Murder came off Ning Chen in waves. The rebar in his hand stabbed out like lightning, and then stopped dead.

Xie Siyu had put himself between the two of them.

“Move.”

Ning Chen’s eyes were keen as a hawk’s, the killing intent plain on him, his voice ice.

Xie Siyu looked at him. “Younger Brother. Be calm.”

Ning Chen laughed coldly. “What makes you think I am not calm?”

“This is the Ghost-Shadow Sect.”

“And what of it? I walked into the Tuoluo Kingdom’s North Royal Court as though there were nobody in it, came when I pleased and left when I pleased. The Wu Kingdom’s palace is my own back yard. A petty little power of the jianghu — is it supposed to be more frightening than those two places?”

Xie Siyu was about to speak when the sound of footsteps came.

Several men in fine embroidered robes, all of them somewhere past fifty, came toward them at a fast walk.

They were old men, but they went lightly, and their feet came down almost without sound. The temples standing out on both sides of their heads were enough to show that every one of them was a master of arms.

When they came up, one of them, in a dark green long gown, quickly examined Bao Qing’s condition.

“What is going on here?”

The man who asked it was tall and heavily built, with a square face, thick brows and tiger eyes.

Xie Siyu bowed quickly and gave a short, clear account of what had happened.

“Head of the house, Ning Chen and Younger Brother Bao Qing were meeting for the first time and do not know one another, so a misunderstanding arose.”

It was probably the first time Xie Siyu had ever said so much in one breath. When he was done he licked his lips and pressed them shut.

“A misunderstanding? You injure a man like this and still dare call it a misunderstanding?”

The man examining Bao Qing’s injuries stared at Ning Chen with a savage light in his eyes.

This was Wen Kangsheng, Grand Elder of the Ghost-Shadow Sect.

And Bao Qing was Wen Kangsheng’s favorite disciple.

Ning Chen looked at him calmly. “Elder Brother Xie says it was a misunderstanding. I never said so.”

Wen Kangsheng stared coldly at him. “What do you mean by that?”

Ning Chen stared back. “I mean to kill him. Do you have any objection?”

At those words the faces of everyone present changed.

Wen Kangsheng said furiously, “Insolence! A disciple of the Ghost-Shadow Sect, offending against his superiors and injuring one of his own school… By the rules of the sect, the eyes are dug out and the sinews cut.”

Ning Chen narrowed his eyes at him. “Dig out the eyes and cut the sinews? Do you have what it takes?”

“You hear me clearly. I can be a disciple of the Ghost-Shadow Sect, or I can be nothing of the kind.”

Wen Kangsheng was so angry that he laughed. “Good. Very good… This old man has been thirty years in the Ghost-Shadow Sect and has never seen a disciple with so little respect for his teachers and the way.”

“Today this old man will most certainly set his own house in order.”

Ning Chen leveled the rebar at him. “Try it.”

“Today, if you dare harm one hair of my head, I guarantee that within ten days the whole Ghost-Shadow Sect will be dead to the last man and beast, and not a blade of grass left standing.”

Wen Kangsheng laughed coldly. “Young in years and large in talk… Do not forget, nobody knows you came here.”

Ning Chen said contemptuously, “Ning here brought eleven guards with him to Xiuzhou, and ten of them have already gone back to the capital… Would you care to guess whether they know I have come to the Ghost-Shadow Sect?”

Wen Kangsheng laughed coldly. “And if they do? Every trace of your coming to the Ghost-Shadow Sect has been wiped away… What use is knowing you came to the Ghost-Shadow Sect, if they cannot find the Ghost-Shadow Sect?”

Ning Chen suddenly burst out laughing.

“All those years you have lived, and you lived them onto a dog… You think far too little of Ning here. How do you know I left no secret marks along the way?”

The faces of everyone present changed.

Ning Chen went on. “Do not stand there trading on your years with me. Ning here cut his way clean through the North Royal Court, took the King of the Left Court alive, took Mangzhou and won back the frontier… I climbed out of a heap of corpses.”

“Have any of you been on a battlefield? Have you seen bodies heaped into hills and blood running like a river? Do not imagine that killing a few men lets you swagger in front of me… All of you together have not killed enough to make my small change.”

