Ning Mao ran too fast. Ning Chen didn’t catch him.
He went back to the West Court and drove the wretched servants out.
Then he brought Uncle Chai to his room and handed over the packed-up half of the roast chicken.
Uncle Chai opened the oiled paper, saw what was inside, and froze. Then he swallowed hard without meaning to.
A servant’s monthly wage was small — barely enough to keep him fed. From one end of the year to the other he rarely tasted meat.
“Uncle Chai, I brought it back specially for you. Go on. Eat.”
Uncle Chai shook his head over and over. “Something this good should go to you, Fourth Young Master — to build you back up. You’re only just out of a serious illness. Eat more meat and you’ll mend faster.”
“I’ve already eaten. This half is set aside for you. Take it back with you — it’d go nicely with a little wine.”
Ning Chen wouldn’t take no for an answer. Otherwise Uncle Chai would never have taken it.
The old man couldn’t win, and thanked him over and over. “Thank you, Fourth Young Master. Thank you…”
“Uncle Chai, stop thanking me. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have a life left to thank you with.”
At that same hour, in the palace, in the imperial study.
The Xuan Emperor held a scroll open, turning through it by candlelight.
The shrill one waited at his side, careful, hardly daring to breathe.
Just then a young eunuch crept in on tiptoe.
The Xuan Emperor glanced up. “What is it?”
The young eunuch dropped to his knees. “Your Majesty. Commander Nie requests an audience.”
Commander Nie was the bearded man with the brutal face.
His name was Nie Liang, commander of the emperor’s blade guard, and one of the men closest to him.
“Send him in.”
“Yes!”
The young eunuch got up and went out, and a moment later Nie Liang came in.
“Your subject Nie Liang, presenting himself to Your Majesty!”
“Stand and speak.”
The emperor set down his scroll. “Have you got to the bottom of it?”
“Reporting to Your Majesty. The boy’s name is not Lan Xing at all. He is the fourth son of the Minister of Rites, Lord Ning. His real name is Ning Chen.”
The Xuan Emperor raised an eyebrow. “Ning Chen?”
The shrill one bent low. “Your Majesty, shall we send men to bring him in? The nerve of him, deceiving Your Majesty. That is the crime of deceiving the sovereign.”
The emperor snorted. “He did not know who this emperor was. What crime is there in that?”
The shrill one did not dare say another word.
The emperor frowned. “This emperor’s recollection is that Minister Ning has only three sons.”
Nie Liang bowed over clasped hands. “Your subject made inquiries. This Ning Chen was living out in the world for years. He was only brought back a few years ago.”
“Your Majesty, your subject also found that Ning Chen is out of favor in the Ning house. He does not live well there. Minister Ning rarely mentions him to anyone outside the family.”
The emperor thought for a while. “This emperor remembers now. Some years back a man submitted a memorial accusing Minister Ning of abandoning a wife and child. But this emperor was at war with the Tuoluo Kingdom at the time and had more fires than hands. It slipped his mind afterward.”
“The fourth young master of the great Minister Ning’s household, in worn-out clothes. Winter nearly here and still dressed in something thin. And from the way he ate, he had been hungry a long while. That says enough on its own.”
“Hmph. This Minister Ning has a decent reputation, and some small name in literary circles. This emperor did not expect his private conduct to be another thing entirely.”
The shrill one bowed and asked with great respect, “Your Majesty, shall Minister Ning be summoned to the palace?”
The Xuan Emperor waved a hand.
Ning Ziming’s failing was a private one. Even if he really had abandoned a wife and child, the Xuan Emperor would not touch him for it.
Who at court was corrupt and who was loyal — the Xuan Emperor knew perfectly well.
But so long as they did not cross the lines that mattered to him — treason, contempt for the imperial house, crimes of that order — he could tolerate a great deal.
Because whether a man was loyal or corrupt, in the Xuan Emperor’s eyes he was very often simply useful.
And a useful man who remained within the Xuan Emperor’s control was a man the Xuan Emperor left alone.
Ning Ziming was a second-rank official. He had always been diligent, painstaking, careful, and his work had never once shown a crack. The Xuan Emperor was not about to move against a capable minister on behalf of a boy he had met once.
The next day, morning court.
