The Empress’s brother meant to kill these people in front of Ning Chen, so the boy would know what came of offending him.

“You animal. You dare?”

Ning Chen’s eyes were ready to split, and he roared it out.

The Empress’s brother’s face was one cold smile, and he said it with contempt. “Ning Chen. This Empress’s brother will teach you what imperial kin means. The whole world under heaven belongs to my family. If I tread on a few ants, what is anybody going to do about it?”

“I want you to understand. I am the law. I am the sky over Chongzhou. What I say happens here.”

Pan Yucheng frowned deeply. “Empress’s brother. This is hardly proper, is it?”

The Empress’s brother made a cold sound. “Pan the Gold Coat. What happens today — you don’t speak of it, I don’t speak of it, and nobody will ever know… You took my money. You do my work.”

Ning Chen’s eyes were red, and he fixed them on Pan Yucheng and would not look away.

“So you did take something from him… Pan Yucheng, you are no kind of man. Can you look at that coat on your back and say you have earned it?”

Pan Yucheng paid Ning Chen no attention.

He kept his eyes on the Empress’s brother. “I am a gold coat of the Inspectorate. If the Empress’s brother kills men in front of me and word of it gets out and reaches His Majesty’s ear, I will have no answer to give.”

The Empress’s brother laughed coldly. “That is your affair.”

The words were out, and he raised the sword slowly.

“Stop. Stop, I said—”

Ning Chen was screaming it, and he fought against the men holding him with everything he had.

The Empress’s brother looked back at him with contempt all over his face. “A little nothing of a silver coat, and he dares set himself against me… Open your eyes wide and see how I grind these few ants out.”

“Once they’re dealt with I’ll play with you at my leisure… Setting yourself against me is setting yourself against the imperial house. When the time comes it won’t only be you. Your family dies with you, and there’s no escaping the entire household to the sword.”

Ning Chen’s eyes went cold.

He could not be certain what the Xuan Emperor had meant by having Geng Jing pass on look into it to the bottom — whether he wanted the Empress’s brother removed by Ning Chen’s own hand.

But that phrase — the entire household to the sword — brought the blood up in him.

If he had guessed the Xuan Emperor’s meaning right, killing the Empress’s brother would not kill him. He might come out of it with rank and title.

If he had guessed wrong, and it came to the entire household to the sword, then taking Ning Ziming and Chang Ruyue and her sons along the same road was no bad thing either.

Fuck it. All in. Take the gamble.

Ning Chen let out a roar and threw himself forward.

Chen Chong and the other silver coat could not hold him. He tore loose from them.

Ning Chen rolled where he stood, came up with his own sword, and went at the Empress’s brother like a hunting leopard.

“Ning Chen, don’t—”

Pan Yucheng’s face changed entirely and he shouted it aloud.

The rest of them went white with the shock of it.

Ning Chen reached the Empress’s brother and swept the sword out with the whole of his fury behind it.

“Agh—”

The Empress’s brother was still screaming in terror when the long sword went into his neck.

The warm blood came over Ning Chen’s face, and the sword stuck in the man’s neck and would not pull free.

Every man there was frightened stupid by it.

This was imperial kin… Killing one of them is a crime punishable to the ninth degree of kin.

Ning Chen let go of the hilt. The Empress’s brother’s body went down with a thud, and the noise of it woke every frightened man in the yard.

Pan Yucheng’s face was as grave as it could be, and he said it heavily. “Take him.”

Chen Chong and the other silver coat came forward.

Ning Chen did not resist this time. They put manacles on his wrists and irons on his legs.

Pan Yucheng’s brows drew into three hard lines.

This had become a very large piece of trouble.

Ning Chen was held for the time being in a room in the Empress’s brother’s house, with silver coats to watch him.

Pan Yucheng still had the wreckage to deal with.

In three days Ning Chen would be taken up to the capital under escort and tried.

Everybody knew the answer already, as a matter of fact. Ning Chen was a dead man this time and there was no question about it.

Chen Chong came into the room with food.

The morning’s meal was still sitting there. Not a mouthful had been touched.

Ning Chen sat on a round stool with the manacles and the leg irons on him, and when he heard Chen Chong come in he did not even raise his head.

Chen Chong let out a breath and came over. “Ning Chen. Eat something. Go on like this and your body will give out before you ever reach the capital.”

