Ning Chen had reached the back courtyard by now, and he saw the well Hu Qiang had spoken of.

The mouth of it was sealed over with a slab of bluestone.

The moment he laid eyes on that well his face went iron-gray. He knew there was far more chance of ill than good for Chai Dazhuang’s wife.

The mouth of the well was damp, which meant there was water in it.

If it had been a dry well, she might still be alive.

But there was water down there, and the odds of surviving that were not good.

Ning Chen went forward quickly, moved the bluestone slab aside and put his head over the edge.

It was dim down there and he couldn’t see well.

He took out a fire striker, lit it and dropped it down.

By that small light he saw a person floating on the surface of the water.

Ning Chen’s face was as bad as a face can be.

He had come too late after all.

He had given his word to Uncle Chai and to Chai Dazhuang that he would bring her back.

And now she was dead… and he had no idea how he was supposed to face Uncle Chai.

Thinking of Uncle Chai, and of Chai Dazhuang begging him to save his wife, and of that child howling and howling — the anger rose in Ning Chen until it burned, and murder moved in him.

His head snapped around toward the house servant.

The man dropped to his knees with a thud in fright, knocking his head on the ground over and over and begging. “Mercy, my lord, mercy, I beg you… this small person is only an ordinary servant. I don’t know anything about it.”

Ning Chen fixed his eyes on him and said it one word at a time. “Go to the Inspectorate. Find a man called Gao Ziping. Tell him what has happened here… If the message doesn’t get there, I’ll kill your whole family.”

“This small person will go at once. Rest easy, my lord, this small person will get the message there…”

The servant got shakily to his feet and went off half running and half falling.

Ning Chen’s face was ice, and he strode off toward the front courtyard.

But he had barely come out of the back courtyard when Hu Maode came up to meet him with several house servants. “My lord, it isn’t the way you think. We didn’t kill that woman. She lost her footing and fell into the well herself, and by the time we found her it was already too late to save her.”

“My lord, everything I’m telling you is true. That woman was in my house doing the washing and odd jobs. She was washing clothes at the well side when she lost her footing and fell in.”

“I know it was wrong of us to conceal it and not report it. I can make it up to her family. I’ll give them a hundred taels of silver.”

Ning Chen’s eyes were ice. He said nothing at all. He stepped forward and kicked him.

Bang!!!

Hu Maode was kicked off his feet and went down.

Ning Chen drew the saber and drove it straight into his thigh.

“Aah—”

Hu Maode gave a scream like a pig on the block.

The several house servants standing by were white with terror and shaking from head to foot.

“I am a scholar of the Great Xuan. You dare injure me with no evidence and no warrant, you— aah—”

Ning Chen pulled the saber out and drove it straight into the other thigh.

The veins stood out all over Hu Maode with the pain, and he screamed like a madman.

Ning Chen wrenched the saber out and laid it against one of the house servants’ necks.

The man looked at the edge with the blood still running off it, and his legs went out from under him. He knelt on the ground and screamed in terror, “Mercy, my lord, mercy, I beg you…”

Ning Chen said coldly, “Tell me the truth and I’ll spare your life… Tell me one lie and your life ends here.”

“I’ll talk, I’ll talk… it was the young master. He saw that the woman was good-looking and he forced himself on her, and then he shut her up.”

“Yesterday the young master had been drinking, and he went to abuse the woman again. She fought him and stabbed him with a pair of scissors, and got out while she could… The young master chased her to the back courtyard, and then… and then he threw her into the well.”

“When the master found out, he sent men to seal the mouth of the well, and gave us all orders that nobody was to speak of it.”

“He was afraid the woman’s family would find out and go to the authorities, so he sent men to her house to say she had taken a fancy to our young master, and to force her husband to write a writ of divorce!”

Ning Chen was shaking with rage.

It was a vicious thing.

If Chai Dazhuang had written the writ of divorce, his wife would have had nothing to do with the Chai family any more… and whether she lived or died, they would have had no standing to ask.

