Ning Chen woke from his sleep with the sun already three poles high.

Li Hanru and Shen Min had presumably been to the morning court and gone home again.

Ning Chen ate something at the Hall of the Four Barbarians, then went out and bought a few things and rode Diaochan straight out of the city.

A small yard behind a fence, a few chickens loose in it and pecking about wherever they liked, and a child with a sturdy round head rocking back and forth on a wooden horse.

The child stared with wide black eyes at the tall horse that had appeared outside the gate, and then looked at his own little wooden one, and envied it.

Ning Chen tied the horse and walked into the yard.

The child was not shy of strangers either. He gave Ning Chen an innocent smile… He knew this big brother. He had been to the house before.

Ning Chen opened one of the packets of cakes he was carrying, pinched out a piece and held it out to the child.

The child looked at the cake in Ning Chen’s hand and swallowed quietly, and then shook his head and refused it.

Just then a lame old man lifted the curtain and came out. “Xiaohu—”

He did not get the rest out, because he saw Ning Chen standing in the yard.

The old man’s face lit up. “Fourth Young Master?”

“Uncle Chai?”

Ning Chen greeted him, smiling.

The lines on Uncle Chai’s face smoothed themselves out, and he smiled very happily.

“When did the Fourth Young Master come? Come inside and sit down.”

Ning Chen waved a hand and came forward. “How is Uncle Chai’s health?”

“The Fourth Young Master is very good to ask. My health is not bad… Everything is well enough.”

As he said it something sorrowful crossed his face. He was probably thinking of his daughter-in-law’s death.

Ning Chen said, smiling, “Uncle Chai, I’ve come today with a piece of good news.”

“What good news?”

“Uncle Chai, I have a residence of my own. A very big house. Bigger than the Ning estate.”

Uncle Chai was happier about it than Ning Chen was. “This old servant always knew the Fourth Young Master would come to something. With a house of your own, nobody can bully you now.”

Ning Chen said heavily, “Nobody bullies me now anyway. Ning Ziming and his household are in prison and the Ning estate has been searched and seized… They could not bully me if they wanted to.”

Uncle Chai’s eyes went wide, and the shock was all over his face.

Ning Chen waved a hand, put the feeling away, and asked with a smile, “Uncle Chai, I came today to ask whether you would still be willing to come back and look after me.”

Uncle Chai blinked, and then said, and there was disappointment in it, “This old servant is of course willing to look after the Fourth Young Master… Only this old servant is old now and does not walk well, and I am afraid I would not look after the Fourth Young Master properly.”

Ning Chen smiled. “Uncle Chai, you’re coming to my house as steward. You don’t have to do any of the work. You only have to tell other people to do it.”

“I promised you before that when I had a house of my own I would come and fetch you… And you agreed to come back and look after me. You can’t go back on your word.”

“The truth is that I am still used to being looked after by you, Uncle Chai. Bring Brother Dazhuang and the boy with you… And I’ll find the boy a teacher and have him taught to read and write.”

Uncle Chai’s face was full of feeling.

“If the Fourth Young Master will have this old servant, this old servant will come… Only this old servant cannot be a steward. Let this old servant wait on the Fourth Young Master and that is enough.”

Ning Chen smiled. “Uncle Chai, you have to be the steward… With you keeping the house I can be easy about it!”

“Get your affairs here settled over the next couple of days, and when the house is ready I’ll send somebody to fetch you.”

Uncle Chai nodded hard.

“Fourth Young Master, come in and sit down. This old servant will make you some food.”

Ning Chen waved a hand. “Don’t trouble. I’m on duty. I slipped out quietly and I have to get back.”

Ning Chen handed the cakes to Uncle Chai, and then left.

Back at the Inspectorate.

There was nobody at all in the first department.

Presumably there was some big case and they had all gone out.

Ning Chen went to his own place of work, got paper, ground the ink, and was about to pick up the brush and start drawing… when something else occurred to him!

He had far too much silver on his hands now. He could not let it sit idle. Money had to make money.

He had just squeezed a million taels out of Kang Luo. Ning Ziming had left two hundred thousand. The jewels brought back from the North Royal Court had been sold off and his share of that came to a hundred thousand. Add in His Majesty’s rewards, and he had something close to one million four hundred thousand taels of silver on hand.

Ning Chen thought it over for a while, and then he had it.

Wine.

The wine in this world was cloudy, and weak on top of that.

Set up a brewery, make distilled liquor… then use his own standing to open the market, and it would be taking in gold by the bushel.

And if he could get it made the imperial wine, he would make an absolute killing.

