Ning Chen narrowed his eyes and began to laugh, watching the singing girls swaying on the stage, and marveled inwardly that these motherfuckers really knew how to live.

No wonder every man alive wants to be an official.

Money doesn’t mean power. But power always means money.

Before long the waiters filed in one after another and the good dishes went onto the table.

“Lord Ning, it’s plain fare, nothing like the treasures of the hills and the sea you get in the capital. It’s poor hospitality, and I hope General Ning will bear with us!”

Zhang Yuancang said it and raised his cup. “Come. Let’s drink a cup to General Ning!”

Ning Chen raised his cup and began passing the cups back and forth with the officials of Lingzhou.

Before long the singing girls came down off the stage to drink to him too, and the room warmed up all at once.

“This girl heard of Lord Ning’s great name here in Lingzhou long ago, and to see him today is the good fortune of three lifetimes… This girl drinks a cup to General Ning.”

“General Ning is brimming with talent, accomplished in letters and arms both, and so good-looking besides. This girl’s heart is fairly melting. Feel it yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Three painted little sluts had Ning Chen surrounded, and one of them was sitting on his lap with her arms around his neck, her soft chest rubbing at him again and again.

The teasing was getting to him, and he was having trouble keeping a grip on himself.

He did in fact reach out and feel, with a wicked smile all over his face. “Mm. That heart is very soft. And very big.”

The singing girl laughed prettily, over and over. “General Ning, you’re awful. You’ll have to take responsibility.”

Ning Chen gave a dirty grin. “All right. Tonight this general will help you plug the leak, though I’m afraid the more I plug it the more there’ll be.”

Ning Chen looked back and saw that Feng Qizheng and Chen Chong had long since been teased clean out of their senses.

Only Pan Yucheng sat with his face set hard, steady as an old dog, wearing a look that said strangers keep away.

While he flirted with the girl in his lap, Ning Chen kept glancing over at one official on the far side of the room.

The man was not like the rest of them. He drank alone and gloomily, he never came over to drink to anybody, and he looked thoroughly miserable.

He had been watching this man a long while.

His official robe was old, his frame was thin, and his face carried a great sorrow and an old score.

The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth curved a little.

He patted the girl in his lap on her upturned backside to tell her to get up.

Ning Chen stood. “You all keep drinking. I’m going out to the privy.”

Zhang Yuancang stood up. “My lord, let this lowly official go with you.”

Ning Chen put a hand on his shoulder and pressed him back into his chair. “No, no… I’m the kind of man who can’t piss with somebody watching. You all drink. I’ll be right back.”

On his way out, Ning Chen shot a glance at the official drinking alone.

The man was drinking away by himself, but Ning Chen caught him stealing looks at him the whole time.

Ning Chen asked one of the waiters where the privy was, then went downstairs and out to the back courtyard.

He did not go into the privy. He hid behind the locust tree in the yard.

A short while later a figure came creeping up to the privy on tiptoe.

There was a stick in his hand.

The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched. Is he planning to club me from behind?

The man pricked up his ears and listened, then yanked the privy door open and began jabbing away inside with the stick in his hand.

Ning Chen’s face went sour.

If he had been in there, he might well have been jabbed straight down into the cesspit.

After jabbing away for a while the man seemed to figure out that he had not hit anybody, and he stopped and put his head in for a look.

He must have found nobody inside, because he glanced around him, flustered.

Seeing nobody around, he dropped the stick and made to slip away.

Ning Chen coughed once and stepped out from behind the tree.

The man’s body went rigid, his feet stopped dead, and then he turned his head to look.

A moment later he bowed. “This lowly official is Jiang Zhengyang, Governor of Lingzhou, presenting himself to General Ning.”

Ning Chen came slowly toward him with one hand on his blade. “And what is Lord Jiang doing out here?”

“This lowly official has had a cup too many. I came out to relieve myself!”

“Oh,” Ning Chen said. “You came out to relieve yourself with a stick?”

Jiang Zhengyang answered him in no hurry at all. “General Ning, this is a shit-stirring stick… Lingzhou is frozen hard, and the filth has come up over the top of the pit. Men come out to relieve themselves all day and nobody cleans it, so the whole of Lingzhou stinks to heaven.”

