Ning Chen said a few words to Pan Yucheng and then rode Diaochan straight for the palace.
In the Hall of Cultivated Heart a young eunuch came in on tiptoe, knelt, and said in a thin voice, “It is reported to Your Majesty that Ning the Silver Coat begs an audience.”
The Xuan Emperor lifted his eyes from the memorial in front of him, and a smile showed at the corner of his mouth.
There was no telling why. Every time he heard Ning Chen’s name he felt an easiness in himself that he could not account for.
It is a thing of the mind.
Most people are like this. Sometimes you see a man and take to him for no reason at all, and feel close to him.
And sometimes you see a man you have never even met and simply find him disagreeable, which psychology calls a stereotyped prejudice.
“Let him in!”
“Yes!”
The young eunuch got up and withdrew.
A moment later Ning Chen came in.
“Your subject greets Your Majesty!”
“No ceremony. Rise!”
Ning Chen stood up and bent forward. “Your Majesty, your subject has something to report.”
The Xuan Emperor smiled. “Speak.”
“Your subject makes bold to ask — has Your Majesty ever heard of immortal powder?”
“Immortal powder?” The Xuan Emperor thought about it, and then said, “This emperor seems to have seen it in a memorial. It said that smoking immortal powder makes a man cheerful in his spirits and full of energy.”
A slight change went over Ning Chen’s face.
“Your Majesty has not been smoking the stuff?”
The Xuan Emperor shook his head. “No. This emperor was taking elixir at the time, so he paid no attention to it.”
At the mention of the elixir the corner of the Xuan Emperor’s mouth twitched a little… He had not forgotten those dogs, and the renzhonghuang and the rest of it that had gone into the elixir they presented to him. The thought of it still turned his stomach.
Ning Chen’s own chest tightened. By that account, immortal powder had been about for a good while.
“Your Majesty, your subject makes bold to ask one thing. Who submitted that memorial?”
The Xuan Emperor said, “It was a long time ago and this emperor does not remember. What do you want that for?”
Ning Chen’s face was serious. “It is fortunate that Your Majesty never took this immortal powder. The stuff is more poisonous than any of those elixirs Your Majesty was taking.”
The Xuan Emperor’s face darkened.
The Xuan Emperor’s mood just then answered exactly to the old line… There is always some troublesome subject out to harm this emperor!
Eunuch Quan went white with shock too.
“Ning Chen, do you mean that this immortal powder is poison?”
“Your Majesty, poison is the least of what it is. What this stuff can do is past imagining…”
Ning Chen went through the harm of immortal powder in detail.
When he had finished, the Xuan Emperor’s face went livid.
The Xuan Emperor said heavily, “Quan Sheng. Go and find out who submitted that memorial.”
Every memorial the Xuan Emperor passed on was entered in the register.
He did not remember it now, but one look would turn it up.
Eunuch Quan bent forward quickly. “Yes. This servant goes at once!”
The Xuan Emperor looked at Ning Chen. “How did you come to know about this immortal powder?”
Ning Chen went through what had happened that day.
The Xuan Emperor’s face went livid, but he still asked, curious, “Ning Chen, is this stuff really as terrible as you say? And how do you come to know it?”
“Your subject read it in an old book.”
“The old book describes it as worse than your subject has said. Once it spreads widely, it can destroy a country without costing a single soldier.”
The Xuan Emperor’s face went still and heavy.
“Ning Chen, bring this old book of yours when you have time, and let this emperor have a look at it too.”
Holy shit???
Why can’t His Majesty play it the way he’s supposed to?
Ning Chen’s mind turned over. “Your Majesty, the book is not in your subject’s hands… When your subject was a boy and wandering and begging, he met a master of the jianghu, and the book was his.”
The Xuan Emperor made a sound of assent. “Never mind, then.”
Ning Chen had spoken of this master before. He had said the same sage from beyond the world was the one who told him the elixir was poison.
“Ning Chen, if this immortal powder is as terrible as that, it can shake the foundations of the state… This business is yours. Get to the bottom of it for this emperor, all the way down, and find out where the stuff comes from.”
Ning Chen bent forward. “Your subject receives the edict!”
“Your Majesty, the Young Master Shao your subject came across today is the son of Shao Hongbai, Secretary in the Ministry of War… I am afraid somebody means to use this stuff to draw in the officials of the Ministry of War and get a hold on them.”
