“The Heaven’s Course.”

Bai Lian was silent a long while before she got the words out.

Ning Chen’s eyes narrowed slightly. “How many of you are there?”

“A hundred-odd!”

Ning Chen looked at Pan Yucheng. “Old Pan, go there yourself. Take plenty of men and take every one of the Heaven’s Course people.”

“Right, I’ll go now!”

Pan Yucheng left at a fast walk.

Ning Chen asked mildly, “Besides the Heaven’s Course, where else?”

Bai Lian shook her head. “I don’t know!”

Ning Chen smiled coldly. “You aren’t being honest with me.”

Bai Lian said quickly, “Everything I’ve told you is true.”

“Why do you sell your lives for Chang Chengyun?”

Bai Lian looked puzzled. “Who is Chang Chengyun?”

Ning Chen: ???

“You still haven’t said who sent you to kill me.”

Bai Lian said, “Our chief escort master.”

“Do you know why your chief escort master wants me dead?”

Bai Lian shook her head. “No! We only carry out orders.”

Ning Chen was quiet for a moment, then asked, “You’re an orphan, I take it?”

Bai Lian nodded. “Yes!”

Ning Chen waved a hand and gave the order. “Take her out. Watch her closely.”

Two soldiers dragged Bai Lian out.

Feng Qizheng asked curiously, “Why stop questioning her?”

“She’s a small fish, and that’s probably as much as she knows… she’s the same as those men sworn to die in the capital. Trained as killers from childhood, and all they can do is carry out orders.”

Ning Chen sighed. “These are what’s left of the Left Chancellor’s people. It stands to reason they’d want me dead.”

“None of it matters much, though. The Left Chancellor is dead, and when the tree falls the monkeys scatter… these people aren’t worth worrying about.”

Feng Qizheng nodded.

“Do you want that wound seen to?”

Ning Chen shook his head. “A scratch. It’s nothing.”

“I’ve got wound powder here. Put some on, it’ll heal faster.”

Ning Chen made a sound of acknowledgment and took the medicine Feng Qizheng held out.

Four hours later Pan Yucheng came back.

“Well?”

Pan Yucheng said, “We took all of them… they were getting ready to pull out when we arrived. We were lucky to be in time.”

Ning Chen inclined his head slightly. “Have they been questioned?”

“There hasn’t been time yet.”

Ning Chen poured a cup of tea and held it out. “Old Pan, questioning is your strong suit. I’ll trouble you and Old Feng with it.”

“Leave it to us.”

Pan Yucheng took the cup, drank it off at one go, and left with Feng Qizheng.

Ning Chen took men out to the camp outside the city and went around it, asking how the rebels were doing.

Told that the rebels were behaving themselves, Ning Chen did not stay long and went back to the Mei residence.

That evening Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng came.

“How did the questioning go?”

Pan Yucheng said, “The chief escort master of the Heaven’s Course was one of the Left Chancellor’s trusted men. He raised assassins in secret and did the work the Left Chancellor couldn’t be seen doing.”

“The Left Chancellor did him a kindness once, and the man has some backbone about it — he pays a debt he owes… he wanted to kill you to avenge the Left Chancellor.”

Feng Qizheng went on. “We took better than twenty women assassins, and each one prettier than the last.”

Ning Chen looked at him and had nothing to say.

Pan Yucheng said mildly, “The assassins have all had their heads washed out. They’re like mad dogs. They hurt several of our men.”

Feng Qizheng’s face was pure lechery. “Ning Chen, how about you hand those women assassins over to me and I’ll bring them around with love… they might turn out to be useful to us. They can all fight.”

Ning Chen said, laughing at him, “Is it love you’d be bringing them around with? Looks to me like you mean to bring them around with your body.”

Feng Qizheng laughed. “Same thing, same thing…”

The corner of Ning Chen’s mouth twitched. “See how deeply I love you — you mean see how deep I get into you, don’t you?”

Feng Qizheng nodded and kept nodding, like a kowtow beetle. “Yes, yes, yes, that’s what I mean!”

