Kang Luo’s eyes stayed on the iron thing in Ning Chen’s hand, and there was wariness in them.

What in the world is that? A noise like a thunderbolt, and fire and black smoke along with it… I have to get hold of one and take it apart at the first chance.

His eyes went to Ning Chen. “I have had a taste of Ning the Silver Coat’s methods!”

Ning Chen swung down from his horse and walked over to Kang Luo, saying it lightly. “What you saw is the tip of the iceberg. The Fourth Prince knows nothing at all about my methods. There will be plenty of time later to taste them properly!”

When Ning Chen came to a stop, he was standing on the war banner of Nanyue.

Several of Kang Luo’s guards glared at him, right hands already on their sword hilts.

Ning Chen ran his eye over them and smiled coldly, with nothing but contempt in it.

Kang Luo waved a hand and stopped them.

Ning Chen looked down at the two dead horses, shook his head and sighed. “A pity. They followed the wrong master!”

“Somebody clear this up quickly and get the road open… and find a horse for the Fourth Prince.”

The garrison came forward and between them dragged the carriage and the dead horses to the side of the road.

One of the garrison soldiers led a horse over.

Ning Chen smiled. “Fourth Prince, if you please!”

Kang Luo swung up into the saddle.

He glanced at the iron thing in Ning Chen’s hand. “May I ask what that is?”

Ning Chen tossed the musket to Pan Yucheng and said lightly, smiling, “A dog-beating stick!”

The corner of Kang Luo’s mouth twitched, and he said nothing more.

The two of them rode side by side.

The column came on behind.

“Pah— That’s what your swagger gets you. Plant a war banner in the imperial capital of the Great Xuan and this is what you get.”

“That’s right. General Ning took the King of the Left Court alive. Some broken-down prince out of a little country, and he thinks he can swagger.”

“That worked the anger right off. Nobody can swagger in front of Ning the Silver Coat.”

The people of the Great Xuan talked it over among themselves, and when Ning Chen’s name came up their faces were all pride and satisfaction.

Li Hanru and Shen Min came along behind and looked at each other… If it had not been for Ning Chen, and Nanyue had ridden all the way to the Hall of the Four Barbarians with that banner up, the Great Xuan would have had no face left at all.

“Ning the Silver Coat took a thousand men, ran a thousand miles, cut clean through the North Royal Court and took the King of the Left Court alive, and lost not a man doing it. I am curious… How did you do it?”

On the way Kang Luo could not hold the question in.

Ning Chen smiled slightly. “The Great Xuan has soldiers in numbers and generals to spare, and every one of them a match for ten. Taking one King of the Left Court is nothing to be proud of.”

“The Fourth Prince, though — I hear these last few battles were all fought under your command, and not one of them lost?”

Kang Luo laughed lightly. “Nanyue’s soldiers are brave and good at war, each a match for a hundred. Winning a few battles is nothing to be proud of either.”

Ning Chen made a sound. “Then I’ll want a taste of Nanyue’s bravery when the chance comes… I hope it doesn’t disappoint me!”

“I look forward very much to meeting Ning the Silver Coat on a battlefield.”

Kang Luo watched Ning Chen, and there was a fight in his eyes.

Ning Chen smiled easily. “If I were you I wouldn’t look forward to meeting me on a battlefield… I’m afraid the Fourth Prince would come to the Great Xuan the next time not as an envoy but as a prisoner.”

“Ha ha ha…” Kang Luo laughed out loud. “I admire Ning the Silver Coat’s conceit. But I am not the King of the Left Court.”

Ning Chen looked at him and said flatly, “To me there’s no difference between you.”

“Since the Fourth Prince wants so much to see me on a battlefield, Ning here will give him his wish.”

Kang Luo laughed. “Then I’ll wait for Ning the Silver Coat on the battlefield.”

Ning Chen smiled slightly. “Good. That’s a promise!”

They reached the Hall of the Four Barbarians while they were still talking.

Ning Chen got his look at Nanyue’s State Preceptor too.

An old man with hair and beard gone white, the bones of a sage and the air of an immortal about him, and arrogance all over his face.

Shen Min came forward. “Gentlemen, please go in!”

But the State Preceptor stopped where he stood, and his eyes settled on Li Hanru.

“Would this be Lord Li, Director of the Hanlin Academy?”

Li Hanru’s face darkened slightly. He had introduced himself once already.

Still, he nodded. “The same!”

The Nanyue State Preceptor stroked his long beard and said, with arrogance in his face,

“On the road here this old fellow happened to be visited by inspiration and wrote a matched couplet. Unluckily he has only the first line of it, which is a real pity… Lord Li is a great man of letters. Could he give the answering line, and satisfy this old fellow’s wish?”

