Ning Chen was somewhat astonished himself. He had assumed Ma Kaicheng would do as Steward Ding had done, and had not expected him to open his mouth and sell the Left Chancellor at once.

The satisfaction went out of the Left Chancellor’s eyes like smoke, and his face went white.

The Xuan Emperor’s eyes were ice cold. “Say that again!”

Ma Kaicheng said in fear and trembling, “Reporting to Your Majesty. This guilty commoner acted by the Left Chancellor’s order, and joined with Zhang Yuancang to work the gold mine.”

“And Ning Chen’s mother — that was also by the Left Chancellor’s order. He had this guilty commoner kill her.”

The noise broke out among the officials again!

The Xuan Emperor glanced at Ning Chen, and saw both his fists clenched, the knuckles white.

At last he understood why Ning Chen had fastened on the Left Chancellor and would not let go.

“Why would the Left Chancellor plot the death of Ning Chen’s mother?”

Ma Kaicheng said in a shaking voice, “It was asked for by the Left Chancellor’s daughter, Chang Ruyue. The Left Chancellor ordered this guilty commoner to be rid of Ning Chen and his mother.”

“At the time, this guilty commoner found a physician and had him worsen the illness of Ning Chen’s mother until it killed her… The physician saw how young Ning Chen was and could not bring himself to do the boy harm.”

“Afterward, learning that Ning Chen was still alive, the Left Chancellor ordered this guilty commoner to cut the grass and pull the root with it… This guilty commoner went to Changshou Village a second time, and failed, because there was a master guarding Ning Chen in secret.”

Astonishment came over Ning Chen’s face. A master had been guarding him. How did he not know it himself?

His gaze settled on Ma Kaicheng, and he worked to hold his own murder down.

The Xuan Emperor asked coldly, “Have you proof of any of this?”

Ma Kaicheng shook his head. “This guilty commoner has none, but every word this guilty commoner has spoken is fact. I beg Your Majesty to see clearly!”

“You are talking nonsense. This is slander.”

The Left Chancellor bellowed it.

He turned to the Xuan Emperor. “Your Majesty, your old subject is wronged. Bare words are no proof. This is slander.”

“This Ma Kaicheng did indeed work in your subject’s household, but of what he says your old subject knows nothing at all.”

“Steward Ding said so himself just now. The two of them acted together, behind your old subject’s back, and did these wrong things.”

“Some time ago Ma Kaicheng’s whole household vanished… Your old subject believes somebody has seized his family and is forcing Ma Kaicheng to slander him.”

The Xuan Emperor thought about it a moment. That was not impossible either.

He looked at Ma Kaicheng. “Is that how it is?”

“Every word this guilty commoner speaks is fact. I beg Your Majesty to see clearly!”

Ning Chen worked to keep himself steady.

Ning Chen decided on the last blow, the one that would nail the Left Chancellor down.

“Somebody. Bring me the Poisoner.”

Ning Chen bellowed it.

The Left Chancellor’s pupils went wide, and all at once he sat down hard on the ground.

The Poisoner was brought over, trussed up like a rice dumpling.

Ning Chen said clearly, “Your Majesty. My lords… the Poisoner is no stranger to any of you, I think?”

“He carries dozens of lives on him, and he poisoned the household of the previous capital prefect.”

“The Inspectorate has been hunting this man a long time… and the reason he could stay clear of the Inspectorate’s search is that the Left Chancellor was sheltering him.”

“This man is the one I took in a hidden room in the Left Chancellor’s residence.”

Astonishment came over the officials’ faces.

The Xuan Emperor went livid.

Ning Chen roared: “Left Chancellor. Do you know your crime?”

The Left Chancellor shook.

He got up on his hands, then knelt. “Your Majesty, your old subject is wronged. Your old subject is wronged!”

“How the Poisoner came to be in your old subject’s residence, your old subject knows nothing about… Yes, of course. It must have been Steward Ding. It was he who hid the Poisoner in your old subject’s residence.”

“Your Majesty, and this Ma Kaicheng too, forced by others, slandering your old subject.”

“Your old subject is Left Chancellor of the Great Xuan. There are far too many who would like to see your old subject dead… They harbor evil intent and mean to shake the foundation of the Great Xuan. This is a conspiracy, a naked conspiracy.”

Ning Chen said sharply, “Death is on top of you and you still dare cry wrong?”

“Poisoner. Say what you know… Give it up honestly and I’ll make it quick for you. Hide anything and I’ll let you find out what my methods are.”

