After some discussion, Gao Ziping and Chen Chong took Yang Yongwang and his people up into the mountains to hide.
Ning Chen, Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng went on to Yangping County to investigate.
They rode all night.
It was nearly dawn by the time they reached Yangping County.
The three of them found a place and rested awhile.
The plan was to wait for full daylight and then find a way in.
There were government men at every crossroads in Yangping County, and the checks were strict.
They saw Ning Chen and the other two riding up.
The soldiers at the crossroads were instantly on their guard.
“Halt! Off your horses!”
The three of them swung down and led their horses up.
The bailiff in charge looked the three of them over. “Who are you?”
Ning Chen cupped his fists. “Officer, we’re from Lingzhou. My name is Wu Wei, and I’ve come to Yangping County to call on an elder of the family.”
“An elder? What elder?”
“His name is Zhang Jing. He’s in the medicinal herb trade. We heard he’d fallen gravely ill, so my father sent me here to look in on him.”
Ning Chen made it up as it came out of his mouth.
While he talked he stepped forward and quietly passed over a silver note.
The bailiff in charge glanced down and his eyes lit up all at once… fifty taels.
That fifty-tael note was one Ning Chen had borrowed from Eunuch Quan.
Which left him without a coin to his name.
The bailiff in charge slid the note into his sleeve without a flicker and said, “Let’s see your registration papers.”
The three of them took out their registration papers and handed them over.
The bailiff in charge looked through them and nodded slightly.
“The papers are in order! But His Honor the Magistrate has given orders—no outsiders stay the night… You can go in if you like. Leave the horses, and be back before dark.”
Ning Chen smiled. “Many thanks, Officer!”
“Those two hand over their weapons too!”
Ning Chen nodded, and had Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng give up their sabers.
They had changed their blades before setting out. These were not the Inspectorate’s issue sabers, so there was nothing to give them away.
“Remember, back before dark. Without fail!”
“Yes. This small man obeys!”
Watching the three of them go, one of the bailiffs asked quietly, “Chief, His Honor the Magistrate did say it—no strange faces are to be let into Yangping County at all.”
“You don’t know shit!” The bailiff in charge brought the silver note out. “Open your worthless eyes and take a good look. Fifty taels. Our pay for a whole year is what, a few taels?”
“One look at that young man and you know he’s the young gentleman of a great house. They’ve come to visit relatives, they’ll be back this evening, and there’ll be no trouble!”
Not long after Ning Chen and the others left, a fast horse came galloping up, and the man on it was a bailiff too.
He reached them and swung down.
“Lord Magistrate’s orders. Watch closely for strange faces, in particular a party of five with a young man of sixteen or seventeen among them, dressed as the son of a great house.”
The bailiff in charge changed color.
The new man saw it. “What is it?”
The bailiff in charge said quickly, “Nothing, nothing… Tell Lord Magistrate to set his mind at rest. We’ll keep a sharp watch!”
The new man nodded slightly. “Take them the moment you see them. If they resist, cut them down where they stand!”
“Yes!”
Watching the man ride off, one of the bailiffs asked quietly, “Chief, that young man—could it be those three we just let through?”
“Shut your mouth! Pass the word to the brothers. Nobody breathes a word of this to anybody.”
“Have the brothers ready… We wait for those three to come back, and we take them the moment they do. That’ll be a great merit for us.”
“Chief, that’s brilliant… By then, even if Lord Magistrate finds out we let them in, he won’t hold it against us. We’ll have caught the men anyway. There might even be a reward in it.”
By then Ning Chen and the others had gone straight to the fields outside the town.
They got there, looked out across them, and there was nothing at all.
Feng Qizheng muttered, “There’s nothing here.”
Ning Chen walked out into the field, crouched down and looked things over. “Every year before winter the ground gets turned over. There won’t be anything on the surface.”
As he said it he began digging.
Before long he pulled a half-rotted stalk of something out of the earth.
Ning Chen held it and studied it closely.
Pan Yucheng came over. “What is that?”
Ning Chen said, “The stem of the immortals’ flower.”
Pan Yucheng’s face lit up. “So we’ve come to the right place?”
Ning Chen nodded slightly.
“The climate here is damp, the soil is rich, and the summer days are long… it really is good country for growing the immortals’ flower.”
As he spoke he wrapped the stem in a handkerchief and put it away inside his coat.
Feng Qizheng ran his eyes around. “There aren’t ten thousand acres of land here.”
Ning Chen glanced at him. “Ten thousand acres is a figure of speech. If a whole county were planted with the immortals’ flower, there’d be immortal powder everywhere in Great Xuan.”
“Come on. Let’s go and talk to the people nearby… Yang Yongwang says this year’s crop of the immortals’ flower came in. If we can lay hands on that fruit, it’s proof beyond appeal.”
The three of them called on the people who lived nearby.
They got little for it.
The people knew only that the fruit the immortals’ flower produced had been handed over to the authorities. Where it went after that, nobody knew.
Pan Yucheng asked, “What do we do next?”
Ning Chen thought about it. “This isn’t a place to stay long. We get out first and talk after… then we go and look at the few counties around here.”
The three of them went back the way they had come.
When they reached the crossroads and saw that crowd of bailiffs, Ning Chen’s brow drew together slightly.
He lowered his voice. “Careful. Something’s off.”
Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng nodded. They had seen it too—every one of the bailiffs had made the same movement at the sight of them. Their hands had gone to their saber hilts without thinking.
Ning Chen came forward smiling. “Officers, you’ve had a long day of it!”
The bailiff in charge fixed his eyes on Ning Chen with a smile that went no deeper than the skin, and then all at once he waved his hand.
The other bailiffs drew and rushed in and had the three of them surrounded.
Ning Chen frowned. “Officer, what’s the meaning of this?”
“The meaning? You’ll find out when you get to the yamen… Take them.”
Ning Chen gave a cold snort. “Do it.”
These constables had a little skill in them, but it was all farmhand stuff… in front of these three it was nothing worth looking at.
Feng Qizheng burst forward in one stride, slipped a constable’s saber and kicked him several meters through the air.
As for Pan Yucheng, there was even less to it. He took a naked blade barehanded and brought the long saber down flat on a bailiff’s head, and laid him out on the ground with it.
Seven or eight constables were nowhere near enough of a fight.
Ning Chen went at the bailiff in charge like a leopard.
The man cut down at him.
Ning Chen slipped the saber and drove an elbow into his chest, and man and blade together went several meters through the air.
He rushed over and picked the saber up off the ground, and before the man could get up the point was already at his throat.
The bailiff in charge went rigid with fright and did not dare move at all.
Ning Chen glanced back. Feng Qizheng and Pan Yucheng had already dealt with the other bailiffs, who were down on the ground groaning in pain.
“You… you dare strike bailiffs. This is rebellion…”
Ning Chen brought the saber down flat on his head, hard enough to tear a scream out of him.
“I ask, you answer. One word wrong and I take your head off.”
“Talk. Why the sudden arrest?”
The bailiff said, shaking all over, “I—I don’t know. Not long after you left, Lord Magistrate sent a man to tell us, with orders to take you.”
Ning Chen’s brow drew tight.
Then he called Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng aside and lowered his voice. “It looks like our cover is blown.”
Both of them were startled. Feng Qizheng said, “How? We’ve been careful the whole way.”
(End of Chapter 304)