The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched. He had caught it. The little shit was not talking about the privy. He was cursing them.

“Lord Jiang is talking about the privy?”

Jiang Zhengyang said, “I am!”

“You mean to say Lingzhou is one big privy. Is that it?”

“General Ning has misunderstood. This lowly official meant nothing of the kind.”

Ning Chen smiled without a sound. “I’ve been watching you this whole while. Governor of Lingzhou, equal in authority to the Prefect, and your robe is worn out and every man in that room leaves you alone… I think I know the reason now. You have a truly obnoxious way of talking.”

“Still, you had the nerve to pick up a stick and try to jab me down into a cesspit. Your courage does you credit… but what you have just done is a grave crime.”

Jiang Zhengyang said, without a change of expression, “What does General Ning mean by that? This lowly official is a dullard. I don’t follow!”

That amused Ning Chen. This one was a hard case too… wearing the look of a man who knew there was no proof and what could anybody do about it.

“Lord Jiang, you seem to have forgotten. I am a silver coat of the Inspectorate… Once you’re inside the Inspectorate’s cells, I have no worries about you keeping your mouth shut.”

“And I have the imperial sword granted by His Majesty’s own hand, with the right to execute first and report afterward… If I kill you, any charge at all will do.”

Indignation filled Jiang Zhengyang’s face. “General Ning means to frame a man and abuse his office?”

“Frame you? I saw what Lord Jiang did with my own eyes just now… You plotted against a superior officer. By the law that’s death by beheading!”

Jiang Zhengyang said, “If General Ning insists that one stick proves this lowly official meant murder, then this lowly official has nothing to say… I may be only a petty Governor, but I have the right to appear before His Majesty too, and when I stand in front of him I will speak for myself.”

“You really are a hard case, aren’t you?”

Ning Chen’s face turned serious. “Tell me everything you know.”

“What is it General Ning wants to know?”

“The bandit trouble in Lingzhou. How much do you know about it?”

Jiang Zhengyang said, “General Ning has come to put the bandits down. He must have looked into it already… This lowly official knows no more than General Ning does.”

Ning Chen’s brows drew together. “I don’t have time to trade empty talk with you… I have looked into it. There are seven counties in Lingzhou. Why is Yang’an County the only one with a bandit problem?”

Jiang Zhengyang gave Ning Chen a startled look, then said, “The hills around Yang’an County are high and the woods are thick. It may suit hill bandits better for hiding, and it makes them harder to root out.”

Ning Chen looked at him. “Lord Jiang, you don’t need to tell me the lay of the land in Yang’an County… I’m from Changshou Village in Yang’an County myself.”

Jiang Zhengyang stared at Ning Chen, stunned.

“Don’t tell me you never looked into who I am?”

Jiang Zhengyang shook his head.

“Do you know the Minister of Rites, Ning Ziming?”

Jiang Zhengyang nodded. “Lord Ning comes out of Yang’an County in Lingzhou. This lowly official knows that much. Lord Ning is the pride of Lingzhou.”

Ning Chen made a small scoffing sound. The pride of Lingzhou, my ass. Human garbage who threw away his wife and abandoned his son, and nothing else.

Something seemed to occur to Jiang Zhengyang. He looked at Ning Chen and said in surprise, “Is General Ning Lord Ning’s son?”

“Never mind the nonsense. Get to the point… I’ve been out here too long. They’ll be coming to look for me soon.”

Ning Chen said, low, “I have come by imperial order to put down these bandits. Until those thieves are cleared out, I am not leaving Lingzhou.”

“You saw me carrying on in there just now. That was nothing but playing along with the company.”

Jiang Zhengyang stared at Ning Chen, half believing him and half not. The way he had passed the cups back and forth in there, the way he had carried on, anyone could see he was an old hand at it. It had not looked put on at all.

Ning Chen said mildly, “What, you don’t believe me? Have you forgotten I cut down the Empress’s brother?”

Jiang Zhengyang’s face straightened. “General Ning took a blade to the Empress’s brother for the common people of Chongzhou. This lowly official admires it… only, men change.”

“And what this lowly official does not understand is why General Ning is so certain this lowly official knows anything.”

(End of Chapter 141)