The old physician came out of the crowd, looked at Pan Yucheng, bent and bowed over clasped fists, and said:
“My lord. We only want to see Lord Ning off. We beg you to allow it.”
Pan Yucheng frowned. Ning Chen was a prisoner now, and this was against the rules.
But he thought about it, and waved a hand for the silver coats to stand aside.
The old physician went up to the prison cart and looked at Ning Chen, with the old tears running down his face. “Lord Ning. This old fellow thanks you on behalf of the people of Zhenyuan County.”
“There’s no need for that, sir. Watching the officials and cutting out the rot, and taking a burden off the sage’s shoulders — that is our work.”
The old physician was crying openly as he brought out an oiled-paper package with several coarse-grain cakes in it. “Take these with you, my lord. Something to eat on the road.”
Pan Yucheng started to say something, and in the end held it in.
None of this was according to the rules, as a matter of fact.
Ning Chen took the cakes and said, smiling, “Thank you, sir. Look after yourself… After I’ve gone, somebody will come to Zhenyuan County in my place. Believe me… the sickness in Zhenyuan County will be rooted out.”
“This old fellow believes my lord.”
“Lord Ning, it’s only a little of what we feel. Take it and eat it on the road.”
“Lord Ning, take this water and drink it on the road.”
“Big brother, have this one.”
A little girl who did not come up to the height of the prison cart, thin and sallow and dressed in rags, held a small bird’s egg up in both hands and went on her toes, trying to get it to Ning Chen.
Ning Chen’s eyes went red.
Baked potatoes. Black lumps of some animal or other. All kinds of wild fruit, and the roots of wild greens.
It was not that they did not want to give him better things. It was that this was the whole of what they had.
The people of Zhenyuan County were suffering too much.
Ning Chen said it clearly and aloud. “I take everyone’s kindness to heart. Take the things home again… I am a prisoner of the court and I’m going back to the capital to be tried. They won’t dare mistreat me on the road. If I die, they are punished for it. Everyone can rest easy.”
千錘萬鑿出深山， 烈火焚燒若等閑。 粉身碎骨渾不怕， 要留清白在人間。
A thousand hammers and ten thousand chisels, and it comes out of the deep mountain; the fierce fire burns it and it counts that as nothing.
Ground to powder, broken to pieces, and it is not afraid at all — it means to leave its whiteness clean in the world of men.
人間若無正義在， 我願持刀做閻王。
If there is no justice left in the world of men, then I will take up a sword and be the King of Hell myself.
“Hahaha—”
Ning Chen’s laughter went out across the open country.
If the gamble had come off and he lived through this, his good name would go everywhere under heaven and he would rise on it.
From then on the name Ning Chen would be justice in the flesh… The character set solid.
Even if somebody wanted to move against him later, they would have to reckon with what the people thought.
The spirit in the poem, and the fearlessness of it, moved Pan Yucheng and the rest, and none of them had expected talent like that in Ning Chen.
“Lord Ning. I thank you on behalf of the people of Zhenyuan County.”
The old physician went down on his knees.
“Lord Ning—”
“Lord Ning—”
Every one of the common people went down together.
“Get up, all of you. I’m not worth kneeling to. Get up—”
Ning Chen shouted it with his eyes red.
But the people would not get up for anything.
Ning Chen could not stand to watch it. He looked at Pan Yucheng. “Pan the Gold Coat. Let’s go.”
Pan Yucheng nodded slightly and waved a hand.
The prison cart carried Ning Chen slowly away.
They had gone a long way before Ning Chen looked back, and the people of Zhenyuan County were still kneeling there and would not get up.
Ning Chen was still on the road when the news reached the capital.
“What did you say? Say it again.”
Geng Jing knocked his teacup over and fixed his eyes on the silver coat in front of him.
The silver coat bowed over clasped hands. “Ning Chen killed the Empress’s brother. Pan the Gold Coat has him under arrest and they are on the road back to the capital… Pan the Gold Coat sent me on ahead to ride hard. He has put the whole of it in a report.”
He brought out a report and handed it to Geng Jing.
Geng Jing opened it and read it through, and the dark came up in front of his eyes.
