Seeing Ning Chen come out, the old madam and the others looked a little uncomfortable.

They had been calling him faithless and heartless freely enough a little while ago.

Ning Chen could not be bothered to hold it against them. He waited, on edge.

About a quarter of an hour later, Lin Wen and the two imperial physicians came out.

“Master Director, how is it?”

Lin Wen looked at him and made a cold sound in his nose. “This old man has practiced medicine for decades and has seen more strange and stubborn cases than you have ever heard of. It is only a bone out of place and damage to the sinews. This old man had taken it for some great sickness.”

Ning Chen’s face filled with joy.

By what Lin Wen said, Yudie might stand again.

Lin Wen went to the table, spread out paper and ink, wrote out a prescription and handed it to Ning Chen. “Have the medicine made up by the prescription. Three doses a day.”

“From now on this old man will come once a day and use the needles. In less than half a month this young woman will be out of bed.”

Ning Chen bent and bowed. “My thanks, Master Director.”

Lin Wen took the courtesy without softening in the least, and said with his face set hard, “Ning the Silver Coat had better not forget to come to the Imperial Physicians’ Bureau tomorrow and pour this old man his tea and apologize.”

Ning Chen said, smiling, “I will!”

Lin Wen grunted, picked up his medicine chest and went.

Ning Chen hurried after him.

“Master Director, one moment!”

Lin Wen, already at the door, stopped and looked back at him.

Ning Chen bent and bowed again. “Care makes a man lose his head. I was too worried before and what I said was not fit to hear. I beg the Master Director’s pardon here and now… and tomorrow I will come to the Imperial Physicians’ Bureau and pour your tea and apologize.”

As he said it, Ning Chen fished a silver note out of his robe, a full thousand taels.

“You gentlemen have had a hard night. A little something for your trouble. Don’t think it beneath you.”

Lin Wen made a cold sound in his nose. “Do not foul this old man’s good name with your yellow and white metal (TL Note: gold and silver, named by their colors — a pointedly refined way of saying “your bribe.”)… Save yourself the trick. Now that this old man has put his hand to it, he will certainly cure your woman.”

“This old man does not do it for you. He only does not care to smash his own signboard and ruin his good name.”

With that he took his men and left.

Ning Chen had exactly nothing to say to that, and put the note away again, out of sorts.

This old man’s temper was something extraordinary.

Still, he was no bad sort. He only thought a great deal of himself, took too much care of his own feathers and set too high a value on his name.

He was an imperial physician after all. A few unpleasant habits were only to be expected.

Ning Chen turned back, handed the prescription and the silver to Jiang Daniu, and said, “Go and have it made up now. If the apothecary is shut, hammer on the door until they open. I must have that medicine tonight.”

“Yes, this servant goes at once!”

Jiang Daniu took the prescription and the silver and ran off at speed.

Ning Chen went back into the room.

The old madam and the others were around the bed, asking after Yudie’s injury.

“Yudie, that imperial physician says you’ll be out of bed in less than half a month.”

A smile came onto Yudie’s face. “Thanks to Ning, dear!”

Everyone looked at Ning Chen.

They envied Yudie. She had found herself a good man.

How many men in this world would do as much?

The old madam looked at Ning Chen. “I apologize for what I said before, shallow as it was… This old woman was not wrong about you. I am easy in my mind about leaving Yudie to you.”

Ning Chen said, smiling, “That doesn’t sound much like an apology.”

“And whose fault is it that you turned around and ran without a word? You had us all thinking the worst of you.”

Ning Chen had no answer to that. “So it’s my fault now?”

“All right, all right, all right, it was ours… We apologize to you. We’re sorry!”

“You stay here and keep Yudie company. We’ll go out.”

The old madam took her people out.

Ning Chen came to the bedside and took Yudie’s hand gently. “How does it feel?”

Yudie said softly, “It hurt a great deal before, but after the doctor used the needles it was much better. I can’t feel the pain now.”

“I’m sorry. I made Ning, dear worry!”

Ning Chen touched her small face. “It was I who brought this on you, and you’re apologizing to me?”

Yudie’s face changed. “Ning, dear, somebody means to do you harm.”

Ning Chen nodded. “I know… Tell me. What happened, exactly?”