Ning Chen could have kicked him to death. Yes, yes, yes, was it? The man really would eat anything raw or cold, with nothing in his head but worms.

“Old Pan, execute all of them. Leave nobody.”

Pan Yucheng nodded. “Right, I’ll go now!”

Pan Yucheng was a steady man, and a man who acted.

Feng Qizheng’s face screwed up. “Such a waste! Ning Chen, why don’t you go look at them, they really are beautiful, that face, those breasts, that backside, that—”

“That your sister.” Ning Chen cut him off sourly. “Old Feng, I’m going to have to think about having you gelded, or you’ll die at a woman’s hands sooner or later.”

Feng Qizheng clamped his legs together.

“Ning Chen, brothers are brothers… if you dare touch Feng the Second I’ll fight you for my life.”

“I haven’t taken a wife or had a son yet. If you touch Feng the Second, the Feng line dies out.”

Ning Chen shook his head helplessly. “Get out. Go hunt rebels for me.”

“I haven’t eaten yet.”

“Go have your milk, then.”

“Eh?”

Ning Chen said, smiling, “Old Feng, it occurs to me the rebels may be hiding in the courtesans’ quarter. Go look into it.”

Feng Qizheng’s eyes lit up on the instant.

“Ning Chen, you really are the clever one… how did I not think of that? I’ll go now.”

With that he turned and ran.

At the door he suddenly stopped and looked back. “Aren’t you coming with me? I’m afraid there may be too many rebels for one man to handle.”

Ning Chen said, smiling, “I have every confidence you can handle it. To take the bandits, take their king first… catch two of the ringleaders, give them a talking-to first and question them later, and the truth is bound to come out.”

Feng Qizheng nodded and pretended he had understood.

Watching Feng Qizheng trot off looking very pleased with himself, Ning Chen sighed helplessly.

There is a saying that has it right: the clever man is the slave of the dull one, and the man who understands nothing lives like a household god.

He honestly half envied Feng Qizheng. A simple head, living only for what he liked, having an easier and freer time of it than the rest of them.

Several days went by in a blur.

The rebels who had gone to ground were nearly all cleared out.

There were still some, but not enough to worry about.

Mangzhou was entirely quiet again.

That morning Ning Chen got up with his mouth dry and his tongue parched.

He had drunk a little too much at the courtesans’ quarter the night before.

In the end he had not held out against Feng Qizheng wearing him down, soft and hard, and had gone along.

And regretted it the moment he got there.

The girls of the Mangzhou courtesans’ quarter were nothing beside the ones in the capital, and there was no comparing them with Yudie at all.

So Feng Qizheng was the only one who stayed the night.

He and Pan Yucheng had come home.

Ning Chen got up, washed, and swallowed several mouthfuls of cold tea.

Zhang Youcai brought breakfast in.

Ning Chen sent for Pan Yucheng to eat with him.

The two of them were partway through breakfast when Lei An came hurrying in.

“General Ning, the Grand Tutor has rebelled.”

Ning Chen was slightly taken aback, though not much shocked. It was what he had expected.

The Grand Tutor had two children in all: the Empress and the Empress’s brother.

He had cut the Empress’s brother down himself.

The Empress had been granted death.

The Grand Tutor had two hundred thousand men in his hands. It would have been strange if he had not rebelled.

Lei An said, “The scouts report that the Grand Tutor is leading a hundred thousand men and bearing straight down on Mangzhou.”

Pan Yucheng was surprised. “A hundred thousand? The Grand Tutor has two hundred thousand. Why has he brought only half?”

Lei An shook his head. “I don’t know! The Grand Tutor has certainly brought only a hundred thousand. The other hundred thousand are still holding the frontier.”

Pan Yucheng looked at Ning Chen. “Can it be that the Grand Tutor has not rebelled after all?”

Ning Chen was quiet for a moment, and then said flatly, “No. He has.”

Pan Yucheng did not follow. “How so?”

(End of Chapter 255)