The Xuan Emperor’s eyes narrowed. “You mean they are after the muskets and the cannon?”
Ning Chen nodded. “The Ministry of War is making cannon in secret… And now officials of the Ministry are caught up in this, so your subject cannot help suspecting it.”
Musket or cannon, either one, if they got hold of it they could put a few master craftsmen on taking it apart, and with a little time they would be making their own.
But the cannon was his secret treasure for the attack on Nanyue, and on no account could it get out yet.
He did not want to reach the battlefield and find several dozen or a hundred cannon set up on the other side, firing wild into the soldiers of the Great Xuan.
That would be picking up a rock and dropping it on his own foot.
“It looks as if I’ll have to cobble together a few more firearms, to make sure nothing goes wrong in this fight with Nanyue.”
Ning Chen muttered it half to himself.
The Xuan Emperor was astonished. “You can cobble together more firearms?”
Ning Chen nodded. “Your subject can make a firearm you only have to throw, and it will blow down a whole swath of them… And another kind that can be buried in the ground, and when the enemy steps on it, there is a roar and he goes off to drink tea with the King of Hell on the spot.”
The Xuan Emperor looked at Ning Chen, and his astonishment was past words.
“How do you come to cobble together these things?”
“Ah… The truth is it works on the same principle as a firecracker. Study it hard enough and you can make a firearm with enormous killing power. Your subject’s head has been different from other people’s since he was a boy. He likes to fool around with things.”
The Xuan Emperor was greatly pleased. “This is not fooling around. Ning Chen, you are worth a whole army in yourself… For this emperor to have met you is this emperor’s good fortune, and the Great Xuan’s.”
Ning Chen said quickly, “Your subject has only a little cleverness, nothing fit to be set beside real learning… A man will die for the one who truly knows him. Your Majesty has shown your subject nothing but favor, and your subject will of course knot the grass and carry the rings to repay Your Majesty’s grace in knowing him. (TL Note: two old stories of a kindness repaid after death — a ghost who knotted the grass to trip his benefactor’s enemy, and a bird who returned with jade rings. Together they mean a debt paid beyond the grave.)“
The Xuan Emperor could not keep the smile off his face.
But his face darkened again very soon. “This emperor will send men now to take every official of the Ministry of War, high and low, and you are to examine them yourself.”
Ning Chen bent forward. “Your Majesty, there is no need to go to that trouble. Your subject has a plan that will pull out every official who is smoking immortal powder, all of them at one stroke.”
The Xuan Emperor’s eyes lit up. “Speak.”
“Your Majesty, this immortal powder takes hold of a man very easily… At the start the craving is small, and once every day or two is enough. But smoke it long enough and the craving grows, and often a man has to have it every few hours.”
The Xuan Emperor asked, “And what happens if he does not?”
Ning Chen said, “Once the craving comes on him and he cannot get it, at first there is no vigor in him and no spirit at all. Then by degrees it is as though ten thousand ants were eating him alive, and the pain is past bearing… In the worst cases, when the craving comes and he cannot get it, he will roll on the ground and throw himself at the walls to hurt himself.”
“All Your Majesty need do is hold the morning audience longer tomorrow, and the officials who are smoking immortal powder will show themselves for what they are and confess without being touched.”
“And it will let the whole court see it and take the warning… Never touch this immortal powder. Once a man touches it, he is not a man any more.”
Ten thousand ants eating him alive, pain past bearing, throwing himself at the walls?
The Xuan Emperor listened and the cold sweat came out on him.
“Ning Chen, is there any medicine for a man who has touched this immortal powder?”
Ning Chen shook his head. “It is as hard as climbing to heaven… There is no medicine for immortal powder. To give it up a man needs the will and the courage of one man standing alone against a whole army.”
The Xuan Emperor felt his chest tighten. One man alone against a whole army? Then he was as good as dead.
He could not help a shiver at the thought. If the officials of the Great Xuan all got this thing into them, would they not all become puppets in somebody else’s hands? By then the state would not be a state, and the mere thought of it put a chill in a man that had nothing to do with the cold.
“Ning Chen, you know what it looks like when the craving comes on. Attend the morning audience tomorrow.”
Holy shit!!!
I can’t get up that early, Ning Chen groaned to himself.
He was about to agree when the Xuan Emperor stood up. “No. This cannot wait until tomorrow.”
“You took the son of Shao Hongbai, Secretary in the Ministry of War, in the open street today, and the news is out already… This emperor is afraid the officials who smoke immortal powder will be on their guard.”