“I have no office and no post now, but Geng Jing, the purple coat of the Inspectorate, is my brother to the death, Old General Chen looks on me as his successor, His Majesty’s favor toward me is as great as ever, and better than a hundred thousand soldiers on the frontier take their lead from me.”

“If anything happens to me, the entire Great Xuan will be turned upside down… The Ghost-Shadow Sect, greatest assassins’ organization in the jianghu. Can it stand against the Inspectorate? Can it stand against a million soldiers of the Great Xuan?”

When the words were out, every face there had turned grave.

Ning Chen had not finished. He stared at Wen Kangsheng and said it a word at a time. “The moment I choose to, returning to the halls of state is the easiest thing in the world.”

“And then I am still the Idle Marquis of the Great Xuan, still General Ning who piled up battle honors in the field, still the silver coat of the Inspectorate who dared put the Empress’s brother to the sword for the common people, still the princess’s consort to come and His Majesty’s favorite… And what are you?”

“You, an assassin who cannot show his face in daylight, dare threaten me? Who gave you the nerve?”

Every man there was cowed by the force coming off Ning Chen.

Ning Chen tossed the rebar to Feng Qizheng, put his hands behind his back, and closed on Wen Kangsheng one step at a time.

“Ning here is standing right here. You are welcome to try raising a hand.”

“Ning here led an army at fifteen and took the Tuoluo Kingdom’s King of the Left Court alive… At sixteen he was made a marquis, killed a Left Chancellor, beheaded a Grand Tutor, and the Wu Kingdom’s woman emperor did not dare take liberties when she met him. What are you?”

The last sentence Ning Chen roared out, and the sheer force of him sent Wen Kangsheng staggering back.

Every face there had turned grave.

Because Ning Chen was not boasting. Everything he said was fact.

If they killed Ning Chen, it would not be only the court. Their own fellows of the jianghu would never let the Ghost-Shadow Sect alone either.

The heroes of the jianghu revered Ning Chen and looked up to him more even than the common people of the Great Xuan did.

Ning Chen’s cold eyes swept over them like lightning, and he said harshly:

“Are you pleased with yourselves? Do you imagine the Ghost-Shadow Sect is well hidden? That is because you powers of the jianghu do not come into the Inspectorate’s view at all. They have never bothered with you.”

“The most important reason you are able to stand here today is that I struck the Ghost-Shadow Sect’s name off the Inspectorate’s list of things to run down.”

“Tao Qizhi gave me the gift of the art, and before he died he charged me, if ever I could, to shelter his own school.”

“I had supposed the people of this Ghost-Shadow Sect would all be like him, men of loyalty and iron honor… I never expected that in this Ghost-Shadow Sect there would be no telling the men from the beasts.”

“You have real skill in you, every one of you a master of arms, and it is a genuine waste to spend it living in this hell of shadows and ghosts… I had meant to take you out of this trade of killing men and spending your own store of virtue. It seems there is no need for that now.”

“Old Feng. We’re leaving.”

The force coming off Ning Chen had put fear into the men of the Ghost-Shadow Sect.

Ning Chen took Yudie’s hand and Zisu’s and made for the door.

“Ning Chen, stay.”

Gu Su, sect master of the Ghost-Shadow Sect, was the first to come back to himself, and spoke quickly.

Ning Chen stopped short. He let go of Yudie’s hand and Zisu’s, turned and looked coldly at Gu Su, both hands behind his back.

His hands were behind his back for more than effect. There was a hand grenade up his sleeve.

The people of the Ghost-Shadow Sect had never seen a hand grenade. He was confident he could take a lot of them down with him.

He stared at Gu Su. “Well? Do you want to raise a hand?”

Gu Su shook his head quickly. “Ning Chen, you are Younger Brother Tao’s disciple. We have never meant you any harm. Everything today has been a misunderstanding.”

Ning Chen laughed coldly. “A misunderstanding? He insults my women, and that is a misunderstanding?”

Gu Su said urgently, “In that matter Bao Qing was certainly in the wrong. I will have him apologize to you.”

“There’s no need. If apologies worked, what would anybody need police for?”

Gu Su went completely blank. He had not understood a word of it.

(End of Chapter 390)