That same day Ning Chen wrote his letter and had it carried secretly to the capital.

Jiang Zhengyang finished the notice, and word went out that Zhang Yuancang and the others were to be beheaded.

The stealing of the beams and swapping of the pillars fell to Pan Yucheng. Working with Jiang Zhengyang, he moved Zhang Yuancang and the rest out quietly and hid them at Jiang Zhengyang’s ancestral house.

Then a few men under sentence of death were found to take their places.

It all went forward in good order and nothing was left tangled.

By the afternoon the work was more or less done.

And at last everybody could get a little rest.

That evening Ning Chen stood them all a meal at the One Laugh House.

“Pick up your chopsticks. You’ve been at it for days and you’ve earned it.”

None of them had eaten a proper meal or slept a proper night in two days.

In the middle of it Feng Qizheng gave Ning Chen a quiet poke.

He dropped his voice and said, furtive about it, “Ning Chen. There’s nothing left to do now, is there?”

Ning Chen nodded and made a sound of assent. “We can all get a decent night’s sleep.”

Feng Qizheng waggled his eyebrows at him. “Lingzhou has always bred beauties. What do you say we go out tonight and find a little fun? Loosen up.”

Ning Chen glared at him. “Aren’t you tired?”

“Not tired. Not the least bit tired.”

A dirty grin came onto Ning Chen’s mouth. “Since you’re not tired, I noticed there’s a patch of waste ground in the back yard at Lord Jiang’s place. He’s short of hands. You can go and plow it tonight.”

Feng Qizheng stared at him like a fool.

Chen Chong leaned in quietly. “Old Feng and I would rather go plow that palm-sized little patch a woman has.”

Ning Chen had exactly nothing to say to that.

“Ning Chen, once this is finished we’re off to the northern border… Once we’re on a battlefield, who knows whether we come back alive? A little pleasure tonight is hardly out of line, is it?”

Ning Chen gave the two of them a roll of the eyes. “Go on by yourselves. Look after your health.”

“You’re not coming?”

Ning Chen shook his head. “I have things to do.”

Feng Qizheng quietly put out a hand. “Money.”

Ning Chen: “???”

“Do you really take me for your father? Sticking your hand out for money.”

Chen Chong said, smiling, “You said it yourself. You’d stand us a night at the courtesans’ quarter… Go back on that and heaven will strike you down with lightning.”

Ning Chen very nearly kicked him.

But he passed the two of them silver on the sly all the same, and sent them off to go pearl-diving.

They ate and drank their fill.

Ning Chen took his rest at the One Laugh House.

He had himself a fine hot bath and slept clean through to full daylight.

When he was up he had breakfast, went out, and bought a great pile of things.

Then he found Wu Tiezhu, took a few men and went straight for Changshou Village.

Zhang Yuancang was to be executed that day, but Ning Chen did not go. He left it to Jiang Zhengyang and Pan Yucheng.

At the mouth of the village Ning Chen took off his service sword and handed it to a soldier, and told them to wait there.

He and Wu Tiezhu went in with the bundles and packages on their shoulders.

They walked as far as the middle of the village, and Ning Chen’s brows drew together… Every door in every house was shut fast. There was not a soul in sight.

“Do they still not know the hill bandits have been cleared out? Are they shut in at home because they’re afraid to come out?”

Wu Tiezhu nodded. “That’ll be it.”

The two of them walked on, and a good way off they saw a crowd of people gathered at one family’s gate.

Ning Chen thought a moment. “If I remember right, that would be Uncle Dacheng’s house.”

Wu Tiezhu nodded.

The two of them went over.

Several big men were battering at the gate.

A young man in fine silks shouted through it. “Uncle Dacheng, hiding won’t get you out of it… If you won’t come out, don’t blame me for forgetting we’re neighbors and taking this rotten gate of yours apart.”

Inside the yard Wu Dacheng had a timber jammed hard against the gate.

Behind him stood a woman and a young girl.

The woman had her arms around the girl, and terror was on both their faces.

Outside the gate the well-dressed young man smiled coldly. “Uncle Dacheng, you’ve brought this on yourself… Get that gate down for me.”

“Ma Bing, we’re all neighbors here. Don’t take it too far.”

“That’s right. You’re no official. What gives you the right to break down a man’s gate?”

“We see each other coming and going every day. Let Dacheng and his family alone.”

The villagers around them spoke out one after another against what Ma Bing was doing.

