After the evening meal Ning Chen came to the side hall.
Jin Qingsheng was already waiting there.
“I greet my lord.”
Jin Qingsheng knelt and made his bow.
Ning Chen lifted a hand. “Get up.”
When Jin Qingsheng was on his feet, Ning Chen said, “How is the wine shop doing lately?”
“Reporting to my lord. The shop is doing very well… This small man is getting ready to bring out the thirty years in the cellar.”
Ning Chen made a sound of assent.
He took a letter out of his robe. “It isn’t enough for Immortal Dew to be the rage in the capital. It has to go out across the country… Send a man you can trust to Xiuzhou, to Prince Duan.”
“Prince Duan handles the shops and we supply the wine… Give Prince Duan this letter. He will understand when he reads it.”
Jin Qingsheng took the letter quickly. “Yes. My lord may set his mind at rest.”
“All right. You may go.”
After Jin Qingsheng had gone, Ning Chen gave Gu Yichun a few more instructions.
The next day, early in the morning.
Zisu and Yudie were still asleep. The two of them had worn themselves out the night before.
Ning Chen left the Ning residence quietly.
For this embassy to the Wu Kingdom he took nobody else, only Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng.
The three of them met.
Ning Chen looked Pan Yucheng over.
Pan Yucheng’s face was full of puzzlement. “What is it?”
Ning Chen said, smiling, “Nothing puts a spring in a man’s step like good fortune. Look at the color in your face. Domestic life with Miss Nanzhi must be very comfortable indeed.”
A smile came over Pan Yucheng’s face in spite of himself. “When we get back from the Wu Kingdom, I mean to marry Nanzhi.”
Ning Chen laughed aloud. “That’s good news. Congratulations, congratulations.”
“If you need any help with it, just say the word.”
Pan Yucheng nodded slightly.
Ning Chen said, “Let’s set out, then.”
To cut it short: they traveled hard, and more than twenty days later the three of them reached the frontier.
Ning Chen stayed two days at the frontier.
Last time he had had Yuan Long train ten thousand special forces soldiers for him.
For two days he inspected the results.
The training was good.
These men had been picked out of the army as its best to begin with, and after several months of training, ten thousand of them standing together were all wolf and tiger, and the spirit came off them in waves.
Ning Chen was well satisfied.
On the third day Ning Chen picked out a hundred musketeers and rode straight for the Wu Kingdom.
Ten days later they reached the Wu Kingdom’s capital at last.
Ning Chen was a little excited.
I’m about to see my wife and my son.
The man in charge of receiving them was again Fu Lu, the Wu Kingdom’s Minister of Rites.
They all knew one another well by now, which spared them a lot of unnecessary ceremony.
They spent a night at the Hall of Martial Honor.
The next day Ning Chen took Pan Yucheng into the palace for the audience.
The civil and military officials stood ranged along both sides.
The woman emperor sat straight-backed on the dragon throne.
“The envoy of the Great Xuan is summoned to the presence!”
Ning Chen walked into the great hall with Pan Yucheng.
The officials of the Wu Kingdom turned their heads to look.
Ning Chen had made a deep impression on them.
It was here, last time, that a contest of letters and arms had stripped the Wu Kingdom of every scrap of face.
“Ning Chen, envoy of the Great Xuan, greets the emperor of the Wu Kingdom.”
Ning Chen bowed.
Through the curtain of beads on her cap the woman emperor looked Ning Chen over, and the corners of her red lips, cut as fine as carving, lifted a little.
“Envoy of the Great Xuan. No ceremony.”
Ning Chen said in a clear voice, “Your Majesty the woman emperor. Ning here comes by imperial command on the matter of the peace talks.”
“Peace is to the profit of both sides, and Ning here has come with sincerity in full measure.”
The woman emperor said coolly, “And what is this sincerity Marquis Ning speaks of?”
Ning Chen took a letter out of his robe. “This is written in our Great Xuan emperor’s own hand. Your Majesty the woman emperor will understand when you have read it.”
The woman emperor said, “Bring it up.”
The woman emperor had no use for eunuchs about her. The one who waited on her closely was a pretty, quick-witted palace maid.
The palace maid came down, took the letter from Ning Chen’s hand and presented it to the woman emperor.
The woman emperor opened the letter, and her face went red in an instant.
Luckily the curtain of beads on her cap hid it. The officials could not see the woman emperor’s color.
Through the beads, the woman emperor glared at Ning Chen.
