Ning Chen looked utterly innocent and turned to Gao Ziping and the other two. “What are they running for?”
The three of them had nothing to say.
You wave a secret between yourself and His Majesty at a man — who wouldn’t be frightened?
Never mind Chen Lezhang. The three of us broke into a cold sweat just now, terrified he’d actually say it.
This is a secret only Ning Chen and His Majesty know. If an outsider learns it there is exactly one outcome, and that is death.
Seeing that Ning Chen was still playing innocent, all three of them wanted to give him a beating. The man is shameless.
Ning Chen laughed. “Chen the Gold Coat didn’t want to hear it. I’ll tell you three instead.”
All three of them jumped, and the color went out of their faces.
“Ning Chen, don’t you drag us into this… I’m still young. I’ve got a lot more trips