After half a morning of talking nonsense with the animals of the first department, Ning Chen went to Geng Jing’s room.

Geng Jing looked at Ning Chen, delight all over his face. “Darker, and a bit more solid… taking Mangzhou and recovering the frontier. Magnificent!”

Then Geng Jing brewed Ning Chen a cup of tea with his own hands.

“Tea for the great hero!”

Ning Chen rolled his eyes, lost for words.

Geng Jing looked him over. “That’s a good outfit you’ve got on, and a handsome cut too… which shop did you have it made at? I’ll order myself a couple.”

Ning Chen turned a full circle. “Well? Looks good, doesn’t it?”

Geng Jing nodded, granting him that much.

Ning Chen said with a smile, “The Beauty’s Tailoring Shop. Warms the body and warms the heart.”

“The Beauty’s Tailoring Shop? Never heard of it. Where is it?”

“In the courtesans’ quarter.”

Geng Jing’s forehead filled with question marks.

Ning Chen was preening all over. “Yudie sewed this for me with her own hands. The only one in the world. You couldn’t buy it with money.”

The corner of Geng Jing’s mouth twitched. He looked at Ning Chen preening away and said sourly, “Actually, it doesn’t look good at all.”

Ning Chen preened harder. Geng Jing was simply eaten up with envy.

Geng Jing went back and sat down. “You just got back—why not take a couple of days to rest properly? There’s not much going on at the Inspectorate.”

Ning Chen sipped at his tea a few times, set the cup down, and asked, “Lord Geng, do you know Zisu?”

Geng Jing was startled for a moment, then nodded.

“Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng told me. She treated your wounds back at Mangzhou.”

“That child… such a pity. I’ve known her a long time. She was only a little girl then.”

Ning Chen said with a smile, “I hear she used to look up to you a great deal?”

Geng Jing laughed and shook his head. “She certainly did. Waiting every day for me to get myself wounded.”

Ning Chen was surprised into a smile.

Then his face composed itself. “I’m going to save her.”

Geng Jing was startled, and stared at him in astonishment.

“Two officials of the court are dead and Prince Duan is caught up in it. His Majesty is in a fury… and only because Zisu and I know each other, he gave the case to the Ministry of Justice.”

“Ning Chen, this case reaches too far. There’s no possibility of overturning it… Zisu saved Pan Yucheng’s life and she’s known to me, and I would very much like to help her. But His Majesty has issued an order forbidding me to touch it. I’d advise you to keep out of it too, rather than displease him.”

Ning Chen shook his head and said, flat and without a hair of give, “Things go the way men make them go. I want to try.”

“Prince Duan is caught up in this. Nobody can save Miss Zisu.”

Ning Chen smiled evenly. “I’ve always believed human will can overcome heaven itself.”

“Lord Geng, I want to look at Xiuzhou’s case records from ten to fifteen years ago. Every major case that happened there… the Inspectorate is bound to have the archives.”

Geng Jing looked puzzled. “What do you want those for?”

Ning Chen said in a low voice, “I’m not certain yet… but Zisu wouldn’t assassinate a province’s Prefect and Governor, and Prince Duan on top of that, for no reason. Not unless there’s a blood feud between them.”

“Zisu is eighteen or nineteen this year, and I heard Shang Lu say he took her in at Xiuzhou when she was six or seven.”

“If there is a blood feud between Zisu and Prince Duan and Xiuzhou’s Prefect and Governor, then whatever happened was no small matter. Working from when Shang Lu took her in and how old she is now, it must have happened somewhere in that ten-to-fifteen-year window.”

Geng Jing nodded slightly.

“Your reasoning is sound. But don’t forget, the cases the Inspectorate handles are the major ones, and most of them involve officials of the court… if Zisu came from an ordinary family, the Inspectorate may have no record of it at all.”

Ning Chen said in a low voice, “That’s all right. We start with the Inspectorate’s archives. If there’s nothing there, I’ll go through the Ministry of Justice’s. And if that fails too, I’ll make the trip to Xiuzhou myself.”

Geng Jing let out a long sigh. “Be sure you’ve thought this through. His Majesty telling me to stand aside from this case effectively means the whole Inspectorate stands aside… doing this is defying an edict.”

Ning Chen smiled and said mildly, “I don’t want to leave myself with regrets.”

Geng Jing knew Ning Chen’s mind was made up.

