In the capital, a magnificent house.
In one of its wide rooms, more than a dozen women, none of them twenty yet, stood white-faced and shivering.
They wore nothing but bodices and undershorts, with great stretches of pale, soft skin bare.
Every one of them was a beauty, each as lovely as the next.
Each of them had an apple balanced on her head.
Opposite them, wearing nothing but undershirts and drawers, a plump, pale young man held a great bow.
He bent the bow and nocked an arrow and drew it full and round.
Whip!!!
The arrow flew, went clean through the apple on one woman’s head, and carried on to bury itself in the wall.
The wall was full of holes. The little punctures the arrows had left ran across it close and thick, and it was plain from that the plump, pale young man had done this before.
The woman was so frightened her eyes had gone blank, and she was shaking like a sieve of chaff.
The plump, pale young man’s smile was dark and cold. “Lucky.”
As he said it he bent the bow and nocked another arrow.
“Young Master.”
A middle-aged man in close-fitting black came in.
Whip!!!
The arrow left the plump, pale young man’s hand.
Perhaps the middle-aged man’s voice put him off. The shot went wide and took the woman full in the chest.
The woman screamed once and went down.
The rest of the women were frightened out of their souls.
The plump, pale young man’s face darkened, and he turned his head to look at the middle-aged man.
The middle-aged man’s face changed. He dropped to his knees with a thump. “This servant deserves to die!”
The plump, pale young man carried the great bow over and swung it in a full arc and brought it down on the middle-aged man.
He hit him more than a dozen times.
The middle-aged man’s head was broken and running with blood, but he did not dare move.
The plump, pale young man dropped the bloodied bow, went over and picked up a teacup and drank from it. “Say it, then. What do you want with me?”
The middle-aged man hesitated a moment and looked at the women.
The plump, pale young man said, smiling, “Never mind them. Say it.”
The middle-aged man said quickly, “Ning Chen has gone to the Sixth Prince’s house.”
The plump, pale young man was slightly taken aback, then his mouth opened in a grin and he said, pleased with himself, “It seems turning the flood aside has done its work.”
“They all say Ning Chen is quick and clever. He looks to me about as clever as a pig.”
“Next comes killing with a borrowed knife… Send word to the Right Chancellor. Have him call on the Sixth Prince too.”
The middle-aged man bowed his head. “Yes.”
The plump, pale young man put down the teacup and made for the door, and as he passed the middle-aged man he made a cutting motion across his own throat with one hand.
The middle-aged man took his meaning at once. It meant closing the women’s mouths, and this was not the first time he had done it either.
So many beauties, every one of them the loveliest thing under heaven. A pity.
The plump, pale young man muttered to himself as he went out. “I’ve had enough of these. Time for a new batch.”
“It really is better to be emperor. Three thousand beauties in his inner palace… and Father Emperor is a useless old thing who cares nothing for women, and lets all those beauties waste their best years for nothing.”
Elsewhere, Ning Chen came out of the Sixth Prince’s house.
It was getting late.
He saw the Ninth Princess back to the palace, then rode Diaochan toward the Ning residence.
On horseback, Ning Chen’s eyes were slightly narrowed.
He was going back over everything that had happened from the moment he met the Sixth Prince until now.
The Sixth Prince does not strike me as a devious man.
Some things are in the bone. The Sixth Prince has plainly read himself into a bookworm.
Ning Chen had watched the Sixth Prince’s eyes. How to put it? Clear as water, and stupid all the way through.
Is he really the man behind the Right Chancellor?
If what the Sixth Prince showed me today was put on, then I yield… because there was not a trace of acting in any of it.
Near the Ning residence, somebody stepped out of an alley at the side of the road.
Ning Chen was deep in thought and it startled him.
It was Silence.
“I greet my lord.”
Ning Chen waved a hand. “If you’re looking for me at this hour, it must be something serious.”
Silence nodded.
