It took Ning Chen and Pan Yucheng more than four hours to get the property of Mangzhou’s officials, high and low, into rough order.

Looking at the figures they had come up with, the two of them were staggered.

“Mangzhou’s officials really are rich!”

Pan Yucheng said, “There was a reason they were willing to betray the court and serve Chang Chengyun.”

Ning Chen nodded. “Men die chasing money and birds die chasing food, sure enough… a pity you have to live to spend what you live to earn.”

Adding it all up, the whole property of Mangzhou’s officials came to better than four million taels.

And some of it was real estate they had only estimated roughly.

Pan Yucheng said, “It looks as though the Left Chancellor had been working Mangzhou for a long while… these officials could not have piled up that much silver otherwise.”

You are still underestimating him, Ning Chen thought. What he took for himself is more than this.

He had not counted the gold and silver in the sealed room closely, but there was certainly more of it than this.

“How much do you mean to hold back?”

Pan Yucheng came straight to the point.

Once a thing like this has been done there is always a second time. It was not their first.

Ning Chen thought it over. “Keep half.”

Pan Yucheng was startled. “Isn’t that too much?”

Ning Chen said, smiling, “The men bought this back with their lives. It isn’t too much at all… do it the way I said. We keep two million taels, and the rest goes back to the capital for His Majesty to decide on.”

Pan Yucheng thought about it and nodded slightly.

“Old Pan, it’s late! Get some sleep. I’ll put the list in order and write a memorial, and tomorrow we’ll have the things sent to the capital.”

“Get some sleep yourself!”

The next day Ning Chen sent for Feng Qizheng, handed him a list, and told him to have everything on it loaded into carts.

Then he sent for Lei An and had him detail a thousand men he could trust to take it all back to the capital.

Once that was arranged, Ning Chen and Pan Yucheng went out into the street.

The street was a crush of people.

Mangzhou had gone back to being as busy as it always was.

“This many people? I thought the townspeople wouldn’t dare come out for a while yet, and it would be some time before things went back to normal.”

Pan Yucheng said, smiling, “That’s thanks to you.”

“Hm?”

“The name Ning Chen, Ning the Silver Coat, still carries a lot of weight. The people trust you.”

Ning Chen was surprised. “The people of Mangzhou know about me too?”

Pan Yucheng said, “You cut down the Empress’s brother for the sake of the people of Chongzhou, and the story has gone around every province and county in Great Xuan.”

“And Lingzhou is not far from here… what you did cleaning out the officials in Lingzhou reached Mangzhou long ago.”

“The people don’t ask for much. One good official who will speak up for them, and three meals a day. That’s all.”

“They read the notice, they know it’s you commanding, and our discipline is strict. Naturally they’re not so frightened.”

Ning Chen grinned wickedly. “The people ask more than I do. All I ask is three meals a day, and the two things.”

Pan Yucheng turned his head. “Isn’t that one thing?”

“No. Two things.”

Pan Yucheng put his head down and thought, and then understood, and rolled his eyes with nothing to say.

As they walked, Ning Chen suddenly sniffed the air.

He followed his nose and found the smell coming from a little stall at the roadside. “That smells good! Old Pan, I’ll buy you a bowl of tofu pudding.”

Ning Chen and Pan Yucheng went over and sat down.

“Two bowls of tofu pudding, and four flatbreads.”

“One moment, sirs! Coming right up.”

The stallkeeper had the tofu pudding and the flatbreads over to them in no time.

Ning Chen ate a mouthful of flatbread and a mouthful of tofu pudding, and it tasted wonderful.

“Nobody fight me for it, this one’s mine today.”

“Old Li, have you come into money?”

“Come into my ass. Before those dog officials were taken I was down to nothing to put in the pot… it’s all right now, those sons of bitches are all locked up and I couldn’t be happier.”

“He’s right! Ning the Silver Coat is a good official who speaks up for the people, his men keep strict discipline, and life is going to be better for the likes of us.”

“Ah… if only Ning the Silver Coat had come sooner. Then those dog officials wouldn’t have taken my shop from me.”

At the next table, several customers were talking back and forth.

“All this talk. Has any of you actually seen Ning the Silver Coat?”

“I have!”

It was a dried-up little old man who said it.

“Go on and brag.”