After that, glass, toothpaste, soap, that kind of thing… and then a money house. He meant to be the richest man in Great Xuan and hold the economic lifeline of Great Xuan in his own hand.

Even if he lost the Xuan Emperor’s protection one day, he could still sleep easy.

It would have to be done quietly, though. Tomorrow he would go to Gu Yichun and have him get the brewery going first.

There was one more thing to see to, and that was building a private army of his own.

Keeping a private army was a crime that took a man’s whole clan.

But Ning Chen already had his answer.

He had squeezed a million taels out of the ministers and not kept one copper of it for himself… And how long could a thing like that stay quiet? Sooner or later those soft bones would figure out that they had been played.

When they did, they would not dare put the question to the Xuan Emperor… but they would certainly come after him, and curse him hard enough to blow his ancestral graves apart.

Why should the Xuan Emperor take all the benefit while he came away with not one hair of it and had to eat the abuse on top of it? Grossly unfair.

A light moved in Ning Chen’s eyes, and he smiled like a fox.

He decided to put one over on the Xuan Emperor.

Keeping a private army broke the law — so he would go to the Xuan Emperor and ask for the men.

Not only would he have his private army — the Xuan Emperor was going to supply both the men and the silver for it.

“Heh heh heh…”

There was pure treachery in Ning Chen’s smile.

His mind made up, Ning Chen picked up the brush and began to draw.

Strange shapes came up on the paper one after another.

They were the parts of a cannon.

In fact there was no need at all to keep the thing hidden. It was like the musket. Find a few good craftsmen, take one apart and study it, and they could make it.

It was only that the Xuan Emperor did not understand it, and so made a great mystery of it.

Two hours later Ning Chen picked up the finished drawing and looked at it for a while, changed it in a few places, and only then was there any satisfaction in his face.

Just then Gao Ziping and the others came back.

Ning Chen put the drawings away and asked, “Was there a big case?”

“Big case my backside… A few street toughs making trouble at a gambling house. The brothers had the walk for nothing.”

Feng Qizheng complained about it.

Chen Chong said immediately after him, “The brothers are so idle lately they’re growing fur. They said there had been a killing at a gambling house… We got there and looked, and it was a few toughs having a fight.”

Ning Chen was surprised. “That ought to be the capital prefect’s business, shouldn’t it?”

The whole room stared straight at Ning Chen.

Ning Chen felt at his face, then looked down at himself. Nothing dirty on his face, his clothes were tidy, nothing wrong anywhere.

“What are you all looking at me like that for?”

Feng Qizheng swore at him, laughing. “You have some nerve saying that. You brought the Left Chancellor down, so the capital prefect’s people have been combed through from top to bottom… Every man there is watching his own neck. Where would they find time for anything else?”

Ning Chen blinked.

After the Left Chancellor’s fall, he had taken no part in the questioning because of his connection with the Ning household.

So it was much as he had guessed. The prefect of the capital had been the Left Chancellor’s man too.

Ning Chen turned it aside. “I have something good to tell you.”

Feng Qizheng looked at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve been over another girl from the twelve houses.”

Ning Chen rolled his eyes at him and swore at him, laughing. “Get out of here! Is there anything else in that head at all?”

“I’m opening my household in a couple of days, and you’re all to come and make a noise about it… And remember to bring presents. Anyone whose present is no good, I’ll have him beaten out with sticks.”

Feng Qizheng gave a low laugh. “I’ll certainly come! I’ll bring you a little gold Buddha, copper-plated.”

Ning Chen picked up a rolled case file off the desk, out of patience, and threw it at him.

Feng Qizheng slipped aside from it with a low, dirty grin.

Gao Ziping came over and asked, “Is there anything you need us to do? Only say.”

“Do you have the maids and the servants, the cook and the house guards?”

Ning Chen said, “His Majesty says he’ll assign me the servants from the palace, and I have the guards… You saying cook is what reminds me. I still haven’t found a cook.”

The whole room went blank.

“Ning Chen, the servants in your house are assigned by His Majesty?”

Ning Chen nodded.

The pack of animals howled with envy.

His Majesty spoiled that degenerate Ning Chen far too much.

Ning Chen smiled. “Do any of you know a good cook? Recommend me one or two.”

Feng Qizheng said with a dirty grin, “Why recommend anybody? Go and pick them out of the Heavenly Blessing Tower and have done.”

Ning Chen had nothing to say to that. “And how do they stay in business?”

“Taking one or two won’t stop them doing business… On the day you open the house, bring the Heavenly Blessing Tower’s cooks over, and keep every one whose cooking you like.”

Ning Chen glared at him. “If I dared take a man’s cooks the manager of the Heavenly Blessing Tower would fight me for his life… Cutting off a man’s living is the same as killing his parents.”