The Empress’s brother had been in the wrong first, granted — but he was still imperial kin, and it was for His Majesty to sentence him, not for a man to carry out the punishment himself with one stroke of a sword.
This was imperial kin. This was the Empress’s own younger brother.
“The fool. The fool—”
“And what is Pan Yucheng about? Is this how he handles his men?”
Geng Jing was past holding it in and his temper went up in a blaze.
Just then a red coat came running in. “Presenting myself to Geng the Purple Coat. His Majesty has summoned you. You are to go into the palace and attend him at once.”
Geng Jing’s brows drew into three hard lines.
“I had meant to go in after the court session broke up… By the look of it, His Majesty knows already.”
He shook his head and smiled without any humor in it. The Inspectorate watches the officials, so the officials naturally hate the Inspectorate.
Ordinarily there was nothing they dared do about it.
But with a business like this in the open, they would certainly take the chance to impeach him. Ning Chen was one of his own men, after all.
And at that moment the court had already boiled over.
The officials of Zhenyuan County had gotten their memorials in a step ahead of everybody.
“Your Majesty. This Ning Chen has no regard for the law of the realm and carried out a punishment on his own authority. By the statute he should be beheaded.”
“Your Majesty. Your subject impeaches Lord Ning, the Minister of Rites, for failing to raise his son strictly. A crime as vast as this — the father should be charged with it too.”
“Your Majesty. Your subject impeaches Geng Jing of the Inspectorate. Ning Chen is his subordinate. He let his subordinate commit violence and kill imperial kin without cause. By the statute he should be beheaded.”
These censors, these mouths, were like flies that had smelled shit, and the buzzing never stopped.
Their moment had come at last.
Ning Ziming’s face went white and he shook from head to foot.
Inside, he cursed Ning Chen ten thousand times over… How had he fathered a thing like that? Above the law and outside the rules, daring to kill even the Empress’s brother — and that is a crime punishable to the ninth degree of kin.
The Xuan Emperor’s face was without any expression at all. The corner of his mouth went up several times and each time he forced it down again.
He had known about it since the night before.
And the Empress knew as well.
The Empress had fainted several times in the night from crying.
The crown prince’s face was full of worry. He was afraid there was no escaping it for Ning Chen this time.
“Silence.”
Eunuch Quan’s thin high voice went up in the hall.
He had seen that the Xuan Emperor was on the edge of breaking out, and if these censors did not learn to hold back, Ning Chen might not die but a great many of them would go first.
The Xuan Emperor spoke at last, and his voice was level. “Ning Chen is on the road back to the capital under escort. All of this waits until he is here… The court is dismissed.”
“Your Majesty. That Ning Chen killed the Empress’s brother is a fact nobody disputes. By the statute he should be punished to the ninth degree of kin.”
An old censor with his hair and beard gone white came out, unsteady on his feet, and said it.
This man was called Yu Xiangming. His abilities were middling and he had spent his whole life in the censors’ bureau compiling the law of the Great Xuan.
He was nearly seventy this year. If he did not make a name for himself now, this was all his life was ever going to be.
The business of Ning Chen was his chance at a name.
The Xuan Emperor looked down at him coldly from where he sat, and said, “Beloved Minister Yu has served long and hard, but he is old now and his hearing has gone with it. He cannot even make out what this emperor says… Better to retire to your village and enjoy your last years in peace.”
The words were out, and the Xuan Emperor turned and left.
Yu Xiangming’s eyes went blank and he sat straight down on the floor. He had just been… dismissed.
The officials of the court, civil and military, laughed to themselves. Not one of them was sorry for him.
Officialdom is like that. Nobody carries coals to you in the snow… but there is always a crowd standing around the well with stones in their hands, waiting for you to fall in so they can throw them on you.
An idiot, that’s all. His Majesty had said the matter would be discussed later, and the man had to go and walk into it… Who else was there to dismiss?
They were already working out how to get one of their own into Yu Xiangming’s place.
Elsewhere, the Xuan Emperor gave Nie Liang his orders. “This emperor is going to see the Empress first… You go and wait at the palace gate. When Geng Jing and Old General Chen arrive, have them wait for this emperor in the imperial study.”
“Yes.”
Nie Liang went quickly out.
(End of Chapter 57)