Geng Jing reached the palace gate just as Old General Chen’s palanquin arrived.

Because the old general was unsteady on his feet, His Majesty had granted him the particular right to be carried in a palanquin inside the palace.

“Old General Chen.”

Geng Jing bowed over clasped hands. Whatever else, he had a great deal of respect for Old General Chen.

Old General Chen lifted the curtain at the palanquin window and said, smiling, “You’re going in to His Majesty as well?”

Geng Jing stopped short. Old General Chen had evidently not heard about Ning Chen.

He came up to the palanquin and said it heavily. “It seems the Old General hasn’t heard. Ning Chen is in trouble.”

Old General Chen’s face changed. “What has happened to Ning Chen?”

“He killed the Empress’s brother…”

Geng Jing went through the whole of it.

Old General Chen’s face was as grave as it could be.

“With Ning Chen having killed the Empress’s brother, I am certainly being impeached over it, and I’m in the mud myself and have no standing to speak… I’d ask the Old General to put in a few words for Ning Chen shortly.”

Old General Chen’s face stayed grave, and he nodded.

Once the two of them were inside they met Nie Liang, who had come to receive them.

“Old General. Lord Geng. His Majesty’s order is that the two of you attend him in the imperial study.”

Geng Jing asked it quickly. “Commander Nie. How are things in the court?”

Nie Liang said heavily, “Ning Chen has brought down a very large piece of trouble this time. The censors are falling over each other to impeach, and Lord Geng, you have been impeached along with him… His Majesty’s mood is not good.”

Geng Jing smiled without any humor in it. He had guessed that much already.

The three of them came to the imperial study, waited a while, and the Xuan Emperor arrived.

“Presenting ourselves to Your Majesty.”

The Xuan Emperor’s brows were locked together, and he waved a hand. “Get up, all of you.”

“This emperor has just come from the Empress. She is in a very bad way.”

Old General Chen and the others changed color slightly.

The dead man was the Empress’s own younger brother. If the Empress would not let go of Ning Chen, this became very difficult.

“That worthless boy. His nerve is past all measure — he dares kill even the Empress’s brother. It is simply above the law and outside the rules.”

The Xuan Emperor said it with his face set hard.

“Your Majesty, calm your anger. Your Majesty’s health is what matters.”

“Calm my anger? How is this emperor to do that? He should never have been let go to Zhenyuan County at all.”

The Xuan Emperor turned suddenly and pointed at Geng Jing, furious. “Is this how you keep your subordinates in hand?”

The fright put Geng Jing straight down on his knees with a thud. “Your subject is at fault. Your subject begs Your Majesty’s pardon.”

Inside, Geng Jing felt considerably more wronged than that. He had had no idea Ning Chen had nerve like this in him… to cut the Empress’s brother down with one stroke?

And besides, was it not Your Majesty who sent him to Chongzhou? And had me pass on that it was to be taken to the bottom… Mm?

Something contracted behind Geng Jing’s eyes. He seemed to have tasted something in it.

Old General Chen said, “Your Majesty, calm your anger. Ning Chen has committed a grave error and by the statute he should be put to death… But this old subject believes there was a cause behind it. The Empress’s brother was a relative of the imperial house by marriage. He ought to have held to the law and set the example.”

“Instead he made meat of the common people, killed the innocent without cause, and treated a human life as so much grass… Ning Chen did what he did for the people of Zhenyuan County because there was nothing else left to him. This old subject begs Your Majesty for mercy outside the law.”

The Xuan Emperor knew perfectly well what sort of article the Empress’s brother was. If the man had done one decent thing in his life he would never have been driven out to Chongzhou in the first place.

The Xuan Emperor let out a breath. “But say what you like — the Empress’s brother was still a relative of the imperial house by marriage, and the Empress’s own younger brother… The Empress is the mother of the nation. Her face has to be considered.”

Geng Jing said quickly, “Your Majesty. Your subject has a report here, sent back by the gold coat Pan Yucheng at speed.”

The memorial His Majesty had seen would certainly be the one those Zhenyuan County officials had submitted… They would have made light of the grave parts, wiped away everything the Empress’s brother had done, and set out Ning Chen’s crimes in detail.

It would not read like the report Pan Yucheng had sent back.

“Bring it here.”

Eunuch Quan took the report from Geng Jing’s hands and set it on the dragon desk.