The little old man’s face was perfectly serious. “I did see him. Ning the Silver Coat stands seven feet tall, handsome as they come, a fine figure of a man, with a mountain-splitting axe in each hand. Anyone who stood in his way he killed, and if a Buddha had stood in his way he’d have killed the Buddha. He fought his way from the south gate to the north gate and killed better than five thousand rebels on his own… they say that dog official Zhuo Heguang took one look at Ning the Silver Coat and dropped dead of fright on the spot.”

“What kind of nonsense are you talking? I’ll grant you Ning the Silver Coat is formidable, but one man killing five thousand — he’d have dropped dead from exhaustion long before.”

“If you don’t know, don’t talk. Is Ning the Silver Coat a man at all? I’m telling you, Ning the Silver Coat is an immortal… that night I got up to relieve myself and I saw a crowd of people with wings on come flying down out of the sky. Those were Ning the Silver Coat’s men.”

Pan Yucheng looked up and gave Ning Chen a thoroughly amused look.

Ning Chen quietly put a hand over his face. One man killing five thousand… my friend, you’ve got some nerve talking me up.

“Out of the way, get out of the way…”

“Stop! Don’t run…”

All at once there was chaos in the street.

Ning Chen stood up and looked hard.

Four big men with blades in their hands were making a run for it down the street, and one of them had a small, slight young woman over his shoulder.

Behind them a party of men was in pursuit. Changling Army.

Ning Chen shot out with half a flatbread in his teeth, his saber clearing the scabbard, and cut the four men off.

He leveled the saber and said sharply, “Stop where you are!”

“Get out of the way!”

One of the big men swung his blade and came at Ning Chen.

Ning Chen went forward instead of back, breaking out like a cheetah, and went under the man’s blade in a sliding tackle. Then he was up fast, turning, and put the saber into the man’s back.

Thk!!!

A terrible scream, blood flying, and the big man pitched forward on his face.

Ning Chen closed a long stride and finished him with one stroke.

The people around them screamed.

The big man with the woman on his shoulder said sharply, “The two of you go together. Kill him.”

Ning Chen brought his saber up, about to move… and a figure cut in from the side and went past the two men as they came.

The two big men staggered forward a few steps and pitched over headfirst, with blood pumping from their throats and reddening the ground.

Pan Yucheng came to a stop and shook the blood off his blade.

The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched. Old Pan really had no manners, stealing his chance to be full of himself.

He looked coldly at the big man holding the woman. “Who are you people?”

By then the Changling Army men behind them had caught up.

They saw Ning Chen and saluted at once, and said together, “General Ning!”

There was an immediate uproar among the people around them, staring at Ning Chen in shock and excitement.

General Ning?

So this young man was Ning Chen, Ning the Silver Coat.

At the stall, a middle-aged man looked at the little old man. “Old Li, didn’t you say Ning the Silver Coat stood seven feet tall with a mountain-splitting axe in each hand?”

Old Li was embarrassed, but his beak stayed hard. “Can’t Ning the Silver Coat have forgotten his axes today? I said Ning the Silver Coat was a fine figure of a man and handsome, and what part of that was wrong? He’s a little short, that’s all. What difference does that make?”

The man who had been teasing Old Li was the one left without an answer.

Out in the street, Ning Chen looked at the Changling Army men and pointed his saber at the big man holding the woman. “Who are these people?”

One of the soldiers answered. “This subordinate doesn’t know either. They snatched this young lady in the street out of nowhere, we saw it, and this subordinate took men after them… luckily we ran into General Ning.”

Ning Chen looked at the big man, his eyes hard. “Put her down!”

The big man did put the woman down off his shoulder, but he laid the blade against her neck and shouted with a snarling face, “Let me go… or I’ll kill her.”

The woman was young, and pretty in a quiet way, and her small face had gone chalk white with fright. The tears were running down it and her slight body would not stop shaking.

Ning Chen glanced at Pan Yucheng.

Pan Yucheng took his meaning at once, inclined his head slightly, and flicked his hand up.

Fft! Fft!!!

Two pebbles went out like streaks of cold light.

One took the big man in the web of his hand, and the blade dropped out of it.

The other took him in the temple, and without so much as a grunt he went over sideways.

The small, slight woman screamed in fright, dropped to the ground where she stood, and crouched there shaking with both arms over her head.

Ning Chen went forward to help the woman up.

But when he was no more than a meter from her, the woman suddenly snatched up the fallen blade and drove it at him, the point hissing with a sound of tearing air, vicious and hard as a striking snake.

(End of Chapter 253)