Ma Bing dared throw his weight around in the village because his father was a provincial graduate… A provincial graduate is not actually an official at all and counts for exactly nothing, but the family had a connection by marriage to His Honor the Magistrate.

So the Ma family counted for something in the village.

This Ma Bing was no good at letters and no good at arms. He had gathered a crowd of idlers and loafers around him and threw his weight around the village every day of the year.

“That bastard is at it again.”

Fury filled Wu Tiezhu’s face.

Ning Chen knew Ma Bing too. The little shit had never been any good, and his father was worse.

Ning Chen remembered that when he and his mother had been alone in the world, Ma Bing’s father had once kicked their door in at midnight and frightened the two of them so badly that neither of them slept for nights on end.

Ma Bing’s face was all high-handed insolence, and he shouted, “What’s this? Do you all want to rebel? I am here on His Honor the Magistrate’s own orders, collecting the bandit tax… Any man who won’t pay is obstructing His Honor in putting down the bandits, and every one of you will go into the cells for it.”

“What are you standing around for? Get that gate down for me.”

Ning Chen’s face went cold. He said a few words low in Wu Tiezhu’s ear.

Wu Tiezhu nodded, set down what he was carrying and ran off toward the mouth of the village.

Crash!

The big men had the gate down.

Wu Dacheng was knocked flat by it. He never stopped to cry out, but scrambled up and got hold of a hoe standing by, and stood glaring at Ma Bing and his men with fury in his face.

Ma Bing gave an odd laugh. “Uncle Dacheng, what’s the good of all this? The bandit tax isn’t much. Pay it and be done.”

“The harvest was poor enough this year to start with, and then hill bandits came into the village and burned and killed and looted, and you people take a bandit tax once a month, and the more you put the bandits down the more of them there are… We can hardly stay alive as it is. Where would we get money for you?”

Wu Dacheng gripped the hoe, fury all over his face.

Ma Bing smiled coldly. “Uncle Dacheng, that’s nothing you can take up with me… Want me to take you to His Honor the Magistrate so you can say it to him?”

“Hand over the money, and be quick… If you won’t, there’s nothing for it but the cells.”

Wu Dacheng said angrily, “Take me and you still won’t get money.”

Ma Bing began to laugh through his teeth.

“Uncle Dacheng, no money is easy enough to fix… You know I’ve always liked Xiaoxiu. Give her to me for a concubine and I’ll pay the bandit tax for you. How’s that?”

Wu Dacheng shouted furiously, “Get out.”

“Uncle Dacheng, I’d advise you not to throw away the face I’m handing you… I am doing His Honor the Magistrate’s business. Today it’s the money or it’s the girl. Either way I don’t go home empty-handed.”

Wu Dacheng swung the hoe. “Out. All of you, out.”

Ma Bing smiled coldly. “Uncle Dacheng, so you do want to rebel… You won’t drink the toast, so you’ll drink the forfeit. Take him for me. We’ll see how hard your mouth is once you’re in the county cells.”

The big men closed in on Wu Dacheng.

Wu Dacheng swung the hoe. “Let’s see which of you dares come on.”

Ning Chen let out a breath, set down his bundles and said sharply, “All of you. Stop.”

Every head turned without thinking.

Ning Chen came forward in long strides and stood in front of Ma Bing.

Ning Chen had changed too much. Ma Bing did not know him.

But seeing the fine clothes on him, he still asked, without thinking, “Who are you?”

Ning Chen could not be bothered wasting a word on him. His hand came up and he slapped him.

Smack!!!

The blow put Ma Bing off his balance. He staggered and nearly went down.

He held his face and looked at Ning Chen as though he could not believe it, and then the rage came up in him and he howled, “You dare hit me? Do you know who I—”

Before he could finish, Ning Chen brought his left hand across in another slap, and then his leg came up.

Bang!!!

Ma Bing went over onto the ground and lay there holding his stomach and wailing.

The villagers around them could not get a word out.

They looked at Ning Chen and thought they knew him, but none of them placed him.

The Ning Chen standing there now was hard and well made, in fine clothes… Set beside the dark, thin, undersized Ning Chen of before, they were two different men.

Ning Chen’s face went cold. No matter how honest the people of a place are, there are always a few woodworms in it.

Above them a dog of an official squeezing them dry, and hill bandits loose in the country, and below them dogs like this one doing the tiger’s hunting for it.

The common people live too hard a life.

“What are you all standing there for? Can’t you see this young master has been struck? Get on him. Beat him to death… Anything comes of it, this young master answers for it.”

Ma Bing screamed it, hysterical.

(End of Chapter 151)