“He’d dare?” Feng Qizheng put on the face of a demon. “If he dares refuse, I’ll have him try every torture the Inspectorate has, one after another… After that, never mind a few cooks. Ask him for his own mother and he wouldn’t dare say no.”

Ning Chen was so annoyed he nearly gave that moron a couple of kicks. This brainless thing.

“Shut your mouth! Stop coming out with rotten ideas.”

“I’ll go and look at the broker market tomorrow and see whether I can find a cook or two who can cook.”

A broker market is a labor market. But people in this world are not so civilized, and a broker market is really a slave market.

Ning Chen thought about it and went on. “Old Gao, if you’ve nothing on just now, come with me and walk around the new house. Let’s see what else needs getting.”

Gao Ziping nodded. “All right!”

Gao Ziping, Feng Qizheng and Chen Chong went with Ning Chen to the new house.

The seals had been taken off the door.

Ning Chen went up and pushed, and the door did not open. So His Majesty’s people had arrived.

Ning Chen knocked with the ring.

The door opened almost at once.

The man who opened it was a palace guard.

“I greet Ning the Silver Coat!”

Seeing Ning Chen, the guard opened the gate wide and bowed.

Ning Chen thought the man looked familiar. “Haven’t we met?”

The guard said, smiling, “Has Ning the Silver Coat forgotten? At the Inspectorate the other day. You gave me gold.”

Ning Chen remembered.

“So it was you. I thought you looked familiar… His Majesty sent you?”

The guard nodded. “His Majesty says that until Ning the Silver Coat has found suitable house guards, we are to be responsible for the safety of the Ning residence.”

“That is good of you.”

Ning Chen said a few civil words and took Gao Ziping and the rest inside.

He had been to the chancellor’s residence several times and knew it well enough.

All the way in there were serving women hurrying about everywhere.

“Ning Chen, His Majesty spoils you far too much. He’s even sent guards of the imperial presence to be your house guards.”

Chen Chong’s face was full of envy.

Ning Chen smiled. “Don’t exaggerate. It’s only for now… Once I find proper house guards they’ll go.”

Feng Qizheng kept making a clicking noise with his tongue.

Ning Chen looked at him. “Do you have piles in your mouth?”

Feng Qizheng clicked his tongue a few more times. “I am envious, and I mean it… Palace people, no question about it. Look at these little palace maids. Fresh isn’t the word. You could pinch water out of them.”

Ning Chen agreed with that much. The little palace maids were none of them old, and if they were not beauties to overthrow cities and kingdoms, every one of them was neat and pleasant to look at.

He began to feel sorry for the Xuan Emperor again.

The Xuan Emperor’s consorts were probably none of them as good-looking as these little palace maids.

Every woman the Xuan Emperor had was tied to somebody’s interest… the Empress, for instance, because her father was the Grand Tutor.

And the Xuan Emperor stood too much on his own dignity to favor a little palace maid.

In fact it was right not to. These little palace maids had nothing behind them, and once one was favored the other consorts would be jealous, and she would probably not live three days.

Ah… poor His Majesty.

Ning Chen felt sorry for the Xuan Emperor for three seconds.

Feng Qizheng’s thieving eyes were going everywhere. “Beauties on every side of you… Ning Chen, can that little frame of yours stand it?”

Ning Chen looked at him. “What are you trying to say?”

Feng Qizheng slapped his chest and said grandly, “As your brother, I have decided to move in and live with you… I’ll carry part of the load for you. These painted skeletons, I’ll deal with them on your behalf. We’re brothers. No need to thank me. Board and lodging is enough.”

The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched. This degenerate.

Chen Chong swore at him, laughing. “These are palace people. You’d dare try anything… aren’t you afraid His Majesty would have that dog’s head off you?”

Feng Qizheng pulled his neck in and laughed drily. “I was only worried Ning Chen’s health wouldn’t stand it.”

All three of them gave him a flat look.

Chen Chong said suddenly, “Ning Chen, didn’t you say you hadn’t found a cook?”

“No, I haven’t. Why?”

Chen Chong pointed off into the distance. “If that isn’t the kitchen over there, then your house is on fire.”

Ning Chen looked hard, and sure enough there was smoke going up in the distance.

“Come on, let’s go and look!”

The four of them came to a small courtyard, which was the kitchen, and a crowd of people were busy in it.

Ning Chen beckoned one of them over, and asked, and found out… His Majesty had sent him imperial cooks.

Feng Qizheng and the other two were envious and jealous and hateful about it all at once, and shouted that from now on they were coming to cadge a meal every day.

(End of Chapter 197)