Ning Chen thought for a moment, then gave his order. “Have your people keep digging, but be careful about it — don’t beat the grass and startle the snake.”
Silence nodded.
“Do you have proof of any crime of the Right Chancellor’s?”
Silence shook his head. “No. But we have proof against his kinsmen.”
Ning Chen was surprised. “His kinsmen?”
Silence said, “The Right Chancellor is very careful in what he does. Getting a hold on him is hard… With a man like that, we go at him through his kinsmen.”
“The Right Chancellor keeps his own hands clean, but his kinsmen have done plenty of harm on the strength of the Right Chancellor’s name.”
Ning Chen inclined his head slightly. “Good. Put the evidence somewhere safe. Sooner or later there will be a use for it.”
Silence made a sound of assent.
Ning Chen turned the talk without warning. “Has any word come from her lately?”
Silence nodded.
“What did she say?”
Silence said, “To protect you well, and to report your movements at any hour.”
The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth lifted, and he said with a smile, “Counting up the months, she must be near her time.”
Silence made a sound of assent.
“Looks like I’ll have to find a chance to go to the Wu Kingdom.” As he said it, Ning Chen turned the talk again. “All the way here — have you had people protecting me the whole time?”
“Yes. But there was never an opening to act.”
Ning Chen was slightly taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“Young Master Ning wants to ask about the ones in the devil-face masks?”
Ning Chen was surprised. “They weren’t yours?”
Silence shook his head. “No.”
“Then whose were they?”
“Unclear. After you dropped out of sight in Xiuzhou, those people went back to the capital… But once they were back, they were gone without leaving a shadow, as though they had evaporated from the face of the earth.”
Ning Chen narrowed his eyes, and the light in them flickered… Back to the capital and gone without a shadow. Somebody wiped their tracks for them.
Of everyone I know, who has that kind of reach?
Those people guarded me the whole road. They cannot have been sent by an enemy.
There are only a few people in the capital who wish me well.
Something jolted in Ning Chen’s chest. Could they be His Majesty’s?
Silence said, “My guess is they belong to your Great Xuan’s emperor.”
Ning Chen looked at him. “On what grounds?”
“Most of the civil and military officials in the Great Xuan capital have our people planted beside them… Except the members of the imperial house. The imperial house checks the men it takes on back through eighteen generations of ancestors, and we can hardly get anybody in at all.”
“The imperial city has the garrison, the imperial guards, the Inspectorate. To wipe those men’s tracks out completely — apart from a member of the imperial house, an ordinary official could hardly manage it.”
Ning Chen nodded slightly.
Silence’s reasoning holds up.
An ordinary member of the imperial house would not send men to protect me. The friendship does not run that deep.
It has to be the Xuan Emperor.
So on top of the Inspectorate, which everyone can see, the Xuan Emperor has another force at his side, and a strong one.
The Xuan Emperor, that sly old bastard. He keeps it buried deep.
After talking with Silence a while longer, Ning Chen left.
He came out by the back door and rode his beloved Diaochan back home, clop, clop, clop.
Ning Chen rode on with his mind on other things.
Then all at once Diaochan stopped.
Ning Chen looked up, and his face froze.
How did we end up at the courtesans’ quarter?
Yudie had gone home now. He had no reason to come to the courtesans’ quarter anymore.
Ning Chen patted Diaochan on the head. “You lecherous mare, you’ve brought me here again… Don’t you know I cannot live under the same sky as whoring, gambling and drugs?”
Ning Chen cursed her fondly, then turned the horse’s head around to ride home — and stopped again, because he had seen somebody he knew… Nie Liang.
Such a quiet one about it, this fellow.
“Nie Feng…”
Nie Liang had handed his horse to the man at the door and was about to go in when he heard somebody call from behind him.
He turned around and saw Ning Chen up on a tall horse, looking at him with a face full of mischief.
“Well, if it isn’t Nie Feng.”
Ning Chen said it in an odd, off-pitch voice, laying it on thick.
Nie Liang’s weathered face went red.
Ning Chen cocked his head and stared at him with the same mischief on his face. “Forgive my poor eyes — are you Nie Liang, or Nie Feng?”
