The truth was that Ning Chen had not come this time only to take Steward Ding.
He also meant to use the chance to find one other man, and that was the Poisoner.
This man was expert with poison and very dangerous, and had to be got rid of.
What was more, the Poisoner had killed the previous capital prefect and his whole household, and carried dozens of lives on him.
If he could only be found, he would be a weapon of the first order against the Left Chancellor.
Ning Chen had manacles and leg irons put on Steward Ding, and set a close guard on him.
“He doesn’t have a poison tooth in his mouth, does he?”
Ning Chen asked it.
Pan Yucheng shook his head. “Checked. He doesn’t!”
Only then did Ning Chen feel easy, and he gave the order to search the residence and find the Poisoner.
“All of you be careful. The Poisoner is expert with poison and very dangerous!”
“When you search, keep an eye out for hidden rooms and the like.”
“The moment you find the Poisoner, call for support at once. Don’t go rushing in blind.”
Ning Chen said it over to them.
“Yes!”
The soldiers scattered at once and began the search.
Two soldiers worked their way around behind the rockery.
“Keep an eye out for me. I’m going to take a leak!”
The other laughed and swore at him. “Be quick about it. Don’t let anybody see you, or you’re finished!”
“Heh heh heh… Pissing in the chancellor’s residence. If we weren’t with General Ning, where would we get treatment like this?”
The other soldier planted a boot on his backside. “If General Ning finds out, that’s thirty strokes of the rod for you, guaranteed.”
The pissing soldier staggered under the kick and put a hand out against the rockery without thinking, and was just getting ready to curse the man’s mother when his palm sank in.
The lump of stone he had braced against turned out to move.
The two of them saw at once that it was a mechanism, and that there was a hidden room here.
Just then, with a grating of stone on stone, a block slid aside by itself in the rockery behind them, and a concealed door appeared.
The two looked at each other and were about to call out, when two streaks of cold light shot from the dark doorway and took them both in the neck.
Both soldiers clapped their hands to their throats without thinking, but in under three seconds their faces went purple-black and they went down without breath in them.
A figure wrapped head to foot in a black robe came out through the concealed door.
It was the Poisoner.
He listened a moment with his head turned, then stripped off the black robe and put on one of the soldiers’ clothes.
Then he hid the robe and the bodies inside the concealed door, and only then came out from behind the rockery.
Ning Chen was searching in the front courtyard.
He had just come out of one of the rooms when he saw a soldier going past.
Ning Chen asked offhandedly, “Found anything?”
“Reporting to the General, nothing found.”
Ning Chen said “Oh,” and then, “Keep searching, and search carefully… Find the man and I’ll put you in for a reward.”
“Thank you, General!”
Ning Chen made a sound of assent and turned toward another room.
Just as he was going in his step checked all at once, and he turned his head toward the soldier walking away, watched his back a moment, and said sharply, “Stand where you are!”
With that Ning Chen put a hand on his hilt and walked over.
He remembered that back. And the armor on the man was a size short.
Whereupon the soldier spun around, threw up a hand, and a spray of poisoned needles came at Ning Chen.
Ning Chen rolled where he stood, came clear of the needles and used the roll to get up.
Shk!!!
The long blade came out of the sheath.
A crossbow appeared in his left hand as well, and he loosed the moment it came up.
The man moved lightly and slipped in behind a tree.
The bolt drove into the trunk.
“To me!”
Ning Chen bellowed it.
A rush of footsteps came toward them.
Ning Chen kept his eyes on the back of the tree and said, smiling coldly, “Poisoner. Come out!”
The Poisoner slipped out from behind the tree, hand already up, and more poisoned needles came flying.
Ning Chen was clear of them before they arrived.
“Poisoner. Put up your hands and be taken… My men are all around you. You can’t get away!”
The Poisoner’s cheeks were wasted thin, and from a lifetime of handling poison his face was livid, and a pair of narrow three-cornered eyes glittered cold as a snake’s.
“Kill you, and everything is settled!”
As the Poisoner spoke, more poisoned needles came flying.
At the same moment he drove off his foot and came at Ning Chen to kill him.
