Ning Chen thought for a moment, then gave his order. "Have your people keep digging, but be careful about it — don't beat the grass and startle the snake."

Silence nodded.

"Do you have proof of any crime of the Right Chancellor's?"

Silence shook his head. "No. But we have proof against his kinsmen."

Ning Chen was surprised. "His kinsmen?"

Silence said, "The Right Chancellor is very careful in what he does. Getting a hold on him is hard... With a man like that, we go at him through his kinsmen."

"The Right Chancellor keeps his own hands clean, but his kinsmen have done plenty of harm on the strength of the Right Chancellor's name."

Ning Chen inclined his head slightly. "Good. Put the evidence somewhere safe. Sooner or later there will be a use for it."

Silence made a sound of assent.

Ning Chen turned the talk without warning. "Has any word come from her lately?"

Silence nodded.

"What did she say?"

Silence said, "To protect you well, and to report your movements at any hour."

The corner of Ning Chen's mouth lifted, and he said with a smile, "Counting up the months, she must be near her time."

Silence made a sound of assent.

"Looks like I'll have to find a chance to go to the Wu Kingdom." As he said it, Ning Chen turned the talk again. "All the way here — have you had people protecting me the whole time?"

"Yes. But there was never an opening to act."

Ning Chen was slightly taken aback. "What do you mean?"

"Young Master Ning wants to ask about the ones in the devil-face masks?"

Ning Chen was surprised. "They weren't yours?"

Silence shook his head. "No."

"Then whose were they?"

"Unclear. After you dropped out of sight in Xiuzhou, those people went back to the capital... But once they were back, they were gone without leaving a shadow, as though they had evaporated from the face of the earth."

Ning Chen narrowed his eyes, and the light in them flickered... Back to the capital and gone without a…