That day Ning Chen stood in his cell with a stalk of dry straw in his hand — a cut, a sweep, a lift — the forms running one into the next.

That was the Thirteen Ghost-Shadow Blades.

Then several men in fish-scale coats came down.

The door of the next cell opened, and somebody said, “Tao Qizhi. Your day has come.”

Ning Chen stopped where he was. They were executing Tao Qizhi today.

There was a sound of dragging, and Tao Qizhi was hauled out.

Ning Chen went to the bars and looked.

They had known each other a long time by now, but there had always been a wall between them, and neither had ever seen the other.

This was the first time Ning Chen had laid eyes on him.

His clothes were in rags, and every piece of skin showing through them was covered in scars. That was what the torture had left.

His hair hung loose over his face and there was no making out his features. Both his legs had been broken and he couldn’t walk. Even so, they had him in heavy manacles and leg irons.

Tao Qizhi looked over at Ning Chen then.

His eyes were very bright. There wasn’t any fear in them at all.

“Gentlemen. Wait a moment. Could I have a few words with him?”

One of the men in fish-scale coats turned his head and looked at Ning Chen, and said coldly, “Sit quiet. Your turn’s coming soon enough… You can talk it over downstairs at your leisure.”

“He shouldn’t be beheaded. He’s a hero.”

Ning Chen roared it.

The Inspectorate men paid no attention.

Tao Qizhi laughed out loud. “Boy. Live well. I’ll go on ahead of you.”

Tao Qizhi had no fear of dying. He went to meet it squarely.

They dragged him away.

Ning Chen’s fists were shut so hard the knuckles went white, and there was nothing at all he could do.

“In life, be first among men. In death, be a hero among the ghosts… Old Tao. Go well!”

Ning Chen shouted it after him.

“Hahaha… In life, be first among men. In death, be a hero among the ghosts. Well said. Meeting a boy as interesting as you before I die — my time in this world wasn’t wasted. It was worth it.”

Tao Qizhi’s voice came back down the passage, and there was nothing in it but spirit.

The next day Geng Jing came to the front of Ning Chen’s cell.

Ning Chen had not eaten since Tao Qizhi was taken out the day before.

His Majesty had instructed him a thousand times over that Ning Chen was not to be shortchanged.

If the boy starved himself into some condition or other, how was Geng Jing supposed to account for it?

Ning Chen was sitting in the corner with his eyes fixed on nothing.

Has the boy been frightened stupid by the beheading?

“Lan Xing. Why aren’t you eating?”

Geng Jing knocked on the bars and asked it.

Ning Chen said nothing.

Geng Jing said heavily, “Do you mean to starve yourself to death?”

Ning Chen looked up with a cold smile all over his face. “I’m dead either way. If I starve, at least I go with my body in one piece.”

The corner of Geng Jing’s mouth twitched. If you starve to death, I expect I’ll be buried alongside you.

“You aren’t eating because of Tao Qizhi.”

Ning Chen looked at him coldly. “He shouldn’t have died.”

“He killed the magistrate of Zhenyuan County and his household, seven of them. Ten deaths wouldn’t be too many.”

“You know why he killed the magistrate of Zhenyuan County and his household,” Ning Chen said furiously. “You must.”

Geng Jing said, “The reason doesn’t come into it. He killed men, so he pays with his life.”

“Were they men? All he killed was a few animals.”

Ning Chen got up, came to the bars, and looked at him. “Doesn’t your Inspectorate go about saying it misses nothing? That it’s fair and impartial?”

“Is that your fairness? Paying for the lives of animals with the life of a good man?”

“Your fairness and your impartiality are a joke. You’re vicious ghosts out of the shadow hells who can’t tell black from white… This Inspectorate ought to be renamed the Idiotorate.”

Geng Jing’s face darkened by degrees.

“Lan Xing. What gives you the standing to tell us our business?”

Ning Chen’s face filled with contempt. “You can’t build a wall out of mud. I wouldn’t try to tell a pack of idiots their business… I simply despise you. From the bottom of my heart, I think nothing of you.”

“Sir. Let me give you a poem. Free of charge, no money in it… Then you can go and have it carved over the Inspectorate gate.”

Geng Jing knew perfectly well nothing good was coming.

But the boy’s gifts were beyond the ordinary, and he wanted to hear the poem anyway.

“What poem?”

Ning Chen smiled slightly. “Listen well, sir.”

