It took some doing to talk the Fourth Prince into leaving, and before he could draw breath Li Hanru, Li Zhixing and the rest were arriving at the door one after another.
The day left Ning Chen worn out.
In the evening he and Feng Qizheng went to the courtesans’ quarter.
He gave Jiang Daniu and Tian Jiang their orders: Yudie was to be protected without fail.
He had no office now, and there was no guaranteeing that somebody would not start getting ideas.
Most important of all, Fan Taihe was only the piece out where you could see it.
Who stood behind him was still unknown.
Ning Chen was about to go up to the third floor when he caught sight of a figure… It was Silence.
Ning Chen followed him down and came to a quiet corner.
“The marquis has taken a bad fall this time.”
Silence said it in a low voice.
Ning Chen smiled evenly. If Silence had not come to him, he would have found an occasion to go looking for Silence.
“I want everything you have on Fan Taihe.”
Silence said nothing. He simply drew a sheaf of papers out of his robe and handed it over.
Ning Chen took it and looked. It was everything there was on Fan Taihe.
“Professional indeed.”
Ning Chen was not sparing with the praise. The man was the head of the Wu Kingdom’s agents, and it showed.
“Has the marquis any other orders?”
Ning Chen said, “Keep a close watch on Fan Taihe for me and find out who is behind him.”
Silence nodded.
“You have been hidden in the capital a long time. Do you know who Fan Taihe is close to?”
Silence shook his head. “The man has been away from the capital for a long time. He fell outside what we could observe.”
Ning Chen made a sound of assent. “Watch him closely for me.”
“Yes.”
“Has the woman emperor sent word lately?”
Silence said, “One letter. It told us to do whatever the marquis says.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing.”
Ning Chen made a face. “How is she?”
“The mistress is well.”
Ning Chen talked with him a while longer and then went back into the courtesans’ quarter.
In the time he had been gone, Chen Chong and the rest had arrived.
Seeing Ning Chen, they waved him over to drink.
There were a lot of them.
Everyone from the first department had come.
Their thinking was simple. They were there to make a show of strength for Ning Chen.
To tell everyone that Ning Chen might not be a silver coat of the Inspectorate any longer, but the Inspectorate still stood over him.
The drinking went on into the small hours.
Ning Chen drank too much, and the next day he woke in Yudie’s bed.
“Ning, dear, is awake?”
Yudie was sitting on the edge of the bed. Seeing Ning Chen awake, she hurried to bring over the hangover cure.
Zisu stood to one side. “Are you all right?”
“No. My leg is injured. It needs Physician Su to treat it, by the method we used in Mangzhou.”
Zisu’s pretty face went a little red. She shot him a glare and then said to Yudie, “There. Nothing wrong with him at all.”
Yudie’s face was still full of worry.
From the glorious Marquis Ning to an ordinary man of the people. How could anyone be all right after a fall like that?
“Ning, dear, must be hungry. What would you like? I will have Xiaoxing get it ready.”
Ning Chen gave a dirty grin, shifted his head, and pillowed it on Yudie’s thigh. “I would like to eat you.”
Yudie’s face went red.
“You two carry on. I have things to do.”
Ning Chen said, laughing, “Don’t go. I eat Yudie, you eat me.”
Zisu made a noise of disgust.
“That reminds me. Now that you have been reduced to commoner, leave the surgery for the moment… When I come back we will decide whether to open it or not.”
Ning Chen gave a start. “Where are you going?”
Zisu said, “Xiuzhou… My father and Uncle Liu have been cleared. I want to go back and make offerings to them, and tell them the good news.”
Yudie’s eyes went dark.
She wanted to go back and make offerings to her father too, but the edict of pardon from His Majesty was slow in coming.
Ning Chen had noticed the change in Yudie’s face. “Wait a few more days. I have already asked Eunuch Quan to raise it with His Majesty, and I expect there will be word in the next day or two.”
“I am a humble commoner now and cannot marry a princess… I believe His Majesty will pardon Yudie, and when he does I will go back with the two of you to make the offerings.”