Li Hanru knew it for a challenge. If he could not answer it, the state was shamed… and he could not refuse either.

But Li Hanru was confident enough. Couplets were something he was good at.

“Let the State Preceptor say it.”

The Nanyue State Preceptor smiled proudly. “Let Lord Li listen closely. My first line is—”

南鳳北飛，遍地草雞難下足。

The southern phoenix flies north, and the ground is so thick with scrub hens it can hardly set down a foot.

Li Hanru’s face turned ugly.

South stood for Nanyue, of course, and coming to the Great Xuan meant going north, so north meant the Great Xuan.

What it said was that Nanyue was the phoenix and the Great Xuan a yard full of scrub hens, and that the Great Xuan was not fit to be measured against Nanyue at all.

Everyone there heard what the line meant, and their faces turned ugly.

Li Hanru put his head down and worked at it. Producing an answering line was not the hard part… The hard part was how to hit back with one and keep the parallels exact while he did it.

Shen Min’s brows were drawn tight too, and he was racking his brains.

As for Pan Yucheng and the rest, they were coarse fighting men, and it was further beyond them still.

“What’s that couplet mean?”

Feng Qizheng asked Ning Chen, curious.

He could not have read a basketful of characters and had not understood a word of it.

Ning Chen said, “He means the people of Nanyue are phoenixes and we of the Great Xuan are scrub hens.”

“God damn it… He dares call us scrub hens? I’ll chop him up.”

Feng Qizheng was furious and was reaching for his sword.

Ning Chen grabbed hold of him. “You coarse fighting man, this is a cultural exchange, not a duel. Stand there and behave yourself!”

Seeing that Li Hanru had gone a long while without a sound, the Nanyue State Preceptor said in a strange, singing voice, “It doesn’t matter if Lord Li can’t think of one just now… This old fellow hopes Lord Li will have thought of it by the time he leaves the Great Xuan.”

“That’s it?” Ning Chen smiled coldly, with nothing but contempt in his face. “Why take an ox-cleaver to a chicken? It isn’t that Lord Li can’t think of one. He won’t stoop to it. Slapping a guest in the face is not how the Great Xuan treats guests.”

“I do have a rough answering line of my own, though. Would you like to hear it?”

Li Hanru’s and Shen Min’s eyes lit up.

If Ning Chen was taking a hand, it was in the bag!

The Nanyue State Preceptor’s face was all contempt.

Kang Luo said in surprise, “I had no idea that besides soldiering and strategy Ning the Silver Coat had gone so far in letters as well.”

Li Hanru and Shen Min smiled. It seemed the Fourth Prince of Nanyue was not so well informed after all. He knew Ning Chen had taken the King of the Left Court alive, and he did not know Ning Chen was an immortal of poetry born again.

The Nanyue State Preceptor said contemptuously, “Let us hear it.”

Ning Chen smiled. “Let this expert listen closely. My answering line is—”

北麟南躍，滿山禽獸盡低頭。

The northern qilin leaps south, and the hills are so full of birds and beasts that every one of them bows its head.

“Good! Well matched! Ha ha ha…”

Li Hanru’s face was alight and he shouted his approval out loud.

Shen Min’s face was all smiles too. “There’s a fine one — the northern qilin leaps south, and the hills are so full of birds and beasts that every one of them bows its head… Good! Ha ha ha…”

Pan Yucheng and the rest were smiling as well.

“Old Chen, what does Ning Chen mean by that?”

Only Feng Qizheng was still outside the whole thing.

Chen Chong said, smiling, “Ning Chen says we’re the qilin and the Nanyue people are all birds and beasts, and they have to bow their heads when they see us.”

Feng Qizheng grinned wide and laughed. “Ning Chen, you badass… Damn, I’m impressed!”

There was a dirty grin at the corner of Ning Chen’s mouth. “It falls a long way short of that poem of yours — A girl’s backside is as white as the snow. I love the backside, I don’t love the snow.”

“Piss off!”

Feng Qizheng swore at him, laughing.

You should have seen the faces on the Nanyue party.

The Nanyue State Preceptor’s face most of all. It went through several colors and not one of them was good. He had meant to humiliate the Great Xuan’s men of letters and had been humiliated himself instead.

Kang Luo’s face was all astonishment, and then his eyes narrowed a little. It seemed he had underrated this Ning Chen after all.

Ning Chen took a step forward and looked at the Nanyue State Preceptor. “I have a first line of my own here, and I’d like to ask the State Preceptor for the answering line.”

