard the whole way.

About an hour later they came to the burying ground outside the walls.

The cold wind howled. The place was thick with ghosts and made the hair stand up on a man.

Ning Chen pulled his cloak tight around him and told the silver coat who had dumped the body to lead on, quickly.

“Holy shit!!!”

A burst of fragrance came suddenly out of Ning Chen’s mouth, and the whole of him jumped.

He had trodden on something without meaning to. He looked down, and it was half an arm, with guts and entrails beside it… left behind, most likely, after animals had been at it.

Ning Chen muttered, his nerves still going, “How is there a place like this all around the capital?”

Geng Jing explained: “Ten and more years ago a plague broke out in the capital and a great many people died… The bodies were carted out by the wagonload and there was no burning them all, and in the end some people took the easy way and dumped the bodies here for the animals to tear at.”

“Later on, when somebody in a poor family died, they would be buried here, and there were criminals too whose families could not be found to claim them after the beheading, and their bodies would be dumped here… Ten and more years of it, and the place became a burying ground.”

Ning Chen pushed Geng Jing out in front and followed behind him.

Geng Jing teased him: “You’ve been on a battlefield. Are you afraid of this?”

“Not afraid. These new boots on my feet were only made for me by Yudie a little while ago, and I’ve had them on one day. I’m afraid of getting them dirty… Lord Geng, how about you carry me?”

The corner of Geng Jing’s mouth twitched and he gave him a flat look. The man rubs his happiness in your face and then wants carrying?

Ning Chen could not help saying furiously, “Where exactly did you dump that body?”

“Just ahead!”

They walked a while, and then the silver coat who had dumped the body stopped suddenly.

“This is the place… Strange. How has this hole been dug open?”

Ning Chen looked at the hole in the ground. The earth beside it was plainly freshly turned.

He and Geng Jing looked at each other, their faces dark.

Geng Jing frowned. “You are sure you buried it here?”

“This subordinate would not dare lie. This subordinate dug this hole with his own hands… And because the body stank so badly, this subordinate even dug it a little deeper on purpose.”

Ning Chen’s eyes were cold. It seemed he had guessed right, and that body was the Left Chancellor… A pity he had worked it out a little late.

Most important of all, the Left Chancellor was out of the city.

Where the hell was he supposed to look now?

Ning Chen said heavily, “Spread out and search. Pay particular attention to any deep footprints, and to cart tracks.”

The Left Chancellor was built like a pig. If men had carried him away from here, the footprints would certainly be deep… and even with a cart, the ruts would be deeper than usual.

Ning Chen looked up at the slope above them. “What is behind this slope?”

Geng Jing said, “More slope.”

Ning Chen thought a moment, then climbed to the top.

This side of the slope faced north and lay in shadow, so nobody came here and the snow was thick.

Ning Chen saw the deep marks in the snow at a glance.

“Lord Geng, I have something!”

Ning Chen shouted it.

Geng Jing climbed up fast, and Ning Chen pointed at the marks in the snow and said:

“The Left Chancellor would not have come around for a while yet. Carrying the body out the way we came would have been hard work, and they would easily have run into people… So they slid him down from here.”

“And the Left Chancellor gives off that stink. Going this way would hide the smell of him too.”

Geng Jing nodded, left one man to see to the horses, and took the rest and began the pursuit.

The party slid down the slope, and sure enough they found four sets of footprints on the ground.

Ning Chen looked up. Ahead of them was a wood.

If the others split up, they would be hard to track.

“If only we had a bloodhound!”

Ning Chen muttered it.

The Left Chancellor gave off that stink, and a bloodhound could follow the smell to him easily.

The great and noble houses all kept dogs, but mostly for guarding the gates and the courtyards.

When there was time, he really would have to raise a few hunting dogs.

“It really does stink!”

A silver coat covered his nose and complained.

Ning Chen looked at him. “You can smell it?”

The man nodded. “My nose has been better than most people’s since I was small.”

Ning Chen was delighted. “A bloodhound in human shape… You go in front and lead.”

The man nodded and led the way.

Once they were into the wood it was exactly as Ning Chen had expected. The footprints split and went off in different directions.

It seemed the others had been ready for this, and had had men waiting here beforehand, so that once the Left Chancellor reached them they could split up and confuse the pursuit.

Luckily they had a bloodhound in human shape.

The fellow’s nose was sharp. In weather this cold Ning Chen could smell nothing at all, but the fellow could track the stink coming off the Left Chancellor.

Following the human bloodhound, the party tracked their way along and came out at last on the highway.

Geng Jing frowned. “Would they really dare take the highway?”

Ning Chen shook his head. “Hard to say… Let’s do this. We separate. I’ll take men along the back roads, you take men and follow the highway.”

Geng Jing nodded and sent a man back to bring the horses over.

“Lord Geng, track them sixty miles. If nothing turns up, come back the way you went.”

Geng Jing looked at him, not understanding.

Ning Chen explained: “The Left Chancellor would certainly not dare ride, for fear of being seen, so he is certainly in a carriage… At a carriage’s pace, working out the time, they cannot have gotten far.”

“And if we haven’t caught them in sixty miles, that tells us we have followed the wrong direction.”

Geng Jing looked at the silver coat. “You are sure about the smell?”

The silver coat nodded. “There is no mistake. The stink is coming from this way.”

Ning Chen waved a hand. “That has nothing to do with it… The stink on the Left Chancellor is certainly given off by some drug, and if the drug can be used on the Left Chancellor it can be used on anybody else, to confuse us.”

“The truth is that from the moment the Left Chancellor got out of the city, we had lost… So sixty miles is the limit. If we haven’t caught them, let it go. When we are back we put out a notice calling for assistance, and have every prefecture help with the search.”

Geng Jing nodded.

A little while later all the horses were brought over.

Ning Chen took part of the men and followed the back roads.

Geng Jing took part of the men and followed the highway.

(End of Chapter 177)