Geng Jing could not help exclaiming, “It is hard to imagine a man keeping an act up for more than ten years.”
Ning Chen said, smiling, “It gave me a shock too when I found out. Playing the fool for more than ten years is not a thing an ordinary man can do.”
“But a thousand precautions and one slip. He has been outsmarted by his own cleverness.”
Geng Jing asked, curious, “What do you mean?”
Ning Chen made a cold sound in his nose. “The heir apparent’s seat is empty now, and the way things stand he would become heir apparent as a matter of course.”
“But everybody knows he is an idiot, and His Majesty knows it too. How would His Majesty give him the heir apparent’s seat?”
Geng Jing was taken aback, then began to laugh. “That really is being outsmarted by your own cleverness.”
Then Ning Chen’s face went grave all at once. “Old Geng. From here on, everything else is a small matter. There is only one large one, and that is keeping His Majesty safe.”
Geng Jing gave a start, and then understood at once, and said heavily, “You mean he may harm His Majesty?”
Ning Chen said, “The highest seat under heaven, with the power of the empire in his hands. That seat is too great a temptation… There has never been family feeling in an imperial house. It has been played out plenty of times — a father killing his son, a brother killing his brother.”
Geng Jing inclined his head slightly.
Ning Chen narrowed his eyes and said heavily, “So he has to be stopped, as far as it can be done, before he harms His Majesty.”
Geng Jing thought for a moment and said, “I think we should report it to His Majesty.”
Ning Chen looked at him. “Do you have proof that he is playing a part? If you don’t, then you are framing a prince.”
Geng Jing said nothing more.
Ning Chen said, smiling, “Now that Old Pan and Old Feng are out, it’s time to stir this poisonous snake that has lain low for more than ten years.”
The two of them went back to the room.
Ning Chen gave Chen Chong an order. “Old Chen. Go find me the men who were on the gate on the twenty-seventh of last month.”
Chen Chong nodded and went straight off without asking why.
“Had enough?”
Ning Chen looked at Feng Qizheng, who was holding his belly and leaning back in his chair, and asked it smiling.
“I’m stuffed.” Feng Qizheng rubbed his belly, and then the anger came up in him. “Goddamn it. If I ever find out who put me and the Chief into those boxes, I’ll crush his balls for him.”
“Do you know what these last days have been like? All the time I’ve spent in the Inspectorate — and I never thought I’d be packed into a box. It is the bitterest humiliation there is.”
“Ning Chen, you have to help me find this piece of filth. If I don’t chop him into paste my name isn’t Feng.”
Pan Yucheng’s face was black and he said nothing.
He, a gold coat of the Inspectorate, stuffed into a box like a pig or a dog. All he wanted now was to find this bastard, chop him up and feed him to the dogs.
Ning Chen said, smiling, “Rest easy. Whoever he is, he will be found sooner or later.”
“What I’m curious about is this. With the two of you and what you can do, even with the ship scuttled, you should not have been taken alive.”
Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng were both astonished.
Pan Yucheng said, “The ship was scuttled? Whose gall was big enough for that — to touch a warship?”
Ning Chen looked surprised. “You didn’t know?”
Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng shook their heads.
“We finished drinking and I went back to my room and slept. When I woke I was in a box… I suspect something was done to the food and drink that night.”
Feng Qizheng said, “The same with me as with the Chief. I got back to my room and my eyelids were fighting each other. I put it down to the drink, and the pitching of the boat, and then I fell asleep.”
Only then did Ning Chen understand. That night, back in his own room, it had been the same for him as for Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng… At the time he had put it down to the drink and the pitching of the boat and thought no more about it.
Pan Yucheng frowned. “We went over the food and the drink before we picked up our chopsticks and there was nothing wrong with them… The drug cannot have been in the food or the wine.”
Ning Chen inclined his head slightly. “It must have been on the chopsticks, or in the cups.”
Feng Qizheng asked, curious, “Ning Chen, how is it nothing happened to you?”
“I… I know where the poison was. If I’m not mistaken it was smeared inside the cups… I have a habit of rinsing my cup out with water or wine when I eat away from home, so the dose I took was small, and I came through it.”
Pan Yucheng was about to speak when Chen Chong came back with two red coats.
“Ning Chen. I looked at the record. These two were among the men on the gate that day… The others are off shift. Do you want them brought in?”
Ning Chen waved a hand and looked at the two red coats. “You were on duty on the twenty-seventh of last month. Did you get a letter that was tied to an arrow?”
The two red coats looked at each other and nodded and nodded.
It had made a strong impression on them. The arrow had come down at their feet with a letter tied to it.
“Where is the letter?”
One of the red coats said quickly, “Reporting to my lord. It went to the seventh department.”
Ning Chen was not surprised. Every letter and every lead went to the seventh department, which gathered them, summarized them and reported them up to Geng Jing.
If Geng Jing had seen that letter he could never have let it lie.
“Who did it go to?”
One red coat said, “It went to Jiang Cun, Jiang the Silver Coat of the seventh department. This subordinate handed it to him himself.”
Ning Chen looked at Chen Chong. “Old Chen. Go bring me Jiang Cun. If he offers any resistance, take him.”
Chen Chong nodded. “I know Jiang Cun. Jiang Cun is one of the five the seventh department lent us today… I’ll go get him now.”
After a little while Chen Chong brought Jiang Cun back.
“This subordinate Jiang Cun greets my lord, Geng the Purple Coat, Pan the Gold Coat.”
Ning Chen looked him over and pointed at the red coat beside him. “Jiang Cun. On the twenty-seventh of last month, did this man hand you a letter?”
Jiang Cun turned his head and looked at the red coat, thought about it, and said, “Reporting to my lord. He did hand this subordinate a letter that day.”
“Where is the letter?”
“There was no telling where that letter had come from. I handed it to Han the Gold Coat.”
Ning Chen narrowed his eyes a little. “Old Pan, Old Feng… you two get some proper rest.”
“Lord Geng. Let’s go have a word with this Han the Gold Coat.”
Geng Jing nodded.
They went to the seventh department together.
The lamp was still lit in Han Ji’s room.
Ning Chen waved a hand to stop the silver coats and red coats coming forward to make their bows, went straight to the door of Han Ji’s room, pushed it open and walked in.
Han Ji was sitting behind the table, something flickering in his eyes, and there was no telling what he was thinking.
Ning Chen shoving the door open startled him, and he was about to lose his temper — and then he saw clearly that it was Ning Chen and Geng Jing who had come in, and got up quickly and came forward to make his bow.
Ning Chen pointed at Jiang Cun. “Han the Gold Coat. Where is the letter Jiang Cun handed you on the twenty-seventh of last month?”
A slight change went over Han Ji’s face, and then he made a show of thinking about it and said with a fawning smile, “My lord! The letters I get in a day are past counting. I don’t know which one my lord is asking about.”
Ning Chen said heavily, “Wasn’t I clear enough? The one Jiang Cun handed you.”
Han Ji looked puzzled and turned to Jiang Cun. “Did you hand me a letter that day?”
Jiang Cun nodded. “Han the Gold Coat, it was that letter nobody could account for. I told you at the time that somebody had tied it to an arrow and shot it at the Inspectorate’s gate.”
“And you opened it and looked at it then.”
Han Ji thought about it, and must have realized that playing the fool was no use, and said quickly, “Where are my wits — there was such a thing.”
(End of Chapter 427)