Ning Chen narrowed his eyes a little. “The Inspectorate made no move?”
Silence nodded.
“Didn’t the message reach them?”
Silence shook his head. “Impossible.”
Ning Chen frowned. “Who was the message given to?”
Silence said, “My man tied the letter to an arrow and shot it, and it stuck in the ground at the feet of the red coat at the Inspectorate’s gate. There is no way they failed to find it.”
“When?”
Silence thought back. “The twenty-seventh of last month.”
Ning Chen said nothing more.
He turned the talk. “The warship I came back on was scuttled. Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng are missing.”
A slight change went over Silence’s face.
Ning Chen went on. “Send your men to look quietly for the two of them. They have certainly fallen into the Right Chancellor’s hands.”
Silence asked, “Are they in the capital?”
Ning Chen shook his head. “Not certain.”
“Put men on the Fifth Prince and the Right Chancellor. Anything you hear, tell me at once.”
Silence nodded.
Ning Chen said, “One more thing. Have your men look quietly for a man called Ye Liao. He was in charge of the warship that was scuttled.”
Silence said, “Yes!”
“Oh — one thing more. My ship went down and the samples I was bringing back were all lost… Send word to the woman emperor. Have her send men with all speed and bring another set of samples.”
Silence looked thoroughly puzzled. “What samples?”
“Glass, fine salt, toothpaste.”
Silence went blanker still. He had not understood a single one of them.
Ning Chen waved a hand. “You’ll find out later. Send the message the way I told you. She knows what I want.”
Silence nodded.
They talked a while longer, and then Ning Chen left the Carefree Escort House and went home to the Ning residence.
“Ning, dear.”
At the sight of Ning Chen, Yudie was up on her toes with delight, her big watery eyes full of love.
Zisu’s small face was bright and lovely.
Ning Chen put an arm around each of them and kissed Yudie and then Zisu, and left neither of them out.
“Nothing happened while I was away?”
Yudie shook her head. “It’s all been fine.”
“And Miss Rongrong?”
Yudie said with a faint smile, “Her injuries have healed. I’ve kept her in the residence and given her work to do.”
Ning Chen inclined his head slightly.
“You must be hungry, Ning, dear. I’ll have them get you something to eat.”
Ning Chen ate and drank his fill, and the two women waited on him in his bath.
That night, naturally, Ning Chen held nothing back and taught them everything he had.
The next day, morning court.
“His Majesty is here!”
Eunuch Quan’s reedy voice carried right through the hall.
“Your subjects greet Your Majesty. May Your Majesty’s health be strong!”
The Xuan Emperor sat squarely on the dragon throne. He looked at Ning Chen, and his eyes rested on him for a while, and a smile came over his face.
“Rise, beloved ministers.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty!”
The officials got to their feet.
The Xuan Emperor looked at Ning Chen and asked, smiling, “Ning Chen. How did the peace talks go?”
In fact he had known the answer long before this. He was asking it for the officials to hear.
Ning Chen stepped out of the ranks and bowed. “Your Majesty was unwilling to see two kingdoms take up arms and the common people brought to ruin… Your Majesty’s name for benevolence has already traveled the length of the Wu Kingdom.”
“The Wu Kingdom is grateful for Your Majesty’s mercy and overcome with gratitude… and so the talks went smoothly.”
The corner of the Xuan Emperor’s mouth lifted. He knew Ning Chen was laying the flattery on, but he enjoyed it anyway.
Ning Chen presented the treaty with both hands.
Eunuch Quan came hurrying down, took the treaty and presented it to the Xuan Emperor.
The Xuan Emperor opened it and looked, and his face froze.
He looked at Ning Chen. “This is the treaty?”
Ning Chen looked puzzled. What is it supposed to be, if not the treaty?
“Your Majesty, this is the treaty. The woman emperor of Wu inscribed it in her own hand, and her name and her imperial seal are on it too.”
That night he had campaigned all night long and still could not get the woman emperor’s name out of her.
But when the treaty was signed, he found it out at last.
The woman emperor was called Wu Xingcheng.
