Ning Chen let go of the horse the Poisoner had ridden.
The horse set off toward the city at its own unhurried pace.
Ning Chen and the others followed on horseback, well back.
The horse went through the outer city and on into the inner city, and at last it stopped at the back gate of a great walled compound.
Every face among Pan Yucheng’s men changed.
This was the Left Chancellor’s residence.
The whole group of them looked at one another.
Only Ning Chen was calm, because he had guessed it long before.
“Chief. What do we do?”
Feng Qizheng asked it.
Pan Yucheng’s brows drew tight together.
He turned his head and looked at Ning Chen.
Ning Chen gave a mild smile and said just one word. “Search.”
Every one of them started!
This was the Left Chancellor’s residence.
Ning Chen said heavily, “We carry the emperor’s favor on our backs, and we are here to take a burden off His Majesty… We have a thread to follow. It doesn’t matter whose ground it runs onto. We search.”
“Ning Chen, have you thought this through? This is the Left Chancellor’s residence. It wants care!”
A sly smile crossed Ning Chen’s face, and he said, “The Poisoner has fled into the Left Chancellor’s residence. The man has nothing human in him at all. What if the Left Chancellor comes to harm?”
“We are not here to investigate the Left Chancellor’s residence. Our purpose is to protect the Left Chancellor.”
Every eye there brightened a little.
“Just so. We are here to protect the Left Chancellor.”
“That’s it, that’s it… The Poisoner is ruthless. We have to find him. The Left Chancellor cannot be left in danger.”
Pan Yucheng gave Ning Chen a look, and a smile came onto his face. The boy’s mind really is quick.
“You few, ring the residence. Don’t let the thief slip out… The rest of you, come into the residence with me and take the Poisoner.”
“Yes!”
They did not have many men. A dozen or so.
Ning Chen, Feng Qizheng, Gao Ziping and Chen Chong went into the residence to search with Pan Yucheng.
The rest held the back gate and the walls on the other three sides.
Ning Chen and the others came around to the main gate of the residence.
Pan Yucheng went up and knocked.
Bang, bang, bang!!!
“Coming.”
The voice came, and the gate opened a crack.
The man who opened it was somewhere in his thirties, and the sight of Ning Chen and the others in fish-scale coats brought him up short.
This was the Left Chancellor’s porter — the doorkeeper, that is, the man who watched the gate.
Ning Chen said, smiling, “Is the Left Chancellor at home?”
A chancellor’s gate has an official of the third grade standing at it, as the saying goes.
The man was only a doorkeeper, but the sight of the Inspectorate did not fluster him in the least. “His Excellency has gone to bed. Was there something you wanted?”
Ning Chen pointed at the horse behind him. “A horse belonging to the residence got loose. We came out of our way to bring it back.”
The doorkeeper went up on his toes and looked, and then said, “The lords have gone to some trouble. You can leave it with me!”
“Look properly. Is it the residence’s horse or isn’t it? We wouldn’t want a mistake.”
The doorkeeper came out, went up to the horse, walked a circuit around it and nodded. “That’s right. It’s the residence’s horse.”
Ning Chen and the others smiled.
They wasted no more words on him, and started straight inside.
“Hey! You — you there, stop. This is the Chancellor’s residence. You can’t go breaking into it as you please.”
The doorkeeper took to his heels after them and got in their way.
“Turn out! There are men breaking into the residence.”
The doorkeeper shouted it at the top of his voice.
A rush of footsteps came up, and a dozen or more men came out at them from every side.
These were the residence’s house guards, and every one of them could fight.
But the sight of the fish-scale coats on Ning Chen and the others kept them from starting anything.
Shk!!!
Feng Qizheng drew his saber outright and laid it on the doorkeeper’s shoulder.
“We have had word that somebody means to do the Left Chancellor harm… Stand in our way again, and if it costs the Left Chancellor his life, and His Majesty comes to hear of it, you will be punished to the ninth degree of kin!”
The doorkeeper’s face went chalk white with fright.
“Do you understand me?”