The Xuan Emperor sat high on the dragon throne.
The civil and military officials stood in ranks to either side.
The truth is that working under the emperor was fairly miserable. Up before the rooster, to bed after it.
Morning court generally convened before the sky had even lightened.
And the ministers had to attend it on empty stomachs.
And if you ate something that disagreed with you, and the emperor was speaking up front while you were letting rip down below — that was a fast way to die.
There were also too many officials for the hall to hold, so a great many of the lower-ranking ones had to stand outside.
Summer was tolerable. In winter the wind came whistling through, and by the time court broke up a man was frozen stiff.
“Present your memorials, or court is dismissed!”
The thin, high voice rang out.
“Your Majesty, your subject has a matter to report. Winter is nearly upon us, the Tuoluo Kingdom is short of food, and they have raided our northern border again and again — burning, killing, and looting. Your subject asks that Your Majesty send troops to put them down.”
“Reporting to Your Majesty, your subject wishes to impeach the Minister of Personnel. His son runs wild, and brutalizes the common people.”
“Your subject also has a matter. The Gannan region is flooded. The people are driven from their homes with nothing to eat. Your subject asks that Your Majesty order the granaries opened and the people relieved.”
The ministers had already submitted memorials on all of this. The Xuan Emperor knew the substance of it already.
Raising it in open court was about deciding what to do.
After two solid hours of fierce argument, the important business was finally settled.
What followed was small stuff, chicken feathers and garlic skins. The Xuan Emperor had no appetite for it.
His gaze came to rest on an old man with one leg — the only person in this hall besides the emperor himself permitted to sit.
The old man was Old General Chen, a lifetime soldier.
Old General Chen was puzzled himself. Ever since he lost the leg, the Xuan Emperor had excused him from attending court. But last night a verbal order had come: he was to attend today, whatever else happened.
“Beloved Minister Chen cut quite a figure at the Top Scholar Tower yesterday, did he not?”
Old General Chen’s heart lurched. Yesterday he had gotten drunk at the Top Scholar Tower, bitter in his chest, and made a scene of himself. He had not expected the emperor to hear about it this fast.
He glanced over at the censors (TL Note: 言官 — officials whose entire job was to criticize. They audited everyone from the emperor down and were expected to say the unsayable; getting executed for it was considered a career achievement.). It had to be those threadbare pedants who had impeached him.
Censors were the worst of the lot. The court’s professional hecklers.
These men cared about their reputations and were not the least bit afraid to die.
Sometimes they dared to go head to head with the Xuan Emperor until his stomach ached with fury, and instead of backing off they’d be quietly delighted with themselves. Look, look, he’s angry, he’s angry…
It wasn’t as though the Xuan Emperor had never put a censor to death. But every one of them died with a fine name attached — loyal minister, upright minister.
Which only got the rest of them going. They all fell over themselves to follow suit.
Censors were single-minded, stubborn, and hidebound. From the Xuan Emperor at the top down to the lowest ninth-rank nobody, if a man did wrong, they’d let him have it.
To men like that, a name mattered more than a life.
He braced himself on his crutch and started to rise, meaning to kneel and beg pardon, but the Xuan Emperor stopped him.
“Old General Chen. This emperor knows your heart is bitter. But the Top Scholar Tower is where men of letters gather. Getting drunk and making a spectacle of yourself there invites talk, does it not?”
To hell with men of letters. It was those threadbare wretches, calling him a crude brute behind his back day after day, who had driven him to the Top Scholar Tower in the first place. Old General Chen kept it behind his teeth.
“This old subject knows his fault!”
The Xuan Emperor waved a hand. “Enough. This emperor is not a fool on the throne. He knows your heart is bitter and does not blame you for it. Ah — and he has a gift for you.”
“Eunuch Quan. Read it out for Old General Chen.”
Eunuch Quan (TL Note: 公公, the respectful form of address for a senior palace eunuch — roughly “master” in this one specific line of work.) was the man Ning Chen had been calling the shrill one: the emperor’s favorite, at his side since the days when the emperor was still crown prince.
Eunuch Quan stepped carefully over, lifted the sheet of paper from the dragon desk — the emperor’s own brushwork, and what was written on it was the very lyric Ning Chen had sold him.
(End of Chapter 6)