Ning Chen slipped clear of the needles, saw the Poisoner coming, and took to his heels.
The man was poison all over, and Ning Chen had no wish to touch a poisoned creature like that. To be killed by poison would be far too poor a bargain!
He had this many men. There was no need whatever to trade lives with the Poisoner.
Just then a good many soldiers heard Ning Chen’s voice and came closing in.
“Don’t go near him!”
Ning Chen bellowed it.
The soldiers stopped where they were.
Ning Chen ran up to one of them. “Give me your musket!”
The soldier got the musket off in a hurry and handed it to Ning Chen.
Ning Chen brought it up and fired without troubling to aim.
Bang!!!
The sound was thunder. Black smoke spread, and firelight with it.
Blood burst in a flower out of the Poisoner’s thigh. He dropped short and went straight down on his knees.
“Musket.”
Ning Chen looked at another soldier.
The soldier handed one over quickly.
Ning Chen brought it up and fired again!
Bang!!!
The Poisoner was struggling up when blood burst in a flower out of his left leg. He could not hold back a scream, and pitched headfirst to the ground.
Ning Chen had two crossbows in his hands.
“Brother Zhuzi, you shoot well. Pin his hands to the ground for me.”
Wu Tiezhu nodded, brought the crossbow up and sighted.
Whip!!!
A bolt flew out, went through the Poisoner’s palm and pinned his right hand to the ground.
Ning Chen snatched a crossbow off one of the soldiers and threw it to Wu Tiezhu.
Wu Tiezhu brought it up and loosed again!
Whip!!!
The Poisoner screamed shrilly, and his left hand was pinned to the ground as well.
Only then did Ning Chen let his breath out. He clapped Wu Tiezhu on the shoulder. “Beautifully done!”
Wu Tiezhu scratched his head, a simple, honest smile on his face. He was very happy to have been of use to Ning Chen.
“Somebody. Bring plenty of cold water!”
Several soldiers hurried off and brought cold water.
Ning Chen gave the order: “Throw it on him. On his body. Don’t get too close!”
Splash! Splash! Splash!!!
Bucket after bucket of cold water went over the Poisoner.
The Poisoner screamed shrilly!
In this freezing weather, cold water on a man goes through him to the bone.
Pan Yucheng and the others had all come up.
Seeing this, Yuan Long asked out of curiosity, “General Ning, why throw cold water on him?”
Ning Chen said, “The man is poison all over. He may well have poisonous insects hidden on him… Cold water may freeze them dead, and if it doesn’t kill them it will at least slow them down.”
“He’s wearing one of our men’s armor, so somebody has already come to harm… God damn it, my soldiers didn’t die on the battlefield, and they’ve died at this animal’s hands instead.”
“Brother Qi, take men and find the bodies. We’ll see them properly buried afterward.”
Qi Yuanzhong nodded and went off with several men.
The Poisoner was close to frozen to death, with ice on him.
Ning Chen said, “Somebody strip his clothes off… Remember, not with your hands. Cut the clothes open with a blade and peel them off!”
Ning Chen was being very careful. Every one of these soldiers was a brave man, and he did not want another one dying at the Poisoner’s hands.
The soldiers cut the Poisoner’s clothes open with great care, and a good many bamboo tubes of different sizes fell out of them.
“Leave those tubes alone. We’ll burn them with his clothes presently!”
Ning Chen suspected there were poisonous insects inside the tubes.
The Poisoner was stripped bare. Between his wounds and the cold water in freezing weather, all that knocking about had left him with half a life in him.
Even so Ning Chen was not easy, and had a man shave the Poisoner’s hair off with a blade.
Poisonous insects can hide in hair too.
“Yuan Long, go and check whether he has a poison tooth. Then see whether he’s hidden anything up his backside.”
“What?”
Yuan Long was struck stupid!
“Go on, hurry up. A twisted creature like this stops at nothing… You can’t go wrong being careful.”
General Ning, how is it I feel you’re more twisted than he is? Yuan Long said it inwardly.
Yuan Long made himself do it, and checked.
“General Ning, nothing hidden!”