Nie Liang: “……”
Ning Chen looked at him a while, then put on a show of shock. “You don’t look like Nie Feng. You must be Nie Liang.”
“No — wrong. You’re Nie Feng. Nie Liang is a gentleman. He never comes to the courtesans’ quarter.”
Nie Liang, thoroughly embarrassed, cupped his fist and bowed and pleaded, “Ning Chen. Spare me that mouth of yours.”
Ning Chen laughed his low laugh. “That’s what you get for lying to me… Prowling the courtesans’ quarter under your own brother’s name — doesn’t your brother have a face to lose?”
Nie Liang smiled bitterly.
Ning Chen let him alone after that and turned the talk. “How are the two old folks doing?”
Nie Liang’s parents had been bedridden for years.
Nie Liang sighed. “The same as ever.”
Ning Chen said, “One of these days I’ll bring Zisu to look in on them.”
Nie Liang’s eyes lit up — Zisu was the star pupil of Shang Lu the Physician Immortal — and he said gratefully, “Thank you.”
Ning Chen smiled. “You go on in, then. I’m heading home.”
“Ning Chen, come inside and have a drink. It’s been a long time.”
“Another day.” Ning Chen wagged his head as he said it. “What decent man goes to the courtesans’ quarter? I’m going. See you around.”
The corner of Nie Liang’s mouth twitched.
Ning Chen laughed his low laugh and rode away.
Back at the Ning residence, walking toward the inner court, Ning Chen asked Gu Yichun, “Did Geng Jing come looking for you?”
Gu Yichun nodded. “Just as the young master expected. The Inspectorate’s men did come to me.”
Ning Chen nodded slightly.
He had guessed right. The Xuan Emperor had known all along that he was at the Ghost-Shadow Sect.
“The young master must be hungry. I’ll get you something to eat.”
Ning Chen nodded.
When he got back to his room, Yudie and Zisu were both there.
“Ning, dear, you’re back?”
Yudie came forward and took the outer robe Ning Chen shrugged off.
Ning Chen put an arm around each of them, and kissed Yudie, and then kissed Zisu.
He kissed the two of them until their pretty faces were crimson and they were both breathing hard.
When Gu Yichun brought the food, Ning Chen ate and drank his fill, and then drank a bowl of the Nine Yang Decoction for Nourishing the Source that Zisu had ready for him, and then took a hot bath with the two women waiting on him.
The one thing Ning Chen was not satisfied with was that the tub was too small to hold three people.
I’ll have a bigger one made. Or knock out the wall to the room next door and put in a proper hot pool.
After the bath, Ning Chen took both women to bed with him.
A life like this. I wouldn’t trade it for the throne.
Before it was light, Ning Chen opened his eyes.
It felt to him as though he had slept a little more than two hours.
Ning Chen eased the pale, soft arm and the long legs off himself and slipped quietly out of bed… he had court today.
In the court hall, the civil and military officials stood ranged along both sides.
Heads turned all down the ranks to look at Ning Chen.
Ning Chen stood at the head of the civil officials with his hands behind his back.
Li Hanru and the rest had smiles on their faces they could not hide.
But Fan Taihe and his people had ugly looks on their faces.
They had gone to enormous trouble to drive Ning Chen out of the court, and after only a few months he was back.
Fan Taihe had gone as envoy to the Wu Kingdom and had been turned back before he could even cross the border.
When he returned, the Xuan Emperor had cursed him up and down and given him a year’s salary forfeit and a demotion of three ranks.
None of that was the worst of it… What mattered was that he had failed at his task, His Majesty was in a fury, and there would be no important post for him ever again and no hope of promotion.
Fan Taihe glared viciously at the back of Ning Chen’s head.
Ning Chen turned around all at once and looked at him and said, all smiles, “Lord Fan. It’s been a long time.”
Fan Taihe gave a cold snort.
Ning Chen said, teasing him, “I hear Lord Fan went as envoy to the Wu Kingdom and couldn’t even get across the border?”
Fan Taihe’s face went livid.
Ning Chen smiled coldly. “The day Lord Fan was attacking me, his tongue was sharp enough… Shut out at the Wu border, didn’t you put those fishwife talents of yours to work and curse them till they frothed at the mouth?”
Fan Taihe was enraged. “You — you —”
(End of Chapter 401)