Ning Chen went back to the room and told Yudie about Xiaoxing and Gu Yichun.

She and Xiaoxing were as close as sisters, and if Xiaoxing could marry and have children she was very glad for her.

Ning Chen said, "Then I will leave the whole thing to you."

Yudie made a small sound of assent.

That night he gave away everything he had all over again.

The next morning Ning Chen rode his beloved Diaochan to the Ministry of War.

"I greet my lord prince!"

Ning Chen waved a hand. "No ceremony. How is the thing I gave you to do coming along?"

Ji Mingchen bowed his head. "My lord prince must forgive me. I sent men to measure every hill around the capital, and none of them is high enough."

"The real trouble is that the wind has been impossible to pin down lately. We cannot predict which way it will blow at all... This morning it was out of the south, and by now it is out of the west."

Ning Chen was disappointed.

The gift he had been preparing for the Xuan Emperor could not be given after all.

What he had meant to do was load exploding shells and fire them into the clouds with cannon to stop the rain.

But the cannon simply did not have the range.

There were too many things he could not be sure of — the wind, and the weather on the day of the Xuan Emperor's birthday. If it turned out fine, that would be awkward.

It looked as though there would be no showing off after all.

He had even meant to drag the censors up close to watch — men who had never been on a battlefield and never seen a musket or a cannon... He would certainly have frightened several of them off their feet.

He had designed a whole program of stunts for showing himself off in front of them, and none of it was any use now.

Ning Chen rubbed between his brows, at a loss.

So he was back to a headache…