“There is a way of dying called lighting the sky lantern… You open a hole in a man’s head, thread a hemp cord down into it, and set it alight. The man does not die at once.”

“All through it you will feel your life going out of you a little at a time. Not until the blood and the marrow have burned away does a man die, slowly, in pain and torment without end.”

Never mind the Poisoner. Every civil and military official standing there felt a shiver go clean through him.

Ning Chen asked sharply, “Speak. Why poison the household of the previous capital prefect? Why kill me? At whose direction?”

The Poisoner shook, and his three-cornered snake’s eyes were full of terror.

He knew he was a dead man.

But the way of dying Ning Chen had described was too frightening.

“It, it was the Left Chancellor who directed me to do it.”

The noise broke out among the officials again, astonishment on every face.

The Left Chancellor’s face was a dreadful white, and sweat the size of beans came out on his forehead. “Your Majesty, your old subject is wronged, your old subject is wronged… What they say is bare words with no proof. There is no hard evidence at all.”

“You want hard evidence? Good… I’ll give it to you!”

All at once a voice rang out, full of hatred.

Everyone turned toward it and could not help starting!

Even Ning Chen was struck dumb!

Because the man who had spoken was Ning Ziming.

Ning Ziming walked forward in long strides and knelt before the Xuan Emperor. “Reporting to Your Majesty. Your subject can bear witness. Every word they have spoken is fact.”

“The crimes the Left Chancellor has committed — there isn’t bamboo enough in the world to write it all down… Your subject has evidence. I beg Your Majesty’s leave to go and fetch it.”

The Xuan Emperor stared at Ning Ziming and said heavily, “This emperor grants it. Geng Jing, go with my beloved minister Ning.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty!”

Ning Ziming stood up and looked at Ning Chen, and a comforted smile came onto his face. “You’ve grown. Only you still go at things too rashly… Never mind. Your father will help you walk out this last move.”

Ning Chen stood there dumb!

From the moment Ning Ziming stepped out, the Left Chancellor was thrown completely.

He said furiously, hysterical, “Ning Ziming, have you gone mad?”

“That’s right. I went mad long ago… From the day Ning Chen’s mother died, I have been mad!”

“I have waited far too long for this day… I could not bring you down alone. Now my son is grown, and I have nothing left to hold me back.”

Ning Ziming roared it back, just as hysterical.

The Left Chancellor said furiously, “You will die too!”

“Hahaha…” Ning Ziming laughed wildly. “I should have died long ago. Today I will take you down to hell with me.”

Ning Ziming went out with Geng Jing.

Ning Chen’s mind was in confusion.

The officials whispered among themselves.

Then, suddenly, Ning Chen felt something cold between his brows.

He looked up. Snow had begun to drift down out of the air.

The Xuan Emperor looked at Ning Chen with concern.

“Ning Chen, are you all right?”

Ning Chen shook his head slightly and forced out a smile.

He had a guess of his own by now.

Ma Kaicheng had said that when he was small there had been somebody guarding him in secret. That would have been a man Ning Ziming sent.

Ma Kaicheng too — Ning Ziming was the one who had taken him first.

Ning Ziming had been holding it in all this time.

But there was a great deal he still could not work out, a great many questions, and Ning Ziming would have to answer them himself.

About an hour later, Ning Ziming and Geng Jing came back.

Ning Ziming carried a bound book in both hands, and as he walked he said in a loud voice:

“In the fourth year of Rende, Bingzhou suffered a great drought and not a grain was harvested. The Left Chancellor swallowed seven parts in ten of the relief funds, and the dead of hunger lay everywhere in the fields of Bingzhou, and the people were driven to rise. Soldiers were then sent to put them down, and the dead and wounded among the people were counted in the millions.”

“In the same year, the Left Chancellor’s own close kin seized fifty thousand acres of the people’s good land in Yunzhou. The people had no way left to live and wrote a blood petition of ten thousand names, and the Left Chancellor sent soldiers to put them down on a charge of rebellion, and there were several thousand dead and wounded.”

“In the sixth year of Rende, the Left Chancellor secretly accepted ten beauties and five hundred thousand taels of gold from the sovereign of the Nanyue Kingdom, and made him a present of the border defense maps, which cost our army at the frontier a defeat and better than twenty thousand men.”

The whole body of civil and military officials boiled over.

Every single one of these was a crime punishable to the ninth degree of kin.

Ning Ziming went on: “In the ninth year of Rende, the Second Prince of the Great Xuan died suddenly. The chief culprit was the Left Chancellor.”

At those words every man there was struck dumb and staring.