The Nanyue State Preceptor stared at him with an ugly face. “Let us hear it.”

Ning Chen smiled. “Listen closely. My first line is—”

飢雞盜稻童筒打。

The starving chicken steals the seed rice, and the boy with the bamboo tube beats it off.

(TL Note: the three pairs sound exactly alike — jī and jī, dào and dào, tóng and tóng — so the line is a run of doubled sounds as well as a picture.)

The Nanyue State Preceptor’s expression froze on the spot.

What the line said was simple enough: a chicken half-mad with hunger steals the rice grain and is chased and beaten by a small boy with a bamboo tube.

What made it hard was that it held three pairs of words that sound exactly alike, and that strung together they made a living picture… which made it very hard indeed to match.

The Nanyue State Preceptor’s brows locked together.

Kang Luo’s brows did the same, and he put his head down and worked at it.

Ning Chen smiled. “No hurry. It doesn’t matter if you can’t think of one just now… I hope you’ll have thought of it by the time you leave the Great Xuan.”

The Nanyue State Preceptor’s face went as ugly as the face of a man who has just buried both his parents. It was what he had said to Li Hanru a moment before, and he had not expected to have it handed back so fast.

The slap came with no warning at all, and the Nanyue State Preceptor’s face was burning with it.

Ning Chen stretched and yawned. “Welcome to the Great Xuan, gentlemen. It has been a long road with carriages and horses and you must all be tired. Get some rest early. Tomorrow you have to present yourselves to His Majesty the Emperor of the Great Xuan.”

“Lord Li, Lord Shen, I leave this to you. I’m off!”

Li Hanru and Shen Min smiled bitterly. You are the officer appointed to receive them, and you drop the embassy and run off. Is that how it’s supposed to work?

Ning Chen gave neither of them a chance to open his mouth. He turned and made himself scarce.

“It’s still early. Come with me and take a look at the new house His Majesty granted me.”

Pan Yucheng and the others agreed readily.

But when they rode up to the place they all stared.

They looked at one another.

Ning Chen stood there at a loss. The great house in front of him was the Left Chancellor’s residence.

Except that the Left Chancellor had fallen and the place had been sealed up.

“Have we come to the wrong place?”

Ning Chen muttered.

Pan Yucheng said, “All the way along, this is the only empty house on Changxuan Street. This has to be it.”

“You brought the Left Chancellor down. With the favor His Majesty shows you, granting you this house is nothing to wonder at.”

Ning Chen’s face screwed itself into a knot, and he plainly wanted no part of it. “Think of the bad luck sitting on this place.”

Pan Yucheng and the rest had nothing at all to say.

Feng Qizheng gave a low, dirty laugh. “If the Left Chancellor knew you’d brought him down and taken his house as well, he’d probably die of rage on the spot.”

Ning Chen shook his head. “If I remember right, this house runs six courtyards, or seven… How many maids and servants am I supposed to hire? The repairs and the upkeep alone would come to a great deal of silver every year… I don’t want it. Anyone who does can have it.”

Pan Yucheng said flatly, “It was given by the emperor’s own hand. You’d dare refuse it?”

Ning Chen smiled bitterly. “Then I’ll sell it and trade down for a smaller one. That has to be allowed, doesn’t it?”

Pan Yucheng’s forehead filled with black lines. “A house His Majesty granted you, and you’d dare sell it? Are you done with your head?”

Ning Chen wanted to weep and had no tears for it. Maids and servants, repairs and upkeep together, the house would very likely run past ten thousand taels a year.

I’ll talk to His Majesty later about a smaller one. This one is too big.

Meanwhile the Nanyue embassy had settled in.

Kang Luo came to the State Preceptor’s room and found him with his brows drawn, still working at the answering line, and shook his head over it.

“It seems I don’t know enough about this Ning Chen, and I underrated him… The man is young and accomplished in letters and arms both. That is a rare thing.”

The State Preceptor’s eyes darkened. “By the way he handled himself today, this boy’s methods are beyond the common run… Fourth Prince, he cannot be left alive.”

“A thousand men, not a loss among them, and he takes the King of the Left Court alive… If he is turned on Nanyue one day, who knows how many of our soldiers will die under his hand?”

Kang Luo nodded slightly. “You could see from the way the people treated him in the street today that his standing in the Great Xuan is no small thing… Ning Chen. He is interesting!”

“I’ll put men on him and look into him closely. Know yourself and know your enemy and you’ll come through a hundred battles… With a man like that you have to kill with one stroke and never give him room to breathe and hit back.”

(End of Chapter 184)