Something shifted in Ning Chen’s eyes. An old man, a physician?

“You’re sure?”

Pi San nodded and nodded. “This small man might have the boldness of heaven itself, and he still wouldn’t dare deceive my lord.”

Ning Chen gave a cold snort. “What you have is a dog’s gall reaching to heaven — bold enough to sell muskets.”

Pi San went white in the face, and sweat came out on his forehead. “Mercy, my lord. This small man truly did not know at the time that they were muskets.”

Ning Chen glanced at him. “Never mind all that. Think again — what else was there about the man who bought them?”

Pi San said, shaking as he did it, “Forgive this small man, my lord. That is all he can remember.”

Ning Chen ran his eyes over him and said to Lei An, “Take him away. Question him hard.”

Lei An bowed. “Yes!”

“Mercy, my lord, mercy…”

Pi San was frightened nearly to death, knocking his head on the floor and begging, but they hauled him out anyway.

Ning Chen narrowed his eyes, thought for a while, then called out, “Zhang Youcai?”

Zhang Youcai came in at a quick walk. “General Ning, what are your orders?”

Ning Chen looked at him. “Tell me — these past few days, when Miss Zisu came to the residence, did she ever ask you anything about the muskets?”

Zhang Youcai thought about it and nodded. “She did.”

Ning Chen’s eyes tightened. “Asked you what?”

Zhang Youcai said, “The first time Miss Zisu came, you had gone inside with Commandant Yuan and the others to discuss business. She waited here for the general, and this subordinate was given the job of keeping her company.”

“Miss Zisu saw the musket at this subordinate’s waist and was very interested. She wanted to borrow it and have a look. This subordinate knows perfectly well how important the muskets are, and refused.”

Ning Chen said in a heavy voice, “And then?”

“And then Miss Zisu asked how a piece of iron like that could hurt anyone.”

“And you told her?”

Zhang Youcai shook his head quickly. “The general will judge for himself — the first standing order of the musket battalion is that no information whatsoever about the muskets is to be given to anyone outside it. This subordinate holds that firmly in mind.”

Ning Chen gave a slight nod. “Go and ask the others. See whether Miss Zisu ever asked them anything about the muskets.”

“Yes, this subordinate will go at once!”

Ning Chen’s brow creased, and he sighed deeply.

When Pi San said an old man, a physician or a drug merchant, Ning Chen had thought of Shang Lu.

Zisu, a beauty who could topple a kingdom, giving him what they had shared by way of mouth and tongue at their first meeting — he had suspected all along that she had some other purpose.

Now it looked as though what she had come for was the muskets.

Whether she had learned anything about the muskets at the Mei residence, Ning Chen did not know. But she had certainly learned all she wanted about his.

Ning Chen came back to himself and sent for Pan Yucheng.

Pan Yucheng saw the black look on Ning Chen’s face. “What’s happened?”

Ning Chen told him the whole of it.

Pan Yucheng was badly startled, and could hardly believe it. “So all those trips Miss Zisu made to the Mei residence — the real object was the muskets?”

Ning Chen gave a slight nod.

“By Pi San’s account, the man who bought the muskets can only be Shang Lu.”

“Zisu was probably trying to get hold of a musket at the Mei residence and failed. My guess is that Shang Lu bought the muskets off Pi San on the black market, and that’s why they were in such a hurry to leave Mangzhou.”

Pan Yucheng could not make sense of it. “Could there be some mistake? Elder Shang Lu has a name known everywhere and stands high in men’s regard. Why would he steal muskets?”

“Once this is confirmed, not only will he and Miss Zisu have no escape from death — even Physician Lin Wen will be dragged into it.”

Ning Chen’s eyes narrowed. “I’m afraid that’s a question for the man himself. Shang Lu wanders the four seas and goes everywhere there is to go. He may well have been turned long ago and become an enemy state’s spy.”

“There’s nothing difficult about how a musket is fired. Gunpowder is easy enough to come by, and any smithy can turn out iron balls. I’m afraid that next time we’re on a battlefield, muskets won’t belong to our Great Xuan alone.”