Yudie, still shaken, went through the whole of it.

“Ning, dear, Yudie was no use. I let the man get away, and he is certain to move on you. What are we to do?”

Ning Chen comforted her softly. “Rest and get well, and don’t think about it… The rest I’ll see to.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not so easy to kill.”

“Sleep a while. I’ll stay with you.”

Yudie made a small sound of assent, and with Ning Chen beside her she fell asleep at ease.

A while later Jiang Daniu came back with the medicine.

Xiaoxing hurried off to boil it.

Xiaoxing had only been knocked out, and was all right once she woke.

When the medicine was ready Ning Chen woke Yudie, fed it to her a spoonful at a time, and then gave her a candied fruit.

Perhaps it was the medicine working. Before long Yudie was asleep again.

Ning Chen got up quietly, called Xiaoxing outside and gave her a few instructions, and then came out to the door.

“Young Master Ning, we’re sorry… We failed to protect Miss Yudie. Punish us as you see fit.”

Jiang Daniu and Tian Jiang stood with their heads down.

Ning Chen clapped them both on the shoulder. “Yudie told me the whole of it. The two of you did very well… I’ll see you rewarded later.”

“From now on the two of you stand at this door… Nobody comes in but Xiaoxing and the imperial physicians from the palace.”

The two of them bent forward quickly and said with one voice, “Yes. Young Master Ning may rest easy!”

Ning Chen inclined his head slightly, and then left the courtesans’ quarter.

He rode hard the whole way back to the Inspectorate.

Pan Yucheng, Feng Qizheng and the rest had not gone home yet.

Pan Yucheng said, “I guessed you’d be back. Is Miss Yudie all right?”

Ning Chen’s face was cold. “She came near to being crippled.”

A slight change went over the faces of the others.

Feng Qizheng said, “Ning Chen, what happened, exactly?”

Ning Chen went through the whole of it.

Pan Yucheng frowned. “It was aimed at you?”

Ning Chen nodded.

“Do you know who?”

Ning Chen said flatly, “We’ll know when we’ve questioned him, won’t we?”

“We’ll question him with you… God damn it, the piece of garbage, the cheap little trick — going after a helpless woman. He’s lower than a bandit of the jianghu… Even a bandit of the jianghu knows the trouble doesn’t reach a man’s family.”

Feng Qizheng was cursing in a fury.

They went straight for the cells.

“Miss Yudie has made me look at her twice. A helpless woman, and in a spot like that she still put a pair of scissors into the man. Remarkable!”

Gao Ziping said it in wonder on the way.

Ning Chen’s fists were clenched, the bones of his knuckles white.

“I can imagine how helpless she was, and how frightened.”

The palace, the Hibiscus Palace.

The Empress had already lain down, and the old eunuch woke her out of her sleep.

“Your Majesty, this is very bad… Our man has fallen into Ning Chen’s hands.”

That one sentence changed the Empress’s face at once and drove the sleep out of her. She said sharply, “How did this happen?”

The old eunuch quickly went through the whole of it.

The Empress’s face went livid. “Idiots. Useless… They cannot do a thing as small as this. Kill one helpless woman and come away wounded. What is this empress keeping such useless creatures for?”

The old eunuch said quickly, “Your Majesty, calm your anger… The man is in Ning Chen’s hands, it is true, but this servant believes he will say nothing.”

The Empress’s anger flared. “Believes, does he? You plainly don’t know the Inspectorate’s methods… There is no mouth they cannot open.”

“A pack of useless creatures, not one thing done right… Send word at once to our people in the Inspectorate. See whether the man in Ning Chen’s hands can be shut up for good.”

“And send word at once to the people at the Nurture Hall to pull out!”

The old eunuch bent forward quickly. “Yes, this servant goes at once!”

“Useless. Every one of them useless…”

The Empress was flying off the handle, past holding her anger.

By now Ning Chen and the others had come to the torture room in the cells, and gave orders for the young man Ning Chen had taken to be brought over.

After a little while the young man was brought in, in manacles and irons.

When he saw the murder in Ning Chen’s eyes, his body began to shake and would not stop.

He was bitter with regret now.