This was not written in the Great Xuan emperor’s hand at all. It was drawn in Ning Chen’s own hand.
There was a picture on it, very roughly done, which showed that Ning Chen’s brush would never be fit for polite company.
But what the picture showed was plain enough.
One person lying down and another lying on top.
An idiot would have understood it at a glance.
And beneath it, worse, there was a love poem.
玉爐冰簟鴛鴦錦，粉融香汗流山枕。 簾外轆轤聲，斂眉含笑驚。 柳陰輕漠漠，低鬢蟬釵落。 須作一生拼，盡君今日歡。
A jade brazier, a cold mat, mandarin ducks worked in the brocade; the powder melts, the sweet sweat runs down the pillowed hill.
Beyond the curtain, the sound of the well rope — she draws her brows in, and her smile is startled.
The willow shade lies light and thin; the hair falls low, the cicada pin falls out.
Better to stake a whole life on it, and give my lord all of today’s delight.
The woman emperor put the letter calmly away, glared once at Ning Chen through the beads, and said, “Since the Great Xuan is as sincere as this, then this emperor will accept the sincerity for the present.”
“Court is dismissed. Marquis Ning stays. This emperor will discuss the peace talks with him.”
The officials made their bows and withdrew from the great hall.
Ning Chen said to Pan Yucheng, “Old Pan. Wait for me outside.”
Pan Yucheng nodded, turned and went out.
Only Ning Chen, the woman emperor and the palace maid beside her were left in the great hall.
The woman emperor rose, came down from the dragon throne and stood in front of Ning Chen.
Ning Chen looked at her with a brilliant smile, and then, with nerve past all measure, reached out and parted the beads in front of her eyes.
Bang!!!
Before Ning Chen could see clearly, he took a fist in the stomach.
Ning Chen clutched his stomach and backed away.
“You woman… You’re the emperor. Remember what you are.”
The woman emperor looked at him. “Does it hurt?”
“What do you think?”
Ning Chen said it with his hands on his stomach and no good humor at all.
The woman emperor gave a cold snort. “It hurt more when I was giving birth.”
“Uh… you’ve had a hard time of it, wife. Would you like to hit me twice more?”
Having said it, Ning Chen looked suddenly at the palace maid standing to one side.
The woman emperor noticed where he was looking. “Her name is Mingzhu. She has been with me since I was a princess.”
Ning Chen made a sound. The woman emperor means that this Mingzhu can be trusted.
“Where is the child?”
The woman emperor said coolly, “It is not convenient to see him now. Wait until tonight. I will send somebody to fetch you.”
Ning Chen asked, curious, “How did you keep it from everybody and have the child?”
“This emperor has her ways.”
Ning Chen made a face, lifted the beads in front of her eyes again and said, smiling, “Did you miss me?”
“Insolence!”
The woman emperor snapped it at him.
Far from checking himself, Ning Chen reached out a hand, tipped up her sharp little chin, looked at her red little mouth, and could not help leaning his head in.
Bang!!!
Ning Chen took another fist in the stomach.
Ning Chen clutched his stomach, his whole face screwed up.
The woman emperor kept her face stiff and warned him, “If you dare take another liberty, do you think this emperor will not have you killed?”
Ning Chen said, smiling, “No, I don’t.”
With that he stepped in on the woman emperor all at once.
The woman emperor gave a cold snort and drove a fist at Ning Chen’s stomach.
Ning Chen turned on his foot, slipped it easily, appeared behind her like something out of a nightmare, put his head over her shoulder and kissed her on the cheek.
The woman emperor’s pretty face went crimson with shame and anger together.
She spun around and a savage whipping kick came around with the wind behind it, sweeping the space at her back.
It swept nothing. Ning Chen was behind her again, and put his head over her other shoulder and kissed that cheek too.
The woman emperor, furious, brought one edge of her hand down behind her.
And Ning Chen slipped it easily again, and came in close all at once, so that their bodies were all but pressed together.
He lifted the beads in front of the woman emperor’s eyes and kissed her quickly on her red little mouth.
Shame and anger together, and the woman emperor’s fists and feet came whistling.
But she went at him a long while without touching so much as the corner of Ning Chen’s coat, and Ning Chen took shameless advantage of her instead. The bastard not only kissed her; he had his hands over every inch of her.
The woman emperor was astounded. A few months apart, and how has Ning Chen’s skill become as frightening as this?
(End of Chapter 414)