“You beast.”

Ning Chen said it low, and walked over and put a foot on Hu Maode’s chest, and raised the saber in his hand.

Hu Maode was frightened out of his soul and screamed in terror. “What do you think you’re doing? I didn’t kill her. I am a scholar of the Great Xuan. Even if I had truly committed a crime, it takes a joint trial of the Three Judicial Offices to convict me… Kill me and there’s no way out for you either.”

Ning Chen said it one word at a time. “Hu Maode. You let your son do murder. You treated a human life as so much grass. You sheltered a criminal. The crimes are heaped one on another, and there isn’t bamboo enough in the world to write it all down… The crime deserves beheading!”

“No, you have no authority to find me guilty, you can’t kill me, you— aah—”

And through Hu Maode’s terrified screaming, the cold long blade in Ning Chen’s hand came down.

Thuck!!!

Blood spattered three feet.

Hu Maode’s head very nearly came off.

The few house servants sank to the ground where they stood, shaking like a sieve of chaff, and there was no color left in their faces.

Ning Chen shook the blood off the saber and was about to put these servants to the question when all at once he registered that something was wrong.

Hu Maode should have been doing everything in his power to save his son just now. Why would he come looking for me of his own accord?

Ning Chen’s eyes narrowed, and he understood at once. Hu Maode was buying time.

“Where is Hu Qiang?”

One of the servants said shakily, “The young master was taken away by Steward Liu.”

“Taken where?”

“This, this small person doesn’t know!”

Ning Chen made a cold sound. Fled to escape the charge… This is the capital. Is there anywhere to run?

He went quickly to the front courtyard and whistled, and Diaochan came running.

Ning Chen swung up onto her and rode straight out of the Hu residence.

The north gate was the nearest from here. If Hu Qiang meant to get out of the city, he would certainly go by the north gate.

And if he hadn’t, it hardly mattered… So long as the man was still inside the walls, there was nobody the Inspectorate could not find.

Ning Chen dug his heels into her belly and rode hard for the north gate.

He galloped the whole way and came to the north gate.

The gate garrison saw the silver fish-scale coat and saluted at once.

“Has a carriage gone out? With an injured young man in it.”

He had tortured Hu Qiang half to death. To get away, the man would have to travel by carriage.

“Yes, my lord. Half an hour ago a carriage went out with an injured young gentleman in it, very much as my lord describes.”

“My thanks!”

Ning Chen rode on after them.

There were only two roads outside the city, the highway and the road the common people used.

Hu Qiang’s carriage would certainly not have dared take the highway in plain sight of the gate garrison.

Ning Chen rode flat out.

In the city there was never room to run, and it had been fretting Diaochan badly.

Now that she was outside the walls, Diaochan let herself all the way out. She went like a bolt of black lightning, the wind coming so hard into Ning Chen’s face that it pulled his features out of shape, and the dust flying up everywhere she passed.

A carriage could never make the speed of a man on horseback.

And besides, the horse Ning Chen rode was the warhorse Old General Chen had given him, which was faster still.

In no more than half an hour, a carriage came into Ning Chen’s view.

A house servant was driving it, and all at once he heard hoofbeats coming up hard behind him.

He turned to look over his shoulder. It was too far to make out Ning Chen’s face, but he could see the silver fish-scale coat.

The servant went white and shouted in a panic, “Steward Liu, young master… the Inspectorate is on us.”

Inside the carriage, Steward Liu and Hu Qiang were frightened out of their souls on the instant.

Steward Liu put his head out of the little window and looked back, and in that instant his face went bloodless, and there was no color left in it.

“Faster, go faster, get more speed out of it—”

The servant laid on the whip like a madman. “Hyah! Hyah! Hyah!”

Ning Chen saw the carriage suddenly pick up speed, and he laughed coldly, bent down and patted Diaochan’s neck. “It’s on you now!”

Diaochan let out a scream, and her speed rose again, and the power that came out of her was astonishing.

(End of Chapter 100)