Ning Chen laughed coldly. “You don’t have to put it on. I know I’m a dead man this time… So don’t waste the food.”

“If you’ve got the time for false feeling, you’d do better to give this food to the people outside who are starving to death.”

Chen Chong frowned. “You have us wrong.”

“Wrong? Are you telling me you took no bribe? That you didn’t take the Empress’s brother’s money?”

Chen Chong said, “We took the Empress’s brother’s silver, but that was to keep him and the officials of Chongzhou steady… Pan the Gold Coat has every tael of it entered in a book and has sent men to carry it back to the capital… All of it is evidence for convicting them later.”

Ning Chen raised his head and looked at him, and let out a cold laugh. He did not believe a word of it.

“Then why did you stop me taking the Empress’s brother?”

“Ning Chen, you were too rash. What we are here to do is clean out the whole of Chongzhou’s officialdom. We have no proof and no evidence — what are we supposed to arrest anybody with? Even if you had gotten the Empress’s brother back to the capital and said he treated a human life as so much grass and carried off other men’s daughters… none of that would have convicted him.”

Chen Chong paused, and went on. “Behind the Empress’s brother is the reigning Empress, and even His Majesty has to give the Empress some face… Without hard proof there is nothing anybody can do to the Empress’s brother.”

“We stopped you to protect you… That stroke of yours felt good, I’m sure, but you put yourself in the ground with it.”

Hearing Chen Chong say it, Ning Chen grew surer of his own guess.

The Xuan Emperor had the Empress’s face to consider and could not move against her brother directly… and so he wanted him removed by Ning Chen’s hand.

“Is the old physician all right? And the others?”

Chen Chong said, “Pan the Gold Coat has already let them go home… You should be worrying about yourself. Still finding room to think about other people at a time like this.”

Ning Chen said it mildly. “Then he has done one decent thing at last.”

Chen Chong frowned. “Ning Chen. You still don’t believe us?”

Ning Chen said nothing.

Of course he did not believe them. If he had, he would have handed over the evidence.

Once he was back in the capital he would have to find a way to see Old General Chen… The old general was the only man he trusted, and the evidence would go to him.

Chen Chong shook his head, turned and went out.

The next morning Gao Ziping and Feng Qizheng arrived.

The two of them had heard news of Ning Chen and been beside themselves with relief… and had not been happy three seconds before they heard that Ning Chen had killed the Empress’s brother.

They gave up any thought of quiet inquiries and came in a rush to find Pan Yucheng and the rest.

“Ning Chen, you fool. Why couldn’t you hold on to yourself?”

“You’ve put yourself in the ground over a piece of human garbage. Was it worth it?”

“It’s our fault for not keeping you in sight… If we’d been together the whole way this would never have happened.”

The moment the two of them saw Ning Chen they pointed at the end of his nose and went at him, sick at heart with it.

Ning Chen smiled a little and said it softly. “Stop scolding me. The blood went to my head and I couldn’t hold it in.”

The two of them stared at him and for a long while could not say anything at all.

“God damn it, we should never have brought you to Zhenyuan County.”

“Putting yourself in the ground over a piece of human garbage. It wasn’t worth it. I don’t think it was worth a thing—”

Gao Ziping’s dark face was full of fury, and he kicked over the chair beside him.

Ning Chen said, smiling, “Can the two of you give it a rest? You’ve done nothing but scold me since you walked in.”

“Don’t you deserve scolding? You— never mind. It’s too late for any of it now.”

Gao Ziping and Feng Qizheng sighed and went on sighing… In their hearts they thought it was a waste of Ning Chen, and they grieved over it.

With ability like his, Ning Chen had a future worth looking at.

He was fifteen years old.

Three days later a prison cart came out of the Empress’s brother’s house.

The moment it was through the gate something moved violently behind Ning Chen’s eyes, and his face changed, and he got slowly to his feet in the cart.

Both sides of the street were full of the common people, standing.

Over these few days the news that Ning Chen had cut down the Empress’s brother had gone everywhere.

These people had come to see Ning Chen off.

“Lord Ning has been wronged. We beg your lordships to look into it properly.”

“Lord Ning does not deserve to die. He is a good man.”

“Lord Ning—”

The people pressed in toward the prison cart.

The silver coats escorting Ning Chen put their hands on their hilts, tense with it.

“Back. Everybody back—”

“Nobody comes near the cart—”

(End of Chapter 56)