Geng Jing was furious. Ning Chen had slapped his face and then spat on it.

Earlier, when the Xuan Emperor had told Ning Chen to join the Inspectorate, Geng Jing had been thoroughly unwilling.

The boy would only be wearing a silver fish-scale coat, but the emperor had named him personally, and Geng Jing had no idea how he was supposed to handle that.

Now he wanted Ning Chen in the Inspectorate. Once he was in, there would be room to work on him properly.

The Xuan Emperor was having trouble keeping a straight face. So it was the Inspectorate’s stinking name. Not any unwillingness to serve the imperial house.

“Ning Chen. The Inspectorate watches the officials of the empire and handles the great cases and the grave ones. It isn’t a charity house. Its name is not a pleasant one, that much is true.”

“But you overflow with talent. Once you have joined, you can write a good many poems praising the Inspectorate, and change the impression that is fixed in people’s minds.”

Christ… he wants to freeload my poems? Not a chance in this world.

But from the way the emperor was talking, joining the Inspectorate was not going to be optional.

Sure enough, the Xuan Emperor spoke. “Ning Chen. That is settled, then.”

“Geng Jing?”

“Your subject is here.”

The Xuan Emperor pointed at Ning Chen. “Take him to the Inspectorate presently and see to his appointment.”

Geng Jing said quickly, “Your subject obeys the imperial command.”

Ning Chen smiled without humor.

At least he had come out of it alive.

Then something occurred to him. Perhaps joining the Inspectorate was not such a bad thing after all.

He could save the people of Zhenyuan County. He could finish what Tao Qizhi had left undone.

Thinking of Tao Qizhi put a bad taste in his mouth.

The Xuan Emperor pointed at the food covering the table. “Ning Chen. The crown prince tells this emperor you are very fond of the roast duck at the Heavenly Blessing Tower, so some was got ready for you.”

“You had barely eaten a mouthful that day before you went off to play the hero. This emperor is making it up to you now.”

Ning Chen thanked him at once. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

He looked at Xuan Hong. So the man is the crown prince. What a little shit.

“This humble commoner, Ning Chen, presenting himself to His Highness the crown prince.”

Ning Chen made a salute over clasped hands, neither warm nor cold, and about as perfunctory as a salute can be made.

The crown prince laughed drily. “No ceremony is needed.”

“Your Highness. Everything that happened that day was arranged by you, wasn’t it?”

If Xuan Hong was the crown prince, then the Fifth Prince could not have been a stranger to him. And if they knew each other, and the Fifth Prince still dared behave that way, it meant the crown prince had put him up to it.

The crown prince nodded. “Ning Chen. All I wanted that day was to see what sort of character you had. I never expected it to end up like that.”

So that was the reason. To test his character.

To test him, and spend the Fifth Prince doing it. This crown prince was no gentle soul either.

“Is the Fifth Prince all right?”

Ning Chen asked it with a great show of concern and not a scrap of sincerity in it.

He knew perfectly well what he had done. He had put everything he had into that strike, and the Fifth Prince’s breastbone would be broken, and the man would not be getting out of bed for some time.

The crown prince shook his head. “That man was not the Fifth Prince. He was one of my bodyguards.”

Ning Chen had no answer to that.

Christ… so the Fifth Prince was a fake.

He should have seen it. For a thing like that, any man off the street would do. There was no need to put the real Fifth Prince in front of anybody.

Ning Chen said it flatly, with no warmth in it either way. “Your Highness has wisdom beyond the ordinary. Strategy without equal.”

The sarcasm in that was thick enough to chew, and the crown prince’s face went red.

The Xuan Emperor coughed. “Out of the cells five minutes and this much talk? Do you want to go back in? Is the duck not fragrant enough, or is the meal set out for you not generous enough?”

Ning Chen did not dare push it any further.

The emperor does look after his own.

“This humble commoner thanks Your Majesty for the favor.”

He didn’t stand on ceremony either. He sat down and set to.