The look on Pan Yucheng’s face was very bad.

Because it was he who had personally seen Shang Lu and Zisu out of the city.

If blame were called for over this, there would be no escaping his share of it.

His Majesty might well, in a fit of anger, order him beheaded.

“I’ll take men and go after them myself. I’ll bring them back.”

Ning Chen shook his head with a wry smile. “They’ve been gone several days. You’ll never catch them.”

Pan Yucheng said, “They said they were going to Xiuzhou…”

Ning Chen shook his head and laughed in spite of himself. “Xiuzhou was probably said for our benefit on purpose.”

“Old Pan, pass my order. Send out a joint search notice in the name of murder — inform every prefecture, and have them hunt these two down with everything they have.”

“Shang Lu’s name is known everywhere and Zisu’s looks are remarkable. They shouldn’t be hard to find.”

Pan Yucheng nodded. “Good, I’ll see to it now!”

Pan Yucheng had only just left when Zhang Youcai came back.

Ning Chen glanced at him. “Well?”

Zhang Youcai said, “General, this subordinate has just asked. Every time Miss Zisu left, she would exchange a few words with the brothers at the gate, and she mentioned the muskets.”

“They all say they never let slip any information at all about the muskets to Miss Zisu.”

Ning Chen let out a flat “Mm.” “Understood!”

In truth, none of it mattered any longer.

A flintlock is not a very sophisticated piece of technology.

Find a few master craftsmen to take one apart and study it, and they can copy it.

As for how it is fired, that is simpler still — gunpowder and iron balls are all it takes, and neither of those is hard to come by.

The reason he was angry was that he felt he had been played for a fool.

A woman as fine as you — why turn thief?

She had stolen his musket, and played with his gun on top of that. Ning Chen felt he had been made a monkey of.

But what did Shang Lu and Zisu want with stolen muskets?

To sell to an enemy state?

Or were they an enemy state’s spies to begin with?

Several days went by in a blur.

Ning Chen gradually stopped thinking about the muskets.

The joint search notice had gone out to every prefecture. So long as Shang Lu and Zisu were still inside the borders of the Great Xuan, catching them was only a matter of time.

What mattered most now was the frontier.

Ning Chen was moving grain and fodder up in haste. Once the reinforcements the Xuan Emperor was sending arrived, he could march on the frontier passes.

The New Year was almost upon them.

He wanted to recover the frontier as fast as he could, and then go back to the capital for the New Year.

Everything was proceeding in good order and nothing left tangled.

Then one day, Ning Chen was in the middle of his midday meal.

Lei An came hurrying in to report that the scouts had sent word: a small force of Wu Kingdom soldiers was moving toward the city of Mangzhou.

“Wu Kingdom soldiers?”

Ning Chen looked up, taken aback.

Lei An nodded. “Yes!”

“How many all together?”

“Something like a hundred.”

Ning Chen’s brow creased. It seemed the thing he had been afraid of had happened after all.

There was every chance the Grand Tutor had thrown in with the Wu Kingdom.

But what did the Wu Kingdom mean by sending men here? A provocation?

“Come on, let’s go and see!”

Ning Chen set down his bowl and chopsticks, called Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng, and went with them to the city gate and up onto the wall.

The scouts kept sending word back.

Lei An returned. “General Ning, a runner has just brought the scouts’ report. The Wu Kingdom party is less than a mile and a half from us.”

Ning Chen stood on the wall, the hem of his robe stirring in the wind, his eyes on the distance.

The sun was almost down, and when nothing was left of it but the afterglow, a small body of horse came into Ning Chen’s view.

They were cavalry in silver armor.

They had raised no war banners, which meant they had not come to fight.

Before long the Wu Kingdom party halted at a distance of about five hundred paces from the gate.

“An envoy of the Wu Kingdom, seeking audience with Ning the Silver Coat of the Great Xuan!”

The voice of the Wu Kingdom’s herald rang out.

Ning Chen drew his eyes back. “Old Pan, Old Feng, come with me!”

“Yuan Long, muster five thousand men and wait for my order.”

(End of Chapter 267)