The doorkeeper nodded, shaking as he did it.
“Lead the way. If one hair of His Excellency’s is out of place, I’ll have your dogs’ lives!”
Feng Qizheng looked murderous, and the roar of it nearly put the doorkeeper flat on the ground.
The doorkeeper went ahead of them and led the way, and could not do it fast enough.
If anything really did go wrong with the Left Chancellor, even ten heads would not be enough for the chopping.
The Chancellor’s residence. A sealed room.
The Left Chancellor sat with his big belly out in front of him and his face dark.
A figure wrapped from head to foot in a black robe stood facing him. It was the Poisoner.
The Left Chancellor’s voice came out cold. “I never thought a bastard would be this hard to kill.”
“This small man knows his fault! I beg Your Excellency to give this small man one more chance.”
The Left Chancellor waved a hand. “If the pressure from above were not so hard, I would not have come down to so poor an expedient… I will say this much — the boy’s life is hard to take. This time you not only failed to kill him, you showed yourself.”
“You can’t be seen for the time being. The gates will be shut by now, and the Inspectorate has most likely started searching in earnest!”
“Keep your head down and stay hidden a while, and we’ll talk again when it has blown over.”
The Poisoner was low about it himself. He had killed a good many men for His Excellency over the years, whether by his own hand or by hiring it done, and he had never once missed.
He had not expected to be brought down this time. There was no honor in those men, and they sold him.
“You left nothing behind you on the way back, I take it?”
The Poisoner said, “Your Excellency may be easy. I guarantee I left nothing behind me.”
The Left Chancellor nodded slightly and was about to speak when the bell in the sealed room began to ring.
He got up, went over and opened the door of the sealed room.
Outside stood a man with a long thin face and cold eyes.
“Your Excellency. The Inspectorate is here.”
The Left Chancellor was badly startled. He glanced back at the Poisoner, then asked heavily, “What’s happened?”
“They have come to return a horse.”
The Left Chancellor stared for a moment. “What horse?”
The other man pointed at the Poisoner. “He left his horse and came back on foot. The residence’s brand was rubbed off the saddle, but an old horse knows the road.”
The Left Chancellor turned back to the Poisoner. “You idiot. Useless at getting anything done and expert at ruining it… If the Inspectorate turns up anything, this chancellor will kill you first.”
“Forgive this small man, Your Excellency. The Inspectorate was hard behind me and this small man could only leave the horse and run… This small man did not think it through. Calm your anger, Your Excellency!”
The Left Chancellor’s eyes fixed on him, cold.
Hidden inside the hood, the Poisoner’s face went a dreadful white, and sweat came out on his forehead in beads the size of soybeans.
The Left Chancellor made a cold sound in his nose and said angrily, “Useless. You will stay right here and give me no trouble.”
That said, he took his men and left.
Ning Chen and the others had reached the inner court.
The house guards of the residence had them ringed. They did not dare lay hands on them, but they did not fall back either.
Feng Qizheng kept his eyes on the doorkeeper. “Where is the Left Chancellor?”
“My lord, put up the saber, if you please. This is the Chancellor’s residence. It is not the Inspectorate, where you may wave your blades around as you like.”
A small, spare middle-aged man in fine silks, with a goat’s beard, parted the crowd and came forward.
Ning Chen looked him over. “And who are you?”
“I am the steward of the residence. Ding Chengye.”
Ning Chen’s face was serious. “Steward Ding, we have had word that somebody means to murder the Left Chancellor. Take us to him quickly.”
Steward Ding said, with a smile that went no deeper than the skin, “My lord goes too far! The residence would not presume to be spoken of in the same breath as the palace, but it is not a place where every petty thief can run wild.”
“My lords may set their minds at rest. If somebody really did mean to murder His Excellency… then all one can say is that the man does not know his own measure and is going out of his way to die.”
“It is late. His Excellency wears himself out for the country. He is worn out in body and mind, and he so seldom sleeps soundly. Let us not disturb him… My lords, please go home!”
(End of Chapter 124)