千錘百鍊一根針，一顛一倒布上行， 眼睛長在屁股上，只認衣冠不認人。

Hammered and tempered, a thousand blows, one needle; over and over it turns, running the cloth. Its eye is set in its own backside — it knows a man’s clothes, and never the man.

Geng Jing’s face went through several colors and not one of them was good.

He cursed himself for a fool. Why had he asked?

The first two lines were aimed at the Inspectorate — men who lean on the weak and cringe from the strong, who court whoever is rising, who turn black into white.

The last two needed no working out at all. They were straight abuse.

Ning Chen went on. “Sir, the title of the poem is In Praise of the Inspectorate. Does that satisfy you?”

Geng Jing’s old face went livid.

The Inspectorate’s name already stank. If this poem got out, men would be cursing the ancestors of every man in it until the smoke came off them… The whole service would stink for ten thousand years.

The boy is poison. He means to nail the Inspectorate to the pillar of shame and leave it there.

If the Xuan Emperor had not spoken, Geng Jing would have let him taste what the Inspectorate could do a long time ago… At the very least he would have had his teeth out.

His finger shook with rage as he pointed at Ning Chen. “You— wait for death.”

Then he turned on his heel and went.

“Sir. Wait.”

Geng Jing stopped and looked back at him.

Ning Chen smiled slightly. “Sir. You say thank you.”

Geng Jing’s face twitched. What he wanted at that moment was to take Ning Chen’s arms and legs off.

“Lan Xing. My advice is that you eat. At least then you’ll be a well-fed ghost… In a few days they take your head off at the market crossing.”

He went out quickly after he said it, afraid that if he stayed any longer Ning Chen would make him angry enough to die of it.

“Christ… not a scrap of manners. I give him a poem, I don’t even charge him for it, and he can’t say thank you.”

Ning Chen got that off his chest, went back, and sat down in the corner.

He still did not touch the food.

He had seen Tao Qizhi’s face once, and once only, but he owed him the debt of being taught… Ning Chen decided to keep vigil for him three days, without food or water.

In a few days it would be his own turn under the blade.

He was not afraid of it. If anything he was looking forward to it… Dead was better than staying in here.

The palace. The imperial study.

The Xuan Emperor was holding a sheet of paper with writing on it.

“In life, be first among men. In death, be a hero among the ghosts… A fine poem. A pity there are only the two lines.”

“The worthless boy. A poem that good, and he gives it away to some jianghu bandit who killed men and took their goods… A shameful waste of a fine thing.”

The Xuan Emperor was actually annoyed. Lines like that belonged on an emperor.

“Its eye is set in its own backside — it knows a man’s clothes, and never the man. Hahaha—”

When he got to those two he couldn’t hold the laugh in.

Standing below the dragon desk, Geng Jing’s face twitched. Is it funny? What exactly is funny about it?

The Xuan Emperor laughed louder.

Geng Jing couldn’t stop himself. “Your subject would submit that the Inspectorate is Your Majesty’s Inspectorate. This poem of Ning Chen’s plainly sets the imperial dignity at nothing and disregards imperial authority. It should be punished severely.”

The Xuan Emperor gave him a look. “You mean the poem is cursing this emperor?”

Cold sweat came out all over Geng Jing. He had spoken out of temper and not chosen his words.

He went down on his knees with a thud. “Your Majesty’s pardon. Your subject did not mean that.”

The Xuan Emperor made a cold sound.

“Does this emperor have any need to know a man’s clothes and never the man? The poem curses your Inspectorate. It has nothing whatever to do with this throne.”

The Inspectorate is Your Majesty’s Inspectorate. Putting it that way is a bit of a dodge.

That was as far as the thought was allowed to go. Out loud he said at once, “Your Majesty is wise.”

Then the smile went off the Xuan Emperor’s face.

“The killing of the Zhenyuan County magistrate and his household. This emperor has some memory of the case. Tell the particulars again.”

Geng Jing said, “After it happened your subject put men on it immediately. The magistrate of Zhenyuan County had indeed been inventing pretexts for new levies and making meat of the common people… But the man was dead, and your subject was pressed to take Tao Qizhi, so it was not dug into any further.”

The Xuan Emperor nodded once, to show he had heard it.

“You said just now that Ning Chen has not eaten for two days.”

Geng Jing said quickly, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

The Xuan Emperor’s face darkened.

(End of Chapter 35)