He waited quietly a while. No danger, so far as he could tell.

Ning Chen edged carefully over and tried the stone door with a push… not a hair’s movement.

Could he have gotten it wrong? Perhaps the lamp was not the switch for the stone door.

Or had he turned it the wrong way?

He went back to the lamp and was reaching out to turn it when the flagstone under his feet suddenly flipped over and a deep pit opened.

There was nothing under Ning Chen’s foot. He lost his balance and pitched forward.

Trouble. There really is a trap.

Luckily Ning Chen was quick. He got one foot hard against the edge of the pit, and as he fell he caught the far edge with both hands and hung there over the gap.

Ning Chen looked down. The bottom of the pit was set with sharpened spikes.

It brought him out in a cold sweat.

It was lucky he had only put one foot on it. With both feet, the flagstone would have turned and dropped him, and he would have been full of holes by now.

So when he had turned the lamp before, the flagstone must already have come loose.

He had been careful at the time and had shot away at the first click… the flagstone had probably not even had time to react.

Ning Chen put his arms into it and came straight up onto his feet.

So the lamp was not the mechanism that opened the stone door.

Ning Chen began going over everything again.

But apart from that one lamp, there did not seem to be anything that moved.

He had turned it to the left. Perhaps turning it to the right would open the stone door.

Ning Chen tied one end of the rope to a pillar some distance off, judged the length he needed, and tied the other end around his own waist. That way, if the same thing happened again, the rope would catch him even if he did not react in time.

He worked his way along the wall to the lamp, took hold of it, drew a deep breath, and wrenched it hard to the right.

Click!

Ning Chen ran faster than any rabbit and shot better than ten meters back to cover behind a pillar.

There was a low rumbling.

Ning Chen put his head out and saw the stone door open a crack, with light coming through it.

His face lit up. He had guessed right after all.

Ning Chen made sure there was no other danger before he ran over, got a grip on the stone door, put his arms into it and pulled it open.

He stayed behind the door and put his head around to look inside.

“Holy shit!!!”

One look and he could not take his eyes off it.

It was a sealed room of a hundred square meters or more, with eternal lamps along the walls.

The floor was heaped with chests. Some of the chests stood open, and the gold and silver and jewels inside them threw back the lamplight in a glare that hurt to look at.

Ning Chen’s breath came fast and his eyes burned.

Who could look at that much gold and silver and keep his head?

But he had not entirely lost himself. He stayed wary, leveled the musket and went carefully in.

Only when he was sure there was no danger did Ning Chen start to enjoy the fruits of his victory.

How much gold and silver was in that room? Ning Chen could not begin to reckon it.

He pulled open a few chests at random, and they were packed to the lid with gold ingots and silver ingots.

The gold and silver in here could not be talked about in taels any longer. It would have to be tons.

Odd bits of silver were not fit to be in the room.

Ning Chen guessed there was enough gold and silver here to keep an army of a hundred thousand.

He was rich!

That old son of a bitch of a Left Chancellor had finally done one decent thing.

Ning Chen sat down on a heap of gold plate with an armful of gold and silver jewelry and pearls and gemstones against his chest, grinning like a fool.

Coming into that much money all at once, it was a wonder he did not lose his mind.

“Hahaha… this fortune falling out of the sky — I’ve caught it!”

After a while Ning Chen finally settled down.

He picked out two strings of pearls, a hair ornament, a jade pin and a few things of that kind, and stuffed a handful of gold beans into his clothes, and then put everything back the way it had been and withdrew.

He did not intend to touch this hoard for now.

He was hardly short of money as it was.

He had a feeling that one day he would find a use for it.

Ning Chen went out to the front courtyard and told Zhang Youcai to have his rooms made ready, since he would be handling army business here from now on.

And to send men to tell Yuan Long and the others that they could find him here if anything came up.

As for meals, Ning Chen had a few cooks brought over from the army.

Toward evening, Yuan Long, Pan Yucheng and the others came to the Mei residence.

Mangzhou had settled down for the time being.

More rebels had been taken that day.

There were now eight thousand Changling Army men in the city, and, with the dead and wounded taken out, seventeen hundred men of the musket battalion.

Everyone else had been pulled out and camped outside the city.

The prisoners had been broken up and put into the units too.

“Let me hand out the assignments again.”

Ning Chen looked at Mu Anbang. “You’ll take the camp outside the south gate. Watch the rebels who have been broken up into it, above all.”

Mu Anbang nodded quickly. “This officer has his orders!”

Ning Chen went on. “The north gate goes to Yuan Long. I’ll give you fifteen hundred musketeers and five thousand soldiers besides… and if the scouts bring back any word of the Grand Tutor, I want to hear it that instant.”

Yuan Long nodded. “Yes!”

Ning Chen paused and said, “The defense of the city goes to Lei An. Pull the men off the street corners wherever you can, so as not to alarm the people.”

“But the patrols stay. Around the clock, every day… loose on the outside, tight underneath.”

Lei An bent forward and took his orders.

Ning Chen had a table laid for a banquet.

“You’ve all worked hard these few days! Have a little to drink… but we still have work to do, so drink well and don’t drink yourselves flat. A small cup is good for the spirits.”

Two hours later they had all eaten and drunk their fill.

Yuan Long, Mu Anbang and Lei An withdrew first.

“Old Feng, how did the search and seizure go?”

Feng Qizheng said, smiling, “I was about to report. It’s all done. The families of Mangzhou’s officials, high and low, are locked up in the county cells, and their property is sealed.”

“Is it entered in a book?”

Feng Qizheng nodded and stood up. “Wait a moment.”

With that he went out.

Before long he came back with several ledgers in his arms and set them down in front of Ning Chen.

“The property of every official in Mangzhou is entered in the book. There is too much of it and I didn’t know where to have it taken, so all I could do was seal it for now… I’ve put men on it.”

Ning Chen made a sound of acknowledgment and leafed through the ledgers.

He did not find what he wanted in the first one.

At last, in the bottom ledger, he found the record of the deed to the Mei residence.

Ning Chen said, “Old Feng, I like this house. I’m going to strike it off the ledger altogether. Find me the deed to it tomorrow and bring it to me.”

Feng Qizheng nodded. Ning Chen was only asking for one house; ten would have been no trouble.

“No problem. I’ll bring it tomorrow!”

Ning Chen gave him a simple, honest smile and looked at Pan Yucheng. “Old Pan, you and I will put in a late night. Let’s tidy up the seized property in these ledgers, and then I’ll send them to the capital for His Majesty to decide on.”

Pan Yucheng understood at once what Ning Chen meant. By tidy up he certainly meant to hold a part of it back.

“Right!”

Pan Yucheng nodded.

Ning Chen had also held back part of the plunder from the North Royal Court last time; he had taken a hundred thousand taels of silver out of it.

Feng Qizheng grinned wide, foolish and delighted. He knew what Ning Chen was about too, and Ning Chen was certainly not going to leave him out.

“Chief, Ning Chen… that courtesans’ quarter in Mangzhou looked pretty grand to me. How about tonight we… heh heh heh…”

Ning Chen looked at Feng Qizheng, whose face was pure lechery, and said sourly, “There are better than a thousand rebels still unaccounted for and you’re in the mood for the courtesans’ quarter?”

“You go and take men out to hunt rebels… you weren’t smart to begin with. I’m afraid you’ll screw your brains out and turn into a complete fool.”

(End of Chapter 252)