He had been keeping vigil for Tao Qizhi and had gone nearly three days without eating. His stomach was against his backbone.

The crown prince knew perfectly well how badly Ning Chen thought of him now, and wanting to close the distance between them, he went so far as to stoop to putting a helping of eggs scrambled with garlic chives into Ning Chen’s bowl.

“Ning Chen. You’ve suffered in there. Eat more.”

“Thank you, Your Highness. But this humble commoner doesn’t care for eggs. Things that come out of a backside.”

Ning Chen said it very politely, and then picked out every scrap of what the crown prince had given him and set it aside.

Then he helped himself to several mouthfuls of eggs scrambled with garlic chives, put his head down, and ate with every sign of enjoyment.

The corner of the crown prince’s mouth twitched.

Every other forehead in the room ran with cold sweat.

The boy just slapped the crown prince in the face. Does he not want to live?

They stole a look at the Xuan Emperor.

There was a smile at the corner of his eyes. He did not mind it in the least.

Is Ning Chen His Majesty’s illegitimate son?

It was not only Geng Jing thinking it now. Every one of them was.

To the Xuan Emperor it was nothing at all. Ning Chen was a boy of fifteen, and a boy of fifteen is all edges, and a little temper in him is only natural. In a few years the edges would wear down.

When they had eaten and drunk their fill, the imperial carriage set off back to the palace.

Inside it something occurred to the Xuan Emperor, and he asked Eunuch Quan, waiting at his side, “From beginning to end just now — did Ning Chen ever once kneel to this emperor?”

Your Majesty has only just thought of it?

At the time he had been signalling Ning Chen with his eyes without a pause, trying to get him to kneel and give thanks… and Ning Chen had gone about it like a blind man, as though there were nothing to see.

“That boy… never mind. This emperor will deal with him next time.”

Something went sour in the crown prince. Which of us is actually your son?

He was the crown prince, and he was dressed down three times a day… He had begun to envy Ning Chen. He would rather have been him.

Elsewhere, Geng Jing had brought Ning Chen back to the Inspectorate.

“Lord Geng. I’m probably the first man ever to walk out of the Inspectorate gate alive.”

Geng Jing said it without any expression at all. “You should be grateful for His Majesty’s mercy.”

Ning Chen turned toward the palace and bowed over clasped fists. “This humble commoner, Ning Chen, kneels in thanks for heaven’s favor.”

The corner of Geng Jing’s mouth twitched. Could you possibly be any more false about it?

“Ning Chen. Once you join the Inspectorate you are a servant of His Majesty. You can’t go on calling yourself a humble commoner.”

Ning Chen made a sound and asked, “What rank does that make me, then?”

“The Inspectorate has no ranks and no offices. It answers to His Majesty and to nobody else.”

Ning Chen’s mouth went sideways. That part didn’t trouble him. What he cared about was silver.

“Lord Geng. What’s the pay for a year?”

Geng Jing gave him a look of distaste. “Red coat, one hundred taels a year. Silver coat, three hundred taels a year. Gold coat, eight hundred taels a year.”

“On top of that there’s the integrity stipend, some other benefits, and rewards for merit.”

Ning Chen was astonished. “That’s remarkable. A red coat draws the same pay as a third- or fourth-rank official of the court.”

Geng Jing said, “We eat our fill so that nothing distracts us from serving His Majesty.”

“And what does Lord Geng draw in a year?”

Geng Jing glanced at him. “What business is that of yours? The first thing to learn in the Inspectorate is to shut your mouth. Don’t ask what you shouldn’t ask.”

Christ… you told me everybody else’s pay and then not your own. That’s a double standard if I ever heard one.

They came to the door of a room as they talked.

Geng Jing said to the man in the red fish-scale coat at the door, “Fetch Pan the Gold Coat.”

Pan the Gold Coat — his full name was Pan Yucheng — was one of the Inspectorate’s eight gold coats.

(End of Chapter 38)