While he was saying it, they heard Feng Qizheng calling outside. “Ning Chen. Are you awake?”
“Awake. What is it?”
“Chen Chong just came. He says Old General Chen has beaten Fan Taihe. You had better go see.”
Ning Chen gave a start, got up quickly, pulled his clothes on and came out.
“What happened?”
Feng Qizheng said, “I do not know the details either. Only that when the court broke up today Old General Chen blocked the palace gate and very nearly beat Fan Taihe to death.”
Ning Chen’s brows drew tight.
Blocking the palace gate to beat a man was no small matter.
Striking an officer of the court was a grave crime to begin with.
And doing it at the palace gate was a challenge to the imperial power itself. It was a slap at the emperor’s face.
“Where is Old General Chen?”
Feng Qizheng said, “Chen Chong says that when he had finished with Fan Taihe, Old General Chen went straight to the Ministry of Justice to confess.”
Ning Chen: “…”
“How badly is Fan Taihe hurt?”
Feng Qizheng nodded. “Chen Chong says his leg is broken… If the officials had not fought to hold the old man back, Fan Taihe would very likely have been beaten to death.”
“They say Old General Chen broke his own walking stick doing it.”
Ning Chen smiled painfully. He understood. Old General Chen was letting off his anger for him.
But the method was reckless.
A beating would have done. Breaking the man’s leg… that made it serious.
So long as Fan Taihe kept his teeth in it and would not let go, Old General Chen was certain to be punished severely.
Because the thing now touched His Majesty’s authority.
“Come on. To the Ministry of Justice.”
The two of them rode hard and came to the Ministry of Justice.
The doors of the Ministry were ringed with people.
Every one of them was a mouth of the court, which is to say a censor.
They had blocked the doors of the Ministry and were demanding that Li Zhixing punish Old General Chen severely.
Another party of them was on its knees at that moment outside the imperial study, crying out that Fan Taihe had been wronged and begging the Xuan Emperor to punish the man who did it.
Ning Chen and Feng Qizheng tied up their horses and came over.
The censors caught sight of them too.
Ning Chen smiled. “Are you experts cursing in the street?”
Expert was a word they did not understand.
But cursing in the street they understood perfectly well. Ning Chen was calling them shrews.
“Ning Chen. You dare insult us?”
“Do you still think you are the Idle Marquis? You are nothing but a base commoner now.”
“Ning Chen, you base commoner. Why do you not kneel when you see this minister? Kneel to this minister, or take thirty strokes of the rod.”
Ning Chen had no office and no post now and was an ordinary man, and the censors had nothing to hold them back. One after another they demanded that Ning Chen kneel to them.
“God damn it. What sort of things are you, to make Ning Chen kneel to you?”
Seeing Ning Chen insulted, Feng Qizheng flew into a rage and reached for his blade, and his hand closed on nothing.
He had been dismissed, so the fish-scale coat and the blade had of course gone back.
He had no blade, but he still had a good pair of hands. He closed his fists and started forward.
“Old Feng—”
Ning Chen stopped him.
Feng Qizheng was no longer a man of the Inspectorate. If he actually beat these people, there would be serious trouble.
Ning Chen looked at them with a perfectly calm face. “You experts are truly hateful… The bullshit work you do very professionally. The professional work you do like bullshit.”
“If I knelt to you, could you bear it?”
One censor said contemptuously, “Ning Chen, do you still think you are the Idle Marquis of the Great Xuan, a General of the Second Rank? You are a base commoner now.”
“A commoner kneels when he sees an official. It is written plainly in the law of the Great Xuan. Do you mean to break the law?”
Ning Chen laughed, and laughed brilliantly, but there was something dangerous in his eyes. “Do you really think that because Ning here has been reduced to commoner, he will let a pack of good-for-nothings like you take hold of him?”
“I am going to beat you today, and afterward you will not only not dare report me, you will tell people you fell down and did it yourselves… Do you believe me or not?”
(End of Chapter 376)