Late that night, Ning Chen and the rest set out.

Over Zhenyuan County the dragon countenance was in a fury, and His Majesty’s order was absolute. Look into it to the bottom.

Officials in the capital were certainly mixed up in it.

Which is why they left the city by night — so as not to beat the grass and startle the snake.

They rode under stars and moon and did not stop until the small hours.

A horse is not a machine, after all. It cannot be run indefinitely, good stock or not, and theirs was the best.

Close on fifty miles was the limit of what they could give.

Along the highway there is a post station every thirty miles.

Ning Chen and the rest did not use the post stations, for fear of showing where they were.

When man and horse were both spent they stopped, turned the horses loose to graze and drink, ate what dry rations they carried, and rested where they were.

Four hours later they went on.

Chongzhou is better than three hundred miles from the capital. They rode day and night and it still took them several days.

They stopped in an open stretch of country.

“Gao Ziping. Feng Qizheng. Chen Chong. The three of you get into Zhenyuan County in secret and ask about quietly… I’ll take the rest and investigate openly.”

Pan Yucheng gave the order.

“Yes, sir.”

The three of them took it.

Ning Chen said quickly, “Pan the Gold Coat. Let me go with Gao the Silver Coat and the others.”

Pan Yucheng frowned. “Ning Chen. That is an order, not a discussion.”

Ning Chen smiled without much humor in it, and then took his trousers off.

That left every man there staring.

“Ning Chen. What are you doing?”

Ning Chen had nothing left to say to that. “We’re all men here. What do you imagine I’m doing?”

“Look at the inside of my thighs… I can’t ride any more. Ride any further and it won’t only be the equipment ruined — I’ll end up with prostate trouble.”

Gao Ziping looked baffled. “Which county is Prostate? Aren’t we looking into Zhenyuan County?”

Ning Chen had no answer to that either.

“I said look at the inside of my thighs.”

They looked, and only then saw it. The insides of Ning Chen’s thighs were scarlet, one solid bruise, the skin worn through.

Pan Yucheng frowned. “You can’t ride?”

“I can. Not well… I’m an ordinary horseman.”

Pan Yucheng found himself admiring the boy. Worn raw like that, and not a sound out of him the whole way, and he only mentioned it now.

“Ning Chen. That’s something. Worn through like that and not a word out of you. You’ve got guts.”

“Come on, then — get the rest off and let’s have a look at whether the thing’s been worn short.”

“That’s right, get it all off and let us see… You’re not married yet. If you’ve worn it away you’ll have no choice but to go into the palace as a eunuch.”

Feng Qizheng and the others crowded around to make sport of him.

But every one of them was impressed. The boy really could take it.

Ning Chen laughed and swore at them. “Get away with you… Worn short or not, it’s still a length on any of yours.”

“Pan the Gold Coat. I can’t ride. Let me go with Gao the Silver Coat and the others.”

If it had not truly been past bearing he would not have said a word… Never mind that his Diaochan was a horse. Even if she had been the real Diaochan, several days of it without a break would have finished him.

Pan Yucheng said, “By what those two told us, getting into Zhenyuan County means going over hills and ridges and swimming a wide river running fast… Can you manage that?”

“Rest easy, Pan the Gold Coat. Climbing and swimming are both things I’m good at.”

“You’re sure?”

Ning Chen nodded and made a sound of agreement.

“Good. You go with Gao Ziping. Chen Chong comes with me… And remember, every move is Gao Ziping’s to give. Go against that and I’ll have you shut in a cell when we get back.”

Ning Chen bowed over clasped hands. “Yes, sir.”

Pan Yucheng said, “Gao Ziping. Get some salve on him… I’ll take the others into Zhenyuan County first. Go carefully.”

Pan Yucheng took his men and went, and the three men’s horses with them. The horses would be left for the time being at the nearest post station.

Feng Qizheng dug a bottle out of his pack. “Ning Chen. Come here and I’ll put it on for you.”

Ning Chen said, “Ah,” and turned around.

Feng Qizheng crouched down to do it and then felt all at once that something was wrong, and threw the bottle to Ning Chen instead. “You do it yourself.”

Ning Chen felt it too. A grown man crouching in front of him while he had no trousers on was too strange for anybody.

Ning Chen worked the salve in. It was cool going on, and a great deal better.

He pulled his trousers up. “Let’s go, then.”

The three of them walked and compared the map as they went.

The map had been drawn from what the two boys had described, and it was not very accurate.

They went over hills and ridges.

Dark came, and they had still not reached Zhenyuan County.

They rested a night, taking the watch in turn.

Early the next morning they went on.

Some hours later a steep mountain stood across their road.

Gao Ziping looked at the map a while. “I think we’ve come the wrong way.”

Ning Chen listened hard. “That sounds like moving water. Could that be the wide river running fast?”

“Come on. We’ll go around and look.”

But the ground in those mountains ran every way at once, and the three of them went around for half a day without finding a way through… Either a cliff face stopped them or a drop did.

Round and round, and the three of them ended up back where they had started.

Feng Qizheng frowned. “There’s no getting past this.”

Ning Chen looked up at the steep face of it, thought a moment, and said, “Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll climb up first and drop a rope down. Then the two of you can come up.”

Gao Ziping and Feng Qizheng craned back, and their faces said they couldn’t believe it.

“What kind of joke is that? A face that steep? Not unless you can fly.”

Ning Chen said, smiling, “I can’t fly. But I can climb it.”

Ning Chen took the rope, put it across his back, and walked to the rock face.

“Ning Chen. Stop joking. How is anybody supposed to climb that?”

“He’s right. Come off that and there’s nothing funny about it.”

The two of them tried to stop him.

But Ning Chen only smiled, and then hooked his fingers into a crack in the stone, put his feet on a dent that would barely take his weight, and started up, a little at a time.

Back in the army, in the climbing trials, he had come first every time.

Ning Chen went higher and higher.

Gao Ziping and Feng Qizheng were astonished.

“He— he actually did it? Is the boy part gecko?”

Gao Ziping’s face was full of respect as well. “We all underestimated Ning Chen. He is absolutely not the kind of young gentleman who was raised soft.”

Feng Qizheng’s face filled with shame. When he first met Ning Chen he had jeered at him a good deal.

Halfway up the mountain Ning Chen’s strength began to go… This body still wasn’t strong enough.

He rested a while and started up again.

It took him better than two hours to get to the top… He lay on the ground with his breath tearing in and out of him.

He got his breath back, found a jut of rock, tied the rope to it, and threw the other end down.

Gao Ziping and Feng Qizheng came up along the rope.

Both of them were white by the end. There was a rope, but the height of it… Near the top they looked down once, and it went straight through their legs.

Neither of them could work out how Ning Chen had ever climbed it with his bare hands.

Gao Ziping clapped Ning Chen on the shoulder, his whole face respect.

Feng Qizheng was full of it too. “Ning Chen. You’ve got guts. I apologize for the way I treated you before.”

“Look out—”

Ning Chen was about to say something about Feng Qizheng making a performance of it when he saw a man step out from behind a tree some way off, with a bow drawn and aimed at them.

He had no time to think. He was already throwing himself forward as the warning came out of him, and he took Gao Ziping and Feng Qizheng down with him.

THWIP.

An arrow went over their heads with a tearing sound, struck the rock beside them, and threw sparks everywhere.

(End of Chapter 50)