The Xuan Emperor stood where he was, his whole body shaking violently.

The Second Prince had been clever and quick from childhood, gifted past comparison, and the son the Xuan Emperor loved best.

His sudden death had broken the Xuan Emperor’s heart.

If the Second Prince were still alive, the place of heir apparent would never have come to the present crown prince.

Ning Ziming walked up in front of the Xuan Emperor and knelt, held up the evidence in both hands and begged: “Your Majesty, everything the Left Chancellor has done is recorded here. His crimes are heaped one on another, and there isn’t bamboo enough in the world to write it all down.”

“Your subject is caught up in these great crimes as well… Your subject asks nothing else. I ask only that Your Majesty, weighing your subject’s service in bringing this evidence, spare your subject’s several sons. They knew nothing whatever of it. They are innocent… I beg Your Majesty’s mercy!”

The Xuan Emperor took the evidence, and his fingers were shaking.

He turned a few pages, and his face went so black it was close to dripping, and his whole body shook.

Every man there was as quiet as cicadas in the cold. Every one of them could feel the terrible killing air about the Xuan Emperor.

The Xuan Emperor’s gaze settled on the Left Chancellor. He could not hold the anger in his heart down, and drove a foot into the man.

The Left Chancellor was like a hill of meat. The Xuan Emperor did not move him, and staggered back several steps himself and came close to falling.

Eunuch Quan’s face changed with fright. He caught the Xuan Emperor in a hurry. “Let your anger cool, Your Majesty, let your anger cool… Your Majesty’s dragon body comes first.”

Ning Chen’s brows were locked tight as he watched Ning Ziming.

What Ning Ziming had just done had thrown the whole Ning house in with him.

Ning Chen had war merit on him and the emperor’s favor, so he should be safe enough.

But Ning Ziming, and the Chang woman and her son, were as good as dead.

Ning Chen squatted down, looked at Ning Ziming kneeling there and asked it one word at a time: “Why?”

Ning Ziming looked back at him, comforted. “Because you’ve grown, and your father can be easy now!”

“If you had no war merit behind you, your father might have gone to his grave without ever handing this evidence over… Now you have the strength to protect yourself, and you are one move away from mating the Left Chancellor. How could your father stand by and watch you lose?”

Ning Chen was about to go on when he heard the Xuan Emperor say furiously, “Somebody. Throw this dog into the death cells for me.”

“Nie Liang, take men at once and search and seize the chancellor’s residence for this emperor.”

“Your subject takes the order!”

“Geng Jing?”

“Your subject is here!”

“You will question him yourself. Every person connected with him is to be taken and thrown into the death cells… And if anyone obstructs you, this emperor grants you the right to execute first and report afterward.”

Geng Jing said quickly, “Your subject obeys the decree!”

Thrown into the death cells meant a man was certain to die.

But the Left Chancellor suddenly got up off the ground, tore his robe open at the breast, brought out a piece of yellow silk from inside it and shouted:

“I have an edict sparing my life, granted by the late emperor himself. Let me see who dares touch me?”

Every man there was shocked!

Nobody had known that the Left Chancellor had an edict sparing his life, granted by the late emperor.

Satisfaction filled the Left Chancellor’s face. “This old man saved the late emperor from danger several times. The late emperor pitied me and granted me this edict sparing my life… Whatever crime I have committed, I cannot be killed.”

The Left Chancellor held the edict up for everyone to see.

The Xuan Emperor’s face was as bad as a face can be. That was indeed the late emperor’s hand.

The Left Chancellor was half mad now. “Which of you dares kill me?”

He turned suddenly on Ning Chen. “This old man worked hard and won great merit in the field for the Great Xuan… and in the end he goes down at the hands of you, you bastard. This old man does not accept it. Does not accept it.”

“This old man killed your mother. You want to avenge her, and you can’t kill me. Hahaha… You can’t kill me!”

Ning Chen’s eyes were ice cold, and murder filled his whole face.

But Geng Jing had a hard grip on Ning Chen’s shoulder, to keep him from doing anything foolish.

The Left Chancellor had an edict sparing his life granted by the late emperor. Not even His Majesty could kill him… and if Ning Chen killed the Left Chancellor on an impulse, he was certain to die for it.

But just then Ning Ziming stood up, looked at Ning Chen and said, “Your father will not let you lose!”

With that he pulled the blade from Ning Chen’s waist and brought it down at the Left Chancellor.

Rrip!!!

The edict sparing his life came apart in the Left Chancellor’s hand, in two.

(End of Chapter 173)