Ning Chen was shaken to the core.
When he had his wits back he laughed it off and said, “That was a joke I was having with the Ninth Princess just now… May I ask what else the Second Prince wrote?”
The Ninth Princess gave a small sniff. “Second Brother was splendid. It is a pity heaven grudges a gifted man his years. He wrote three poems in all, and every one of them is a song for the ages, fully the equal of yours.”
“Besides the one just now, he wrote Quiet Night Thoughts.
床前明月光， 疑是地上霜。 舉頭望明月， 低頭思故鄉。
Bright moonlight in front of my bed. I took it for frost on the ground. I lift my head and look at the bright moon, I lower my head and think of home.
“And there is one called Pity the Farmer.
鋤禾日當午， 汗滴禾下土。 誰知盤中餐， 粒粒皆辛苦。
Hoeing the grain with the sun straight overhead, sweat dripping into the earth beneath the grain. Who knows that of the food in the bowl, every grain of it is bitter work.”
A wave high enough to swallow the sky came up in Ning Chen.
He could be certain of it now. He had run into a man in the same line of work. That Second Prince had certainly crossed over too.
Only his luck had been bad, and the Empress and the crown prince had poisoned him.
Understanding came over Ning Chen all at once.
He finally saw why the Xuan Emperor had shown him nothing but favor… It might be because he was very much like the Second Prince.
It would be a fine thing if this Second Prince were still alive.
No, it wouldn’t. If the Second Prince were still alive he would have gotten every poem for free before I did, and what would there be left for me?
Or perhaps this fellow in the same line of work was not much educated, since all three of these are out of a grade-school reader.
Ning Chen asked, curious, “All three of those are songs for the ages, and they ought by rights to be recited everywhere. Why have I so seldom heard them?”
The Ninth Princess said, “The Father Emperor loved Second Brother best of all. After Second Brother dropped dead without warning the Father Emperor was broken with grief… Afterward, everyone was afraid of grieving him, so nobody would read those poems out lightly.”
Ning Chen made a sound. So that was the reason.
“Princess, was the Second Prince remarkable in any other way besides writing poems?”
The Ninth Princess did not quite follow. “In any other way?”
Ning Chen made a sound of assent. “The way he went about things, for instance. Was there anything about it that was not like other people?”
The Ninth Princess shook her head. “That I wouldn’t know. I was very small then.”
Ning Chen did not dare press her any further. He would ask somebody else another time.
The Ninth Princess looked at him and shook her small pink fist. “Ning Chen, you dared use Second Brother’s poem to fool me… Your punishment is to write a new one, or this princess will have her fists wait on you.”
Ning Chen smiled bitterly.
Then all at once a wicked smile came up at the corner of his mouth. “I have it.”
The Ninth Princess’s eyes brightened a little.
Ning Chen looked at the Ninth Princess, the wicked smile very nearly past hiding, and said:
皇家有女初長成， 力拔山兮氣蓋世。 半點朱唇無人嘗， 亂拳打死少年郎。
The imperial house has a daughter newly grown, with strength to haul up mountains and spirit to cover the age. Not one soul has tasted those red lips, and a flurry of fists beats the young man dead.
Ning Chen regretted it the moment it was out, because there was very nearly fire coming out of the Ninth Princess’s eyes.
She stared at Ning Chen, shamed and furious at once.
“Ning Chen, you are very bold. You dare make free with this princess?”
Not one soul has tasted those red lips… that was making free with her and nothing else.
Ning Chen said hurriedly, “Princess, forgive me. I was only looking for a rhyme and a run of sound. I had no thought of making free with the princess.”
The Ninth Princess was shamed and angry, and did not like to pursue that line too closely, so she said with a sullen anger, “Then what does strength to haul up mountains and spirit to cover the age mean?”
Ning Chen rubbed his arm and said, smiling, “I was praising the Ninth Princess for being strong. That punch just now nearly broke a bone in me.”
The Ninth Princess grew angrier still. “You praise a girl for being strong? Ning Chen, you certainly know how to pay a compliment… I will show you here and now what strength to haul up mountains and spirit to cover the age means.”
As she spoke, the Ninth Princess came at him swinging her small pink fists.
Heye’s whole face was anxious. “Princess, remember your bearing…”
But the Ninth Princess was in no state to hear anything now. She swung her small fists and went straight for Ning Chen.
Ning Chen saw how it was going and turned and ran.
But his leg was hurt and he could not run fast… She caught up with him very quickly.
