"We could try winning Ning Chen over, in fact. He really is a man of ability. It would be a waste to kill him."

It was the old man past fifty who said it, there in the hidden room.

The plump, pale young man played with the plate of cakes and began to laugh through his teeth.

It was a while before he spoke, and he spoke slowly. "Put your love of talent away for the moment. Ning Chen has to die."

The old man past fifty did not altogether understand.

The plump young man laughed coldly. "That man's mind does not work like other men's. There is far too much about him that cannot be predicted."

"I had Li Hongzhuo try to win him over, using the business between him and the Wu Kingdom's woman emperor... and what came of it was Li Hongzhuo's entire household to the sword, and Song Tiancheng torn up by the roots."

"I don't know whether you have noticed, but everyone who sets himself against that man comes to a bad end... the Empress, Prince Fu, the Left Chancellor. Was there one among them who did not stand high and hold power?"

"Which is why the man cannot be left alive."

The plump young man paused, and went on. "Made a marquis at sixteen. General of the Second Rank. Battle honors piled up, and the common people love him... And if he marries the Ninth Princess on top of that, Ning Chen's power will reach the sky."

"I have no confidence that I could hold that man's reins... And I am not His Majesty, generous and broad-minded enough to tolerate a man with no regard for the imperial authority."

"If Ning Chen had a child by the Ninth Princess, that child would very likely be the future emperor of the Great Xuan."

The eyes of the old man past fifty contracted sharply, and he gave a slight nod.

He said slowly, "If you can see that far, His Majesty should be able to see it too."

The plump young man waved a hand. "You're…