The Xuan Emperor’s expression was strange. He turned the treaty around and held it up for Ning Chen and the officials to see. “Ning Chen. Where is the name of the woman emperor of Wu, and where is her imperial seal?”
Ning Chen’s eyes went wide and the corner of his mouth twitched.
On the gold-yellow silk there was nothing but blot after blot of black.
The officials of the court, civil and military, were astonished too.
This…???
Ning Chen was flat out of words.
He had examined it after he came ashore. The ink had run then and the writing was blurred, but it could still be read.
He had even dried it over a fire on purpose before he put it away… how had it turned into this?
The officials whispered among themselves.
The Xuan Emperor said, teasing him, “Ning Chen. Have you brought this emperor back a landscape painting?”
The officials roared with laughter.
Ning Chen’s forehead was full of black lines. “Your Majesty! Your subject met an assassination attempt on the road back to the capital, and the warship was scuttled… Your subject nearly drowned, and came out of it alive by no more than a hair. The treaty must have come to this from the soaking.”
The officials of the court, civil and military, broke out in an uproar.
The Xuan Emperor’s face went dark at once, and he said angrily, “Beloved ministers, you have all heard it? Scuttling a warship, assassinating a marquis… their nerve is past all measure.”
“A warship is a matter that touches the empire itself. Ning Chen is a marquis this emperor named with his own hand, and somebody has dared to try to kill him… That is a challenge to this emperor.”
“This emperor has already set men to look into it, and there will be an answer. Whoever it is, this emperor says it here and now: anyone with a hand in it will be wiped out to the third generation of the family.”
The faces of the officials, civil and military, went white, and they were as quiet as cicadas in the cold.
Ning Chen was home from the peace talks, and somebody had dared try to kill him aboard a warship. Wasn’t that asking to die?
His Majesty was truly angry this time.
The Right Chancellor kept his head down. Sweat stood out on his forehead, and the fingers hidden inside his sleeves would not stop shaking.
He had never agreed to the plan to kill Ning Chen aboard the warship.
Because whether it succeeded or not, scuttling a warship was certain to put His Majesty in a towering rage, and he would order it looked into to the bottom.
Whatever His Majesty ordered, the Inspectorate would throw everything into it, and one slip and they would be at his own door.
But that one’s plan for the killing had been meticulous. It should have been perfect.
A pity. What a man plans is not what heaven plans. A plan that could not have failed, and in the end Ning Chen got away from it anyway.
The Xuan Emperor swept a cold eye over the officials, civil and military, then let his gaze come to rest on Ning Chen, and his eyes turned mild. “Ning Chen. What is to be done with this landscape painting of yours?”
Before Ning Chen could speak, a censor sprang out. “Your Majesty! The treaty is the weightiest thing there is, and the marquis should have kept it safe… It is badly damaged now, and the marquis has been gravely negligent. He should be punished severely!”
The Xuan Emperor’s face went cold at once.
Goddammit… are you out of your fucking mind? Ning Chen said it inwardly.
He had come close to losing his life, and this bastard actually sprang out to attack him.
Was his life what mattered, or this piece of junk?
In fact Ning Chen was not wrong to be angry, and the censor was not wrong to impeach him either.
The treaty was the weightiest thing there was. It bore on peace between two kingdoms — and, to put it exactly, it mattered more than Ning Chen’s life.
If this had been an ordinary man, with the treaty ruined like this, then even though there was a reason for it, the failure to protect it was real too, and even if he were not beheaded he would be punished heavily.
The Xuan Emperor paid the censor no attention and looked at Ning Chen.
Ning Chen bowed. “Your Majesty! The damage to the treaty is indeed your subject’s negligence, and your subject knows his fault. I beg Your Majesty’s clemency, and leave to make up for the fault with a service.”
The Xuan Emperor said, “You have a way of repairing it?”
This treaty was written in the Wu emperor’s own hand and carried her imperial seal, and now it was damaged like this — which was gross disrespect… If the Wu emperor chose to make something of it, the talks would fail.
What the Xuan Emperor did not know was that a ruined treaty wasn’t worth a fart… Ning Chen had torn the woman emperor of Wu’s bodice to shreds and nothing had come of it.
(End of Chapter 422)