Ning Chen threw away the blade he had been using for a crutch and put both hands over his head.
“Princess, I give in.”
“Hah, so now you know to be afraid? Too late.”
Ning Chen smiled bitterly. “Princess, only don’t hit my back or my leg… I have blade wounds on me.”
“What?” The Ninth Princess was stopped where she stood. Her small fists would not come down at all, and her small face was full of worry. “Why didn’t you say so sooner?”
Ning Chen’s whole face was aggrieved. “The princess never gave your subject a chance to say it.”
“Hah. And whose fault is that, with a mouth like yours… Can’t you take a little care of your own body? How did you come to be hurt? Have you had an imperial physician look at it? What did he say? Is it bad?”
The Ninth Princess rattled off a great string of it, and the concern in her ran over the words.
Ning Chen lifted his head and said, smiling, “I have. It is only skin and flesh. It will be nothing in a few days.”
The Ninth Princess gave a small sniff. “I’ll let you off this time. I am keeping this punch on account for you.”
The wretch actually dared say she had strength to haul up mountains and spirit to cover the age. Is that a thing anybody says to a girl?
And that not one soul had tasted her red lips… On that line alone she could charge him with gross disrespect.
But with all this uproar of Ning Chen’s, the Ninth Princess’s spirits were a great deal better.
Ning Chen judged it had gone far enough and was about to take his leave, when he heard the Ninth Princess say, “Ning Chen, could you take me to see Elder Brother the crown prince?”
“This…?”
Ning Chen hesitated. The deposed crown prince was shut in the Inspectorate’s death cells.
The Ninth Princess’s spirits dropped again. “Whatever Elder Brother has done wrong, he has always been good to Huai’an… I want to go and see him.”
Ning Chen thought about it a while. His Majesty had said the Ninth Princess was low and sent him to see her… Taking the Ninth Princess to visit the deposed crown prince should not be much of a problem.
And he could see that His Majesty did not want the deposed crown prince dead.
Ning Chen nodded and agreed. “All right. I’ll take you.”
“Heye, go quickly and get some good things ready… I am going to visit Elder Brother the crown prince.”
Ning Chen drove the carriage himself and brought the Ninth Princess to the Inspectorate prison.
Inside one of the death cells the crown prince sat huddled in a corner, his hair loose and hanging, his whole look disordered, his face blank.
Ning Chen and the Ninth Princess came to the cell door, and the crown prince did not react at all.
“Elder Brother… Huai’an has come to see you.”
The Ninth Princess called it softly, and her snow-white teeth bit at her red lips, and there were tears swimming in her eyes.
Hearing the voice, the deposed crown prince slowly lifted his head and looked, and his eyes were dull.
A crown prince, no less, the emperor to come, and now a prisoner… Falling out of heaven into hell is more than anyone could bear.
Ning Chen had the jailer open the cell door and went in with the Ninth Princess.
“Elder Brother, I have brought you some food. It’s all the things you like best.”
Huai’an went forward and set the food box down in front of the deposed crown prince.
The deposed crown prince looked at the Ninth Princess and forced a smile out. “I have come down to this, and it is a rare thing that you still think of me.”
The Ninth Princess could not stop the tears from sliding down her cheeks.
The deposed crown prince looked at Ning Chen. “When am I to be beheaded?”
Ning Chen shook his head. “I don’t know. When you are beheaded is for His Majesty to say.”
The deposed crown prince smiled bitterly. “Ning Chen, I remember the first time you and I met. You were in thin clothes and mine were splendid… And now your clothes are splendid and I am in a convict’s coat.”
“Life really does change past all reckoning… Looking back at it now, the whole of it is like a dream.”
Ning Chen was about to speak when he heard the Ninth Princess say, “Elder Brother, may I ask you something?”
The deposed crown prince nodded slightly. “Ask.”
“Did you really kill Second Brother?”
The deposed crown prince was silent a long while, and then said with a slight hoarseness in his voice, “You could say so. I never once meant to kill the second one, but that jar of wine did go into his hands from mine.”
“It was only after your second brother dropped dead without warning that I understood there had been something wrong with that jar… but by then I was too deep in it to pull my hand back.”
The Ninth Princess cried until she could not get a word out. She did not know whether she ought to blame Elder Brother or not.
The deposed crown prince sighed and looked at Ning Chen. “Take her back. Don’t bring her again.”
He did not want Huai’an to see him in the state he was in.
(End of Chapter 235)