Ning Chen and Feng Qizheng were put up in the rear courtyard of the county yamen.

For safety’s sake the two of them shared one room, so that if anything happened they could look out for each other.

That evening Qiu Mingde had a banquet made ready.

Ning Chen declined it on the grounds that he was not feeling well.

He did not dare eat anything of Qiu Mingde’s carelessly.

Qiu Mingde might not dare kill him out in the open, but what if there were some slow poison in the food?

It was only a guess, but there was never anything wrong with being careful.

Ning Chen and Feng Qizheng shut themselves in the room and gnawed at dry rations, and did not even dare drink the tea.

Feng Qizheng took out two of the rations and knocked them together. They rang.

“This is all we have—two left… We won’t hold out many days on this.”

Ning Chen smiled. “Bear with it. Tomorrow I’ll take you out and we’ll eat properly… Qiu Mingde can’t very well poison the food in the whole county town.”

Feng Qizheng nodded, then asked, “How long do we stay here?”

Ning Chen shook his head. “Until Old Pan comes back with men… Qiu Mingde doesn’t dare kill us inside Yangping County. But it’s more than three hundred li from Yangping County to the city of Xiuzhou, and I doubt we’d get down that road alive.”

Feng Qizheng said, “You’re an imperial commissioner now. If anything happens to you, he answers for it too.”

Ning Chen made a small sound. “How hard is it to find a few men to play hill bandits? Then they kill us and close the mouths… They hand the bodies over, and what blame is left is small enough for them to carry.”

“Old Feng, we go out and walk around a lot more these next few days… I showed who I was on the road to the yamen, but the common people don’t dare come to me with a complaint at all. It seems we’ll have to go to them.”

Feng Qizheng nodded.

Elsewhere, the letter from Xiuzhou had already reached Qiu Mingde.

“Master, what do they say up there?”

The clerk asked it.

He had taken the letter in and brought it straight to Qiu Mingde without time to read it.

Qiu Mingde’s face was unusually grave, and there was a frightened unease in his eyes.

“We underestimated Ning Chen after all… They say up there that Ning Chen has just come back from a great victory. He took Mangzhou, he recovered the frontier, and his war record is a blaze of merit.”

“After he got back to the capital, His Majesty granted him a marriage with the Ninth Princess. He is the future consort of a princess now, and stands high in His Majesty’s favor.”

The clerk was so shocked his mouth would not close. “This… how is this possible? How is it we’ve had not one word of any of it?”

Qiu Mingde said heavily, “The court gazette only reached Xiuzhou yesterday. Reckoning it out, it’ll be another two days before it reaches the counties.”

“Then what is it they actually want?”

Qiu Mingde sighed. “They want us not to touch Ning Chen. He’s only just come back from a great victory, and if anything happens to him the sky over Xiuzhou comes down.”

The clerk was full of worry. “Ning Chen has certainly come about that business. If we don’t hold him back and he finds out something, we’re finished for good.”

Qiu Mingde nodded slightly. “So Ning Chen must not find out anything at all. He has to come away with nothing at all, empty-handed.”

“Master, and if he has already found evidence?”

Qiu Mingde’s eyes went dark. He thought a while, then lowered his voice. “Send two men who can handle themselves. Tonight they search Ning Chen’s room, and if they turn up evidence they bring all of it back.”

“Tell them to be careful. Ning Chen is a man who has been on a battlefield.”

The clerk nodded. “Yes!”

Elsewhere, in the room, Feng Qizheng yawned.

“That’s enough talking! We’ve been at it all day and I’m dead on my feet. Let’s turn in early.”

Ning Chen said, “You sleep. I’ll take the first half of the night, you take the second.”

Feng Qizheng muttered, “Do we have to be this careful? Didn’t you say Qiu Mingde wouldn’t dare touch us inside Yangping County?”

“By any ordinary logic they wouldn’t dare touch us. But what if they don’t go by ordinary logic? Sail carefully and your boat lasts ten thousand years. There’s never any harm in keeping something in reserve.”

Watching Feng Qizheng yawn and yawn, Ning Chen yawned too. The thing is catching.

“All right, get to sleep and don’t waste the time. Get up in the second half of the night and take over from me.”

Feng Qizheng made a sound of agreement… and inside three seconds he was snoring.

Holy shit!!!

Ning Chen was struck dumb.

Asleep in one second. Badass.

The man really does have no heart and no lungs in him.

Ning Chen carried a chair over to the window, opened it a crack, then put the candle out and watched the yard through the gap.

The moon was bright tonight, dark inside and light out, and he could see everything in the courtyard clearly.

It was all right at first, but as the second half of the night came on Ning Chen could not keep his eyes open.

He slapped his own face and held his eyelids apart with his fingers, looking like an idiot.

A man busy at something doesn’t feel it. Sitting still and quiet in one place, the drowsiness comes easily.

Another hour went by and Ning Chen truly could not hold out. He stood up to go and wake Feng Qizheng.

Then all at once his eyes tightened. A moment ago, under the eaves opposite, something dark seemed to have flickered past.

Ning Chen came awake on the instant, and his eyes went sharp. He stared hard into the shadow under the eaves opposite.

Then his gaze fixed.

In the shadow under the eaves opposite, a dark shape was moving.

Ning Chen came to Feng Qizheng’s bedside and was about to wake him when Feng Qizheng’s eyes snapped open, both eyeballs staring, and gave Ning Chen a fright.

Has this man not been asleep?

No. He was snoring that loudly a moment ago, he was certainly asleep… Which only means he’s far more alert than he looks. Asleep in a second and awake in a second.

Ning Chen collected himself and made the sign for silence before Feng Qizheng could speak.

Feng Qizheng gave one nod and lowered his voice. “What is it?”

“Somebody’s come.”

In the courtyard were two men in night clothes with black cloth over their faces, working along under the eaves in the shadow until they were beneath Ning Chen’s window.

One of them found the window open a crack.

He edged up quietly and squinted into the room.

The room was pitch black. All he could make out was one bed with a man lying on it, seemingly fast asleep.

Then he crouched down and brought out a length of incense about as long as a little finger, and lit it with a fire striker, and the other man in black brought out a section of bamboo tube.

He pushed the incense into the tube, worked the tube in through the gap in the window, and blew gently at his end.

The smoke off the burning incense went down the tube and drifted out of the far end into the room.

Ning Chen let his eyes open a crack.

The moonlight was bright tonight and he could see exactly what they were doing.

Fuck!!!

Knockout incense?

I’ve only ever seen this in television dramas and movies. I never thought I’d get to experience it firsthand.

Ning Chen was sleeping on the side nearest the back window, and he had quietly opened that window a crack too.

The drugged smoke they blew into the room went out through the back window on the small draft, every wisp of it.

When the incense in the tube had burned out, the two men in black crouched under the window and waited about a quarter of an hour before they moved.

Ning Chen shut the back window quietly, then narrowed his eyes and watched the two men in black push the window gently open and climb through.

Once inside, the two of them separated, one going on tiptoe toward Ning Chen and the other toward Feng Qizheng.

The man in black who came to Ning Chen’s bedside gave him a light push and then dropped into a crouch, fast… After a moment he looked up, saw that Ning Chen had not reacted, and let out his breath.

He turned his head and said to the other man in black, low, “They’re out. Be quick about it.”

The man in black searched the cloak hanging beside the bed first and found nothing… then came to the bedside, turned the quilt back and started going over Ning Chen himself.

It was the same on Feng Qizheng’s side.

(End of Chapter 307)