From the capital to Xiuzhou was six or seven days on the road at a hard gallop.

Because this was a secret investigation, they kept to the back roads and stayed off the post road.

They ate in the wind and drank the dew, and it was a hard road.

Luckily every horse under them was a fine animal, faster than an ordinary mount, and they hardly rested along the way. It took them only five days to reach Xiuzhou.

They got into the city without any trouble.

Xiuzhou’s climate was damp, and although it was winter it was far warmer than the north. There was still green to be seen, and the leaves on some of the trees had not turned at all.

Xiuzhou was famous for its silks and satins and its embroidery, which made it one of the richest prefectures in Great Xuan.

The streets were broad and thick with people, and the noise and bustle were something to see.

Ning Chen and the others led their horses forward.

Then Ning Chen’s face changed a little and he dropped his voice. “Find us an inn, fast.”

Pan Yucheng was startled. “What is it? Have you spotted something?”

Ning Chen shook his head. “It’s my horse. Diaochan is a warhorse. Anyone could pick her out, and I forgot about it.”

He had only just noticed it in passing—Diaochan was more powerfully built than the horses Pan Yucheng and the others rode, and a good size larger all around.

Pan Yucheng ran his eye over her. Ning Chen’s horse really was too conspicuous.

“Move!”

Pan Yucheng said it low.

They found an inn and handed the horses over to the stable boy, with strict instructions that they were to be fed good grain.

Then Ning Chen grandly took five of the best rooms… Young Master Feng was paying!

He was the young gentleman of a great house now, and anything short of extravagant and dissolute would not have fit the part.

Once they were settled in, they gathered in Ning Chen’s room.

“Diaochan is too conspicuous. She stays at this inn for now. I need a different horse.”

Pan Yucheng said, “That’s easy enough. We’ll take a turn around the horse market later.”

Ning Chen nodded and made a sound of agreement.

Pan Yucheng asked, “Where do we start looking?”

Ning Chen thought for a moment. “Rest first. This afternoon we go around the horse market and buy a horse, and then we head straight for Qinghe County.”

Pan Yucheng did not understand. “Didn’t the immortals’ flower fail in Qinghe County? What’s the point of going there?”

Ning Chen explained. “All we know right now is that the immortals’ flower was once grown in Qinghe County. That’s our only thread, so Qinghe County is where we have to start.”

The others nodded.

The whole run had worn them down, and they really were tired.

They went to their own rooms and rested awhile.

Then they came downstairs, ate and drank their fill, and went to the horse market.

Ning Chen spent fifty taels of silver on an ordinary black-maned horse.

That kind of horse could not run fast, but it had decent endurance and was better suited to pulling a cart.

They got out before the city gates closed and rode hard for Qinghe County.

Qinghe County was about a hundred li from the city of Xiuzhou.

Night fell when they were halfway there.

They stopped for a short rest, partly to let the horses breathe.

Then there was a noise from the woods beside them, like a branch snapping.

Before Ning Chen and the others could go and look, a crowd of men came howling out of the trees.

Every one of them wore coarse hemp cloth, and the weapons in their hands were of every shape and kind. They rushed in and surrounded Ning Chen and his men.

Ning Chen looked them over and turned his head to Pan Yucheng. “Are these… hill bandits?”

Pan Yucheng smiled. “They seem to be!”

“Why do they howl when they come out like that?”

Pan Yucheng said, “To put the fear into us.”

Ning Chen made a small sound and smiled. “And here I thought they had some strange disease.”

Ning Chen and the others looked entirely at ease, without a trace of alarm. There were only twenty-odd men on the other side… and when they had come rushing in, their footwork was clumsy. Not one of them was a trained fighter.

“Hey! Stand still and behave yourselves. Don’t anybody move.”

A middle-aged man of reasonably solid build, a heavy broad-bladed saber over his shoulder, roared at Ning Chen’s party with murder in his face.

This had to be the chief of the hill bandits.