Ning Chen made a sound of assent, and only then was easy about it.
“Bind him up roughly, enough that he doesn’t die. Then find him some clothes and get them on him, and tie his hands and feet down hard for me… Yuan Long, take men and escort him yourself. Deliver him and Steward Ding to the Inspectorate.”
“Also, leave a party behind to hold the residence for me. In, but not out.”
Yuan Long nodded. “Yes!”
Ning Chen and Pan Yucheng left the residence and rode hard for the Outer City.
“We’re not going back to the Inspectorate?”
Pan Yucheng asked it.
Ning Chen shook his head. “There’s evidence I haven’t got yet.”
Pan Yucheng gave Ning Chen a long look.
“I’m with you all day long, and it never occurred to me you’d been keeping all this from me. I didn’t catch the least sign of it.”
“Ning Chen, you’re a frightening man!”
Ning Chen smiled bitterly. “Old Pan, I had no choice about it. I wasn’t keeping it from you… I just never found the right moment to tell you.”
Pan Yucheng said, “I don’t mean it as a reproach… If anything I admire you for it. At the same age, nobody could have done it better than you!”
“When I say you’re frightening, I only mean I’m glad we’re friends and not enemies.”
Ning Chen smiled. “Old Pan, talk like that and I’ll get proud.”
“If I had your achievements at your age, I’d be prouder than you are… Immortal of poetry of the Great Xuan, cut down the Empress’s brother with a blade, took the King of the Left Court alive. Take any one of those and no amount of pride would be too much.”
Ning Chen burst out laughing. “Hearing you say it, that’s true enough…”
鮮衣怒馬少年郎，不負韶華行且知。
Bright clothes and a spirited horse and a boy still in his youth; he doesn’t waste his best years, but rides on and learns as he goes.
“If I get proud, it really isn’t too much.”
The two of them rode to the West Market in the Outer City and found the Liu cloth shop.
“Customers, what can I get you?”
A young clerk came up to them warmly.
But Ning Chen looked toward the shopkeeper, an ordinary-looking man of about thirty.
Ning Chen looked at him. “Are you Liu Chuanzu?”
The shopkeeper watched Ning Chen warily.
Ning Chen smiled slightly. “Don’t be nervous. Supervisor Kong left some things here with you, and sent me to collect them!”
Liu Chuanzu’s eyes tightened a fraction. “You’re Supervisor Kong’s man?”
Ning Chen made a sound of assent!
Liu Chuanzu dropped his voice. “Gentlemen, this way, please!”
Ning Chen got hold of the secret letters without trouble.
Then he and Pan Yucheng went back to the Inspectorate.
The whole Inspectorate was under guard now, everyone allowed in and nobody out.
The Xuan Emperor was in Geng Jing’s room.
The officials of the court were standing in the courtyard, shivering like dogs in the cold.
When they saw Ning Chen appear, every one of them fixed his eyes on him.
And Ning Chen looked at the Left Chancellor, murder plain in his eyes.
He came up in front of the Left Chancellor and said it one word at a time: “The killing of my mother — you and I cannot live under the same sky… Lord Left Chancellor, today only one of us walks out of the Inspectorate alive.”
That one sentence made the Left Chancellor’s pupils contract violently, and left his face whiter still!
Ning Chen turned, walked to the door in long strides and said clearly, “Your subject Ning Chen begs an audience with Your Majesty!”
Creak!
The door of Geng Jing’s room opened!
The Xuan Emperor came slowly out with a cloak over his shoulders.
He looked at Ning Chen and asked, “You have the evidence?”
“Reporting to Your Majesty, I have it!”
“Good. Can you tell this emperor now who this greatest woodworm in the Great Xuan of yours is?”
Ning Chen turned, pointed at the Left Chancellor and said loudly, “Stealing a gold mine, selling out to the enemy and betraying the country, treating a human life as so much grass, destroying loyal and good men… The greatest woodworm in our Great Xuan is the Lord Left Chancellor.”
One stone, and a thousand waves.
Ning Chen’s words came like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, and left the officials standing where they were like stone and wood.
(End of Chapter 171)