“All right! I’ll go mad with you this once… and if His Majesty really does come down on us, we’ll go down together.”

Ning Chen laughed. “Let’s get Old Pan in on it too.”

Geng Jing nodded and went out.

Before long, Geng Jing came back with a group of red coats and all the case files.

Pan Yucheng came too.

Once the red coats had withdrawn, Ning Chen went through the whole matter with Pan Yucheng.

Pan Yucheng did not argue. Zisu had saved his life. If he could help her, he would not stand back from it.

The three of them wasted no time and began going through the case records.

Five years’ worth of cases was a great many, and the work was heavy going. Lunchtime came around without their noticing; not one of the three lifted his backside off the seat, and they read on.

Ning Chen forgot all about going into the palace to present himself.

Suddenly Geng Jing said, “Ning Chen, take a look at this.”

He passed a case file over.

Ning Chen took it, read through it for a while, then looked up at Geng Jing. “Is there something wrong with this file?”

“Qinghe County in Xiuzhou. The magistrate, Liu Zhichen, is Yudie’s father.”

Ning Chen’s eyes tightened. He had known only that Yudie was the daughter of a convicted official. She had never gone into the details and he had never asked.

His eyes dropped to the file.

Yudie’s original name was Liu Zhirou. The name Yudie had been given to her after she came to the courtesans’ quarter.

Her father, Liu Zhichen, had taken bribes, invented pretexts for new levies and imposed crushing miscellaneous taxes. More than that, he had been in league with the local grain merchants, selling seed grain and passing off inferior stock as good, ruining ten thousand acres of good farmland. The common people harvested nothing at all and were driven to revolt.

The principal offender in the case had been Yan Wenbo, the Prefect of Xiuzhou at the time.

By law it should have been a crime punishable to the ninth degree of kin, but His Majesty had not long been on the throne, and to steady the hearts of the people he had just then proclaimed a general amnesty.

So the principal offender, Yan Wenbo, was sentenced to have his entire household put to the sword.

The accessory, Liu Zhichen, was beheaded, the men of his clan were exiled, and the women were sent into the courtesans’ quarter.

The gold coat who had handled the case at the time was named Qian Wei.

Ning Chen asked, curious, “How is it I’ve never heard of this Qian Wei?”

Geng Jing said, “Qian Wei used to be a gold coat of the second department. He went out on an assignment once, walked into an ambush, and was killed.”

“When was that?”

“Ten years ago or thereabouts.”

Ning Chen made a small noise of acknowledgment.

It was Zisu’s business he was investigating now. Ning Chen put the thought aside and set the file down.

But all at once he picked the file up again.

He fixed on that one line among Liu Zhichen’s charges: in league with the grain merchants, trafficking in seed grain, passing off inferior stock as good, ruining ten thousand acres of good farmland.

There was nothing wrong with the line in itself. But he suddenly remembered what Lin Wen had said as he was leaving the Ministry of Justice’s cells the day before.

“They call it the immortals’ flower; it is the gut-severing weed. Ten thousand acres weep blood, and the green shoots turn to withered grass. I lift my head and ask heaven, and one hand covers heaven’s eye…”

Geng Jing looked over. “What are you muttering about? Have you found something?”

Ning Chen ignored him and said to himself, “Liu Zhichen ruined ten thousand acres of good farmland. Lin Wen said ten thousand acres weep blood. Is that a coincidence?”

Just then a young, ringing voice came from outside the door. “Ning the Silver Coat, there’s a man called Tian Jiang here, says he’s your household servant and wants to see you.”

Ning Chen paused for a moment, stood, made his excuses and left.

He came out in front of the Inspectorate.

Tian Jiang hurried over at a trot, bowed, and said, “Young Master Ning, not long after you left the courtesans’ quarter this morning, Miss Xiaoxing left too.”

“This servant followed her without being seen, and found Miss Xiaoxing meeting quietly with a man of about fifty. She gave him a gold hairpin.”

“A gold hairpin?” Ning Chen’s sword-straight brows drew together. “Who was the man?”

Tian Jiang said, “This servant doesn’t know exactly who he is… but this servant followed him quietly and watched him go into the Ministry of Justice.”

Ning Chen’s eyes tightened. “The Ministry of Justice?”

Tian Jiang said quickly, “Yes!”

Ning Chen’s eyes narrowed to slits. In that instant, it felt as though he had caught hold of a great many things at once.

(End of Chapter 292)