“Somebody is watching my lord in secret.”
Ning Chen was not surprised. There were far too many people watching him in secret. A peddler working the streets and alleys, some commoner passing by — any one of them could be an informer.
I am riding high just now, and being watched is perfectly normal. It would be hard to find every one of them, and even if I did, new ones would only appear.
But Silence has come to me on purpose, so he must have found something.
Ning Chen looked at Silence. “Go on.”
Silence said, “The ones watching my lord this time are professionals. They watched my lord go into the Sixth Prince’s house, and then sent a letter by carrier pigeon.”
“You took the pigeon?”
Ning Chen asked it.
He knew Silence had harriers, and a harrier takes a pigeon every time.
Silence nodded. “Yes.”
Ning Chen was interested at once. “Was there a secret letter?”
“Yes. There is one character on it.”
“What character?”
“The character 妥.”
Ning Chen blinked, then said, “妥? Does it mean everything has gone smoothly?”
Silence shook his head and said flatly, “I don’t know.”
Ning Chen asked, curious, “Taking pigeons like that — doesn’t it cause you trouble?”
Silence shook his head. “A letter by carrier pigeon has too many things that can go wrong. Pigeons have too many natural enemies, they are easily caught, and another pigeon can lead one away… So a letter by carrier pigeon is generally sent with at least two pigeons. Losing one is ordinary.”
Ning Chen inclined his head slightly.
“You took one. Where did the other one fly?”
Silence hesitated a moment. “The Fifth Prince’s house.”
Ning Chen gave a start. “Are you certain?”
“Not certain.”
“Hm?”
Silence said, “The pigeon disappeared once it was near the Fifth Prince’s house. It may be that somebody else took the pigeon, or that it met a natural enemy.”
Ning Chen frowned slightly, and the light in his eyes flickered.
“All right. I understand. Anything else?”
Silence shook his head.
Ning Chen said, “Do one more thing for me. Put men on the Sixth Prince’s house and see whether anybody calls on the Sixth Prince in the next few days.”
“Yes.”
Ning Chen narrowed his eyes a little.
The Fifth Prince told me there was dragon-fragrance grass in the cakes.
And right afterward I found a scrap of cake with dragon-fragrance grass in it in the sealed room at the Elegance Garden.
Then I followed the dragon-fragrance grass and it led me to the Sixth Prince.
All of it is as though somebody were pointing the way on purpose, drawing every thread of it onto the Sixth Prince.
If the Right Chancellor goes quietly to call on the Sixth Prince tomorrow and lets me catch him at it as though by accident, then I can be sure of it… Somebody is trying to turn the flood aside.
Ning Chen looked at Silence. “One more thing. Put men on the Fifth Prince and don’t let go.”
Silence nodded. “Yes.”
Ning Chen frowned. “The day after tomorrow I set out as envoy to the Wu Kingdom. With me out of the capital, the man behind all this is bound to be busier… The last time I left the capital I dug out the Right Chancellor. This time I will certainly dig out the man behind him.”
After parting from Silence, Ning Chen rode Diaochan back to the Ning residence.
“Ning, dear, you’re back?”
Ning Chen inclined his head slightly.
Yudie took the outer robe Ning Chen shrugged off and asked, a little worried, “Ning, dear, how are things with Sister Zisu?”
“Don’t worry. I have men watching her. Nothing will go wrong.”
Yudie nodded gently. “Then I’ll have hot water made ready and wait on Ning, dear, while he bathes.”
Ning Chen made a sound of assent, then asked all at once, “Yudie. Do you think a man can play the fool for more than ten years without a break?”
Yudie was slightly taken aback, then said with a faint smile, “He can. Because acting clever is hard, and it is very easy to see through. But acting the fool is simple. All he has to do is look honest and plain and know nothing of the world.”
“And on top of that, out of pity for the weak, nobody is quick to suspect him.”
(End of Chapter 411)