The Xuan Emperor called out through the door. “Somebody!”
Nie Liang came into the hall at a quick step. “Your subject greets Your Majesty!”
“Nie Liang, carry this emperor’s command. Every official of the court is to come into the palace at once for an audience, without delay!”
The Xuan Emperor thought about it, then said, “And put the garrison under orders. The whole city under guard.”
Nie Liang said quickly, “Your subject obeys the command!”
Ning Chen watched him. There’s no need for any of this… On their guard? Once the craving takes hold a man knows no kin, and there’s nothing he can guard against.
Still, His Majesty is a man of action. Says do it and does it. That deserves a like.
Just then Eunuch Quan came back.
The Xuan Emperor looked at him. “Have you found out who it was?”
“Reporting to Your Majesty, this servant has. It is, it is…”
Ning Chen’s brows drew in. Who is it? Just say it. You are not Yudie. What is all this hemming and hawing for?
The Xuan Emperor said heavily, “Who?”
Eunuch Quan lowered his head. “Reporting to Your Majesty, it is His Highness Prince Fu!”
The Xuan Emperor’s expression froze.
Ning Chen was startled too. He had not expected it to be Prince Fu. No wonder Eunuch Quan had been hemming and hawing.
The Xuan Emperor’s brows locked together. “Has Prince Fu got this thing into him too?”
Prince Fu was not like the officials of the court.
Prince Fu stood for the imperial house.
If officials of the court smoked immortal powder, His Majesty had only to move his brush and behead them, or dismiss them, or send them into exile.
Prince Fu was true blood of the imperial house.
To punish those officials and let Prince Fu off, one law for one and another for the other, would give people something to say against him.
The Xuan Emperor paced back and forth, out of temper.
After a long while his step stopped short and he turned to Eunuch Quan. “Quan Sheng, go to the prince’s residence and ask Prince Fu into the palace. Have him wait for this emperor in the imperial study… Remember, say nothing at all. Say only that this emperor has been missing him and wants him to come and talk a while.”
“This servant obeys the command, and goes at once!”
Eunuch Quan withdrew.
The Xuan Emperor came back and sat down on the dragon throne and rubbed the space between his brows. “So Prince Fu is in this too. He knew perfectly well the stuff takes hold of a man, and he still had the nerve to recommend it to this emperor.”
Something hard went across the bottom of the Xuan Emperor’s eyes.
And at that same hour, in the Hibiscus Palace, the news reached the Empress too.
“What did you say? What has happened, exactly?”
The Empress looked at the old eunuch in front of her, her eyes cold.
The old eunuch kept his head down. “Your Majesty, the son of Shao Hongbai, Secretary in the Ministry of War, went raving today after smoking immortal powder and ran out into the street… And Ning Chen happened to be passing.”
“Ning Chen saw there was something wrong with him and took Young Master Shao into custody. This servant does not know what he got out of Young Master Shao’s mouth. But not long afterward he took men and searched the Four Quarters gambling house and seized what was in it.”
“Everyone concerned has been taken back by the men of the Inspectorate… Ning Chen went into the palace himself for an audience, and should still be in the Hall of Cultivated Heart now.”
The Empress was past holding her anger. “This Ning Chen again? This little mongrel really is a curse… With all the streets there are in the capital, he takes that one, and of all people he runs into Young Master Shao in a raving fit.”
“No. Ning Chen did not go back to the Inspectorate to question him. He went straight into the palace. He must have found something.”
The old eunuch hurried to soothe her. “Your Majesty, calm your anger. Your health is what matters… Young Master Shao and Feng Cheng, the keeper of the Four Quarters gambling house, do not know very much.”
The Empress said angrily, “Do you know what it means to follow the vine to the melon? This is a season of troubles, and before my father comes back any slip at all could put us past all saving.”
“There is something uncanny about this Ning Chen, and we cannot leave ourselves open to him.”
“Go out of the palace at once and tell Prince Fu to wipe away every trace that may be left… And Shao Hongbai, Secretary in the Ministry of War, cannot be allowed to live.”
The old eunuch said quickly, “Yes. This servant goes at once!”
The Empress’s eyes were dark and cold as a snake’s. She had a feeling about it: whether their rising came off or failed, Ning Chen would be the one thing that could turn it, and the man had to be got rid of as soon as possible.
(End of Chapter 202)