The old madam found four girls.

Xiuzhou breeds fine people out of fine country, and because of the water and the soil the girls here all have good skin—small and delicate and fair, and soft-spoken.

While they were drinking, Feng Qizheng kept throwing looks at Ning Chen, his eyes going like a man with a twitch.

Ning Chen understood him well enough. The worms were up in the man's brain.

He set his cup down and stood. "Old Gao comes back with me. You two please yourselves."

Feng Qizheng's and Chen Chong's eyes lit up and they nodded over and over.

Gao Ziping looked at Ning Chen completely blank. He wanted to please himself too.

Ning Chen took him away all the same.

Prince Duan still had to be guarded against, and two men could look out for each other.

"You two be careful."

Ning Chen said it and left with Gao Ziping.

Back at the inn.

Ning Chen told Gao Ziping to turn in early. They had the road back to the capital tomorrow.

He watched Gao Ziping go into his room and came to his own door.

He looked down. The strip of paper wedged in the crack at the bottom was still there, and only then did he push the door open and go in.

But as he shut the door and turned, his eyes tightened and he had the dagger out and thrown like lightning.

Whip!!!

The dagger went out as a streak of cold light and was gone in the dark as fast as it came.

The dark shape sitting by the table twisted aside, and the dagger buried itself in the wall behind him.

Before Ning Chen could draw, the shape came over the table and at him.

Ning Chen grabbed the copper basin off the washstand by the door and threw it.

The shape's hand moved like lightning. He caught the basin and flung it back without looking, and the basin landed on the washstand again.

Ning Chen used the moment to push off, fast as a leopard, and drove a vicious elbow…