If he had not been greedy for the credit and pushed on, if he had lain low and waited for Ning Chen to go, he would never have come to this.

His luck had been bad too. He had run into Ning Chen while running for it.

It was all fate.

The young man was tied to the frame.

Ning Chen came up in front of him and asked flatly, “Who sent you?”

The young man fixed his eyes on Ning Chen. “Nobody sent me… I’ve fallen into your hands and I take it. Kill me, carve me, please yourself. Have the decency to make it quick.”

Ning Chen said nothing more. He stepped back two paces and said flatly, “Strip him.”

Two red coats came forward, cut the young man’s clothes to pieces with their blades and tore them off.

The young man was tied naked to the frame.

Ning Chen took up the whip from beside him and brought it down across the young man hard.

Snap!!!

The whip had barbs on it, and where it fell the skin split and the flesh opened.

“Aaah!!!”

The young man let out a scream like a pig under the knife.

Ning Chen’s face showed nothing, and the whip in his hand went out again and again.

The snap, snap, snap of the lash went round and round the torture room.

The young man’s terrible screaming set the scalp crawling.

Before long there were welts crossing and recrossing his body, the flesh a ruin, and he fainted from the pain of it.

“Throw water on him.”

Ning Chen said it flatly.

Two red coats brought the young man round with cold water.

Ning Chen took up the salt basin — it was all coarse salt — took a handful and rubbed it into the wounds.

“Aah… aah, aah…”

The young man’s eyes filled with blood, the veins stood out on him, he shook like a sieve of chaff, and the screaming came out of him fit to tear his heart from his chest.

Rubbing the salt into the wounds, Ning Chen said calmly, “The truth is I am not much interested in whoever is behind you, because I have already guessed who it is.”

“So whether you talk or not is nothing to me… You hurt my woman. You nearly left her unable to stand for the rest of her life. All I want now is to work on you.”

“The night is long. We’ll take our time… Every instrument in this room, I’ll see that you try every one, and I promise you’ll be alive and wishing you weren’t, and shaking at the memory in your next life.”

Ning Chen handed the salt basin to the red coat beside him, then walked over and drew a branding iron out of the charcoal brazier, glowing red.

He came back with it and looked at the young man. “A eunuch like you… and you meant to have my woman wait on you?”

Gao Ziping and the others were baffled.

The man plainly was not a eunuch.

Before they could work it out, Ning Chen drove the red-hot iron down hard between the young man’s legs.

There was a sizzling hiss.

The nest caught fire, and black smoke went up.

“Aaah!!!”

The young man let out a scream so terrible it was not a human sound. His eyes were all blood, the eyeballs all but starting out of his head, and the veins in his neck stood up a finger high.

In that instant Pan Yucheng, Feng Qizheng and the rest, along with the two red coats beside them, all clamped their legs together and went white in the face.

Only when the iron had lost its heat did Ning Chen let go.

The young man had long since fainted away.

“Throw water on him.”

Splash!!!

The young man was brought round again.

He looked at Ning Chen with terror all over his face, shaking from head to foot.

Ning Chen walked back and threw the iron into the brazier.

Then he came over with a pair of pincers in his hand.

He took hold of the young man’s hand and tore every nail off the left one.

In the middle of the terrible screaming the young man fainted away again.

This time Ning Chen did not have to say it. The red coat beside him brought the young man round with a basin of water.

Ning Chen dropped the pincers, went over and dragged the wooden donkey out.

“Cut him down.”

Pan Yucheng and the others watched with the cold sweat standing out on their foreheads.

Ning Chen seemed to have a special fondness for this wooden donkey.

The thing was meant for women prisoners. All of them were old hands at questioning, and none of them had ever used it on a man.

The young man was cut down, and two red coats dragged him toward the wooden donkey.

The young man screamed in terror and fought with everything he had.

Ning Chen looked at him, his eyes flat. “This is the last punishment for tonight. When it’s done you can go back and rest… And every day after this I’ll think up something new to work on you with.”

The young man was frightened out of his soul, and screamed in terror, “The Nurture Hall… we all come from the Nurture Hall. Our people are all there…”

The Nurture Hall was in fact the same as an orphanage, giving help to children with nowhere to go.

(End of Chapter 210)