Ning Chen looked utterly innocent. “We’re not moving.”

The chief said angrily, “You dare talk back? Do you want to die?”

Ning Chen shook his head. “No!”

“Then behave yourself for your betters… Do you know who we are?”

“You’re… hill bandits?”

The chief was enraged. “That’s horseshit! We’re greenwood heroes. We rob the rich to help the poor.”

Ning Chen held in his laughter. “Then may I ask what the heroes want with us?”

“What a stupid question. We’re robbing you, obviously. Did you think we came out here to keep you company?”

As he said it the chief leveled the broad-bladed saber at Ning Chen. “Even thieves have a code. We don’t rob funeral carts or wedding carts. We don’t rob schoolmasters. We don’t rob jianghu traveling physicians. We don’t rob poor scholars. We don’t rob Taoist priests. We don’t rob monks or nuns. We don’t rob the poor… Now name yourselves, quick. What are you?”

Ning Chen was enjoying himself. “I’d never have guessed it. You keep the rules better than the men who eat the emperor’s grain.”

“Enough talk. What are you?”

Ning Chen smiled. “I’m a poor scholar.”

The chief stared at Ning Chen a moment, then gave a cold laugh. “Do you take me for a fool? A devil’s head and a toad’s eyes on you, boy—one look is enough to know you’re no good.”

“You’re dressed in finery, silks and satins, riding great tall horses, and you still have the nerve to call yourself a poor scholar?”

The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched, and he felt at his own face. A devil’s head and a toad’s eyes, really?

The chief said furiously, “One look and anyone can tell you’re the young gentleman of a great house, and there’s nothing worse in this world than your sort… Now hand over everything you’re carrying that’s worth anything, and leave the horses too… otherwise don’t blame me if this saber doesn’t know a man’s face.”

Ning Chen smiled and shook his head.

Feng Qizheng turned his head toward him. “Shall I go and take him?”

Ning Chen nodded slightly.

Feng Qizheng pushed off with one foot and shot forward like an arrow off the string, and a few long strides put him in front of the chief.

The chief had not even raised his saber before Feng Qizheng’s blade was at his neck.

“That’s all the skill you have, and you’re out here playing at robbery? You’re a disgrace to robbers.”

Feng Qizheng jeered at him.

The chief went white with terror, sweat starting on his forehead. The saber fell out of his hand, his legs went from under him, and he dropped to his knees with a thump.

“Spare me, my lord, spare me. This small man has no eyes in his head, spare me…”

The hill bandits around him were at their wits’ end, every one of them, looking at one another and not knowing for the moment what to do.

Ning Chen walked over, picked the broad-bladed saber up off the ground and looked at the chief. “You said just now this saber doesn’t know a man’s face?”

The words were barely out before he swung it at the man’s head.

The chief screamed until his voice broke.

The broad-bladed saber shaved past his scalp.

The chief’s body went rigid with fright, his eyes glazed and his soul gone out of him.

It was a good while before he realized he was not dead… and then he could not stop shaking, and the cold sweat ran off him.

Ning Chen looked at him with mischief in his eyes. “You weren’t lying. This saber really doesn’t know a man’s face. It nearly took its own master’s head off.”

Feng Qizheng looked at Ning Chen. “Shall we cut them all down? Hill bandits like these are a plague on the whole district and they do a lot of harm to the people around here.”

Ning Chen shook his head. “They’re not hill bandits… more precisely, they’ve only been in the trade a few days.”

Feng Qizheng was astonished. “Not hill bandits? Then what are they?”

Ning Chen looked down at the chief. “You men are common people from around here, aren’t you?”

The chief was frightened out of his wits and had not come back to himself yet. Ning Chen’s words went past him unheard.

Feng Qizheng was amazed. “You’re saying they’re common people?”

Ning Chen smiled. “Look at their weapons. What honest hill bandit goes robbing with a hoe, a rake, a sickle… Only the chief has a blade, and he made it himself.”

(End of Chapter 302)