Ning Chen rode Diaochan, clop, clop, clop, to the Inspectorate.

Since coming back from Xiuzhou he had been to the Inspectorate exactly once.

Not even Geng Jing dared skip work and idle as openly as he did.

Of course, he was not coming to the Inspectorate for work now either… He was coming to show off.

He was a marquis, and if he did not show it off in front of Feng Qizheng and those other degenerates, it would be like wearing brocade at night.

At the Inspectorate gate Ning Chen swung down from the saddle.

The red coats at the gate were dumbstruck, staring blankly at the python robe Ning Chen was wearing.

Silver python on black. Only a marquis could wear it.

Ning the Silver Coat had been made a marquis?

Nobody dared suppose the robe was false. However far Ning Chen’s nerve went, he would not put a counterfeit python robe on his back — that was a crime his whole household would be wiped out for.

“This subordinate greets Marquis Ning!”

Several red coats dropped to their knees.

Ning Chen smiled. “Get up.”

“Thank you, marquis!”

They got to their feet and stared straight at the python robe.

Ning Chen turned a circle. “Well? Do I look sharp or don’t I?”

The red coats nodded and nodded.

“Sharp. Sharp beyond all law and heaven.”

“Too sharp. That python robe might as well have been cut to Marquis Ning’s measure.”

“Congratulations to Marquis Ning on the marquisate!”

Ning Chen laughed out loud, dug out a few taels of silver and tossed the coins to them. “It’s freezing out. When you come off shift, go have a drink with the brothers and warm yourselves up.”

The red coats thanked him over and over.

Marquis Ning is all right. Good-looking, good at the work, and open-handed on top of it… We have to put our backs into it and get onto Marquis Ning’s staff someday. Just thinking about it feels good.

Ning Chen went into the Inspectorate and headed for one particular room.

On the way, everyone in the Inspectorate who saw the python robe was astonished.

Ning Chen had been made a marquis?

Then again, it stood to reason. A sweeping victory in the northern campaign and the King of the Left Court taken alive… and now Mangzhou seized and the frontier passes recovered. His war record was a blaze of merit.

“We greet Marquis Ning!”

Ning Chen smiled. “Up, up… We’re all brothers here, there’s no need for so much ceremony. Inside the Inspectorate I’m no marquis. I’m Ning Chen, silver coat of the Inspectorate, your brother and your colleague.”

As he spoke, another few dozen taels of silver went out.

The whole point being to seem approachable and buy their hearts.

He came to the room.

Before he was through the door he could hear Feng Qizheng boasting to everyone that last night he had slept with two girls at the pleasure houses, and by morning neither of them could get out of bed.

It was not entirely a boast, either. The man was inhumanly strong. He was livestock, plain and simple.

Ning Chen stepped inside.

Feng Qizheng had sharp eyes and spotted Ning Chen first.

“Ning Chen, where the hell have you been all this while, boy? Not a shadow of you anywhere. Miss Yudie hasn’t squeezed you dry, has she?”

Ning Chen’s face went flat and he said, low, “Insolence! Feng Qizheng, you have the gall to speak to me that way?”

Everyone stopped short.

Feng Qizheng laughed, heh heh. “Look at that, look at that… He’s gone red and furious. I must have hit the mark…”

Gao Ziping’s gaze sharpened. Something was wrong with what Ning Chen was wearing. He looked closer and his face changed.

He tugged hurriedly at Feng Qizheng.

“Ning Chen, that little frame of yours isn’t much to speak of. Don’t feel bad about it, though — there’s nobody alive who can match me anyway… Old Gao, what are you pulling at me for?”

Gao Ziping said, without thinking, “Python robe.”

“Python robe? What python robe?”

The others had noticed it too. What Ning Chen had on was a python robe.

When Ning Chen was not in his coat he liked to wear black, and he was forever preening in front of them about it, saying Yudie had sewn it for him stitch by stitch.

That was why they had not noticed right away that what he was wearing was a python robe.

“We greet Marquis Ning!”

Gao Ziping and the rest went down on their knees at once.

“Marquis Ning?”

Feng Qizheng’s face was all confusion, and then, slow as ever, he noticed the python robe.

But his first move was not to kneel. It was to rush over and shut the door.

