The old madam found four girls.

Xiuzhou breeds fine people out of fine country, and because of the water and the soil the girls here all have good skin—small and delicate and fair, and soft-spoken.

While they were drinking, Feng Qizheng kept throwing looks at Ning Chen, his eyes going like a man with a twitch.

Ning Chen understood him well enough. The worms were up in the man’s brain.

He set his cup down and stood. “Old Gao comes back with me. You two please yourselves.”

Feng Qizheng’s and Chen Chong’s eyes lit up and they nodded over and over.

Gao Ziping looked at Ning Chen completely blank. He wanted to please himself too.

Ning Chen took him away all the same.

Prince Duan still had to be guarded against, and two men could look out for each other.

“You two be careful.”

Ning Chen said it and left with Gao Ziping.

Back at the inn.

Ning Chen told Gao Ziping to turn in early. They had the road back to the capital tomorrow.

He watched Gao Ziping go into his room and came to his own door.

He looked down. The strip of paper wedged in the crack at the bottom was still there, and only then did he push the door open and go in.

But as he shut the door and turned, his eyes tightened and he had the dagger out and thrown like lightning.

Whip!!!

The dagger went out as a streak of cold light and was gone in the dark as fast as it came.

The dark shape sitting by the table twisted aside, and the dagger buried itself in the wall behind him.

Before Ning Chen could draw, the shape came over the table and at him.

Ning Chen grabbed the copper basin off the washstand by the door and threw it.

The shape’s hand moved like lightning. He caught the basin and flung it back without looking, and the basin landed on the washstand again.

Ning Chen used the moment to push off, fast as a leopard, and drove a vicious elbow at the man’s chest.

The shape crossed both arms in front of his chest.

Thud!!!

The shape was driven back several steps.

Ning Chen pressed in on him and put in a vicious straight kick.

The shape drove a fist into the sole of Ning Chen’s foot, and the force of it was frightening. It drove Ning Chen back several steps, and his right foot and the whole calf went numb.

Before Ning Chen could get his breath, the shape came in again.

His fists were fast. One of them came at Ning Chen like a shot.

Ning Chen turned aside and the fist went past grazing his chest, and before the man could draw it back Ning Chen caught his arm and put him into a hard shoulder throw, slamming him at the floor.

But the man bent both legs and landed steady on the ground, and before Ning Chen could react he caught Ning Chen’s arm and gave him a shoulder throw of his own.

Ning Chen hooked his left arm and locked it around the man’s neck.

The momentum took them both down on the floor together.

Ning Chen had no time to feel it. He rolled and came up on his feet.

The shape came up off the floor with a kick-up and stood.

“Who are you?”

Ning Chen fixed his eyes on him as he asked it.

This man had no intent to kill him.

That was why he had not called Gao Ziping.

If he had come to kill him, waiting behind the door with a blade and striking the moment he came in would have had a far better chance of it.

But this man was sitting at the table, plainly waiting for him.

The man made no further move, and said nothing either.

Ning Chen’s eyes flickered, and he tried it. “Eldest Brother?”

Yuan Zishi had said the Ghost-Shadow Sect’s eldest brother wanted to see him.

This man was first-rate, and he had found the strip of paper wedged under the door and put it back where it was—which fit an assassin’s carefulness.

The man stepped back a few paces, blew a fire striker up and lit the candle.

Ning Chen finally saw his face, and the first impression was coldness.

He was lean and evenly built, in black close-fitting clothes, his features strong and handsome, his lips pressed tight, which made him look cold.

“You’re Eldest Brother?”

The man was younger than Yuan Zishi, thirty-five or so by the look of him.

But an eldest brother does not have to be old. He has to have entered the school early.

If a child of three entered first, you would still have to call him elder brother.

The man looked Ning Chen over, nodded and made a sound of agreement, which was as good as admitting who he was.

Then he said, “Xie Siyu.”

“I don’t suppose I need to introduce myself?” Ning Chen came over, smiling. “Eldest Brother, sit down.”

The two of them went to the table and sat.

Xie Siyu looked at Ning Chen. “How did you guess it was me?”

Ning Chen smiled. “A wild guess.”

Xie Siyu did not press it. “When you have time, come back to the school.”

Ning Chen raised an eyebrow. “You trust me that much? I’m a silver coat of the Inspectorate, and you’re on the Inspectorate’s wanted list.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll bring men and take the whole nest of you?”

Xie Siyu looked at him and said, with a little cold in his voice, “Ning the Silver Coat of Great Xuan would never be so faithless.”

Ning Chen: “…”

Fuck!!!

Is the character I’ve built really that solid?

Xie Siyu went on. “You are our uncle’s only disciple.”

That stopped Ning Chen for a second.

Xie Siyu said, “When you reach the capital, if you need anything, go to the manager of the Tong’an Hall. If you want to come back to the school, you can go to him for that too.”

The Tong’an Hall? That sounded like a physician’s shop.

Xie Siyu stood up. “I’m going.”

Ning Chen: ???

“Eldest Brother, do you have to be that cool?”

Xie Siyu paid no attention to him. He went to the door, and as he pulled it open to go out he said one thing. “You’ll do.”

Ning Chen blinked. What about him would do?

Was it his looks or his character… The looks he would grant. The character was only a character he had built, and the man he was now was not the boy full of hot blood who had first crossed over.

By the time he came back to himself, Xie Siyu was gone.

This Eldest Brother really is cool. In like a shot and out like a shot, Ning Chen said inwardly.

The next day, early in the morning.

Feng Qizheng and Chen Chong came back.

The four of them went down to eat.

Feng Qizheng and Chen Chong had spring in their faces, and it was plain enough that they had had a very good night.

“Ning Chen, Old Gao… you two really lost out leaving early last night… Xiuzhou girls have wonderful skin. So tender you could pinch water out of it.”

Chen Chong nodded over and over. “Small and soft is exactly the kind I like.”

Gao Ziping looked envious. It was all Ning Chen’s fault for insisting on hauling him back.

Ning Chen looked at Chen Chong. “Science has found that men who like small women are that way because they have short ding-a-lings.”

The corner of Chen Chong’s mouth twitched and he went up in flames. “Who is Science? Bring him here to me and see whether I don’t twist his head off.”

Ning Chen: ???

“Eat up. We ride back to the capital when we’re done.”

It was New Year tomorrow. Who would have thought that after crossing over into this world, his first New Year would be spent on the road?

They ate and drank their fill and rode out of the city of Xiuzhou.

That evening the four of them stopped, meaning to rest the night at a post station.

There was a post station every thirty li along the post road.

When the station master learned who Ning Chen and the others were, he came hurrying out to meet them.

The station master had charge of the carriages and horses and of receiving travelers, and did not even hold a grade… which is to say he was a petty clerk with no rank at all.

They rested a night at the post station.

The next day they went on.

They did not stop until evening, meaning again to rest at a post station.

But they had only just reached the station gate and had not gotten down yet when they heard hooves ringing in the distance.

Ning Chen turned his head and looked. There was dust going up a long way off.

A troop of armored horsemen a thousand strong came on at a gallop… and at their head was Pan Yucheng.

(End of Chapter 318)