The Xuan Emperor opened it and read carefully… and the further he read the worse his face got.

It was recorded in great detail.

Pan Yucheng had set down the whole of it — from their leaving the capital, to Ning Chen cutting down the Empress’s brother, to the people of Zhenyuan County kneeling to see Ning Chen off as they left — exactly as it happened, without a word out of place.

When he came to Ning Chen wearing the insides of his thighs raw on horseback until he could hardly walk, and then going over hills and ridges and across a wide river and finally being swept away by it… the Xuan Emperor’s brows drew tighter and tighter.

And when he came to Ning Chen being all right, having been pulled out by somebody, the Xuan Emperor’s brows opened again.

At the end, where the Empress’s brother meant to cut down innocent people in front of men of the Inspectorate, the Xuan Emperor’s breathing went short with anger.

“Worthless. Worthless thing… A member of the imperial house, and as brutal as that. Those are this emperor’s own people. The bark eaten off every tree around the place, the people nearly at the point of trading children to eat — how dare they? Is the Great Xuan still this emperor’s Great Xuan?”

“Ning Chen is a boy of fifteen and he understands that water carries a boat, and water turns it over. These men are stuffed full of books and they eat their sovereign’s salary… and this is how they repay this emperor?”

“They deserve death. Every one of them deserves death—”

The Xuan Emperor brought the report down hard on the dragon desk, and his chest was rising and falling with it.

Geng Jing and Old General Chen glanced quietly at each other.

There was a turn in it.

Geng Jing said quickly, “Your Majesty. Your subject believes that although Ning Chen killed the Empress’s brother, there was a cause behind it and he was driven to it… The crime does not merit death.”

Old General Chen said quickly, “This old subject seconds it. If the people are driven until there is no way left to live, everybody knows what comes of it… They are driving the people into rebellion. That is treason.”

The Xuan Emperor made a cold sound.

“By your account Ning Chen did nothing wrong, and earned merit besides. Is that it?”

Old General Chen said quickly, “Your Majesty, calm your anger. This old subject did not mean that… This old subject believes that although Ning Chen committed a grave error, there was a cause behind it, and the crime does not merit death.”

Geng Jing said quickly, “Your subject seconds it.”

The Xuan Emperor narrowed his eyes at the two of them.

“Does not merit death? The man he killed was the Empress’s own younger brother, the Empress’s brother himself… If this emperor does not kill him, how is he to answer the Empress?”

“The boy cut down a relative of the imperial house by marriage with a sword. He has no regard for the law. Ten deaths would not be enough for him… So tell this emperor. What reason is there for him not to kill the boy?”

Old General Chen and Geng Jing glanced at each other again… and were surer than ever. His Majesty did not want to kill Ning Chen. What the words meant was that they were to find him a reason to get Ning Chen off.

Elsewhere, Ning Ziming came back to the Ning residence with his face bloodless and the soul gone out of him.

“Master. What is the matter with you?”

Chang Ruyue asked it, concerned.

“It’s finished. All of it is finished…”

Ning Ziming’s eyes were blank.

Ning Gan asked it quickly. “Father. What has happened?”

Ning Ziming’s voice shook. “Ning Chen has killed His Lordship the Empress’s brother.”

“What?”

Chang Ruyue and her sons were frightened out of their souls.

“In Zhenyuan County, Ning Chen killed His Lordship the Empress’s brother. He is already on the road back to the capital under escort… That is the Empress’s own younger brother. It is a crime punishable to the ninth degree of kin. It’s finished. All of it is finished now.”

Chang Ruyue and her sons stared straight ahead in fright, and the dark came up in front of their eyes.

“Then— then go quickly to my father. He will certainly have a way.”

Ning Ziming shook his head. “I have been to my father-in-law. He told me to go home and wait for word, and said he had a way of settling the business.”

“But this is too large a thing. It touches the Empress. Nobody can save this family, and I am afraid my father-in-law cannot either… We are all going to die. Not one of us escapes.”

The fright went straight through Chang Ruyue’s legs and she sat down hard on the floor, white to the lips.

“Father, I don’t want to die. I’m still so young. I don’t want to die—”

“Father, think of something. You are the Minister of Rites. You must be able to think of something.”

“That bastard Ning Chen. He is a curse on this house. He should never have been brought back into the Ning family. Why couldn’t he have been left to die out there?”

Ning Gan and his two brothers were howling with fright.

(End of Chapter 58)