“Ning Chen, have you lost your mind? You dare put on a python robe? Don’t you want to keep your head? Get it off, quick…”

Feng Qizheng came striding over as he spoke and started on Ning Chen’s buttons in a panic, trying to get the python robe off him.

His first thought was that the robe was a fake. Ning Chen had done more than a few outrageous things in his time, and his nerve was past all measure.

That left Ning Chen at a loss.

He slapped Feng Qizheng’s hands away, annoyed, and said with a flat face, “Feng Qizheng, you dare lay hands on this marquis?”

“If you don’t get it off, that head of yours is coming off its shoulders, you monkey. Your nerve is too much — putting on a stolen python robe. How many heads do you have?”

And he made ready to strip the clothes off Ning Chen again.

Ning Chen’s forehead filled with black lines. This great lump.

“It’s fucking real.”

“Feng Qizheng, at the morning court today His Majesty made me Idle Marquis in front of the whole court, civil and military.”

Feng Qizheng’s hands stopped. He stared blankly at Ning Chen. “Really?”

Ning Chen kept his face flat and said coldly, “Feng Qizheng, you actually dare doubt this marquis… Gao Ziping, Chen Chong, take this insolent lump for me.”

Gao Ziping and Chen Chong stopped short.

Ning Chen turned his head and winked at them, then said, “What’s this? Does this marquis’s word carry no weight?”

Seeing the wink, the two of them understood at once.

“Yes!”

They got up, rushed over and pinned Feng Qizheng down.

Ning Chen looked at Feng Qizheng and said, straight-faced, “You were saying just now how strong you are, weren’t you? Geld him for me. Carry it out right here, then send him into the palace to be a eunuch.”

“The rest of you, come and help… If you can’t geld him, I’ll geld you.”

They had seen the wink Ning Chen gave Gao Ziping too… They understood. Ning Chen was putting a scare into Feng Qizheng.

“Yes!”

A crowd of them rushed over, hoisted Feng Qizheng onto a table and held his arms and legs down.

A silver coat started pulling Feng Qizheng’s trousers off.

Chen Chong drew his saber and made a few passes between Feng Qizheng’s legs. “Old Feng, don’t be frightened… My blade is fast. You won’t feel a thing before it’s all clean and tidy.”

Feng Qizheng’s dark face went white with fright.

“You… you’re serious?”

Chen Chong’s face was grave. “It’s the marquis’s order. We don’t dare disobey.”

“Hold him down. Can you get those trousers off any faster? Don’t keep the marquis waiting.”

Feng Qizheng fought for all he was worth. If he were gelded, what pleasure would be left in life? He might as well be dead.

“Ning Chen… no, Marquis Ning, I was wrong, spare me… Pa. I’ll call you Pa, will that do? Let’s stop this. I haven’t carried on the Feng line yet. How about you geld me once I’ve got children?”

Ning Chen waved a hand. “Hold on! What he says gives this marquis an idea.”

“Let’s do this. Cut off most of it and leave him a little… So he has it but can’t use it.”

The corner of Gao Ziping’s mouth twitched, and so did everyone else’s.

Good God, that is a vicious one… That kills the heart.

Only Ning Chen could think up a low trick like that.

Feng Qizheng was truly terrified now and fought harder. “Ning Chen — Marquis Ning — Pa, I was wrong… How about you just put a blade through my neck instead?”

Ning Chen looked at him. “Sparing you isn’t out of the question. It depends on whether you’ll take the beating or take the fine.”

“The fine. I’ll take the fine!”

“Good. Since you’ll take the fine, the fine is this: you take the brothers to the courtesans’ quarter five times, and you pay for all of it.”

Feng Qizheng stopped short. “Never mind five times, ten is fine.”

Ning Chen held back a laugh. “A decent attitude about his fault. Give Old Feng a chance to turn over a new leaf. Let him go.”

They let Feng Qizheng go.

Feng Qizheng rolled off the table, hauled up his trousers and got well clear of them all, with a badly used look on his face. “If you wanted me to take you to the courtesans’ quarter you could have just said so. Was all that necessary? You scared me to death.”

Ning Chen smiled. “Old Feng is taking everyone to the courtesans’ quarter. Shouldn’t everyone show a little something for it?”

“Thank you, sworn father!”

Gao Ziping and the rest said it in one voice.

Feng Qizheng said sourly, “I have no such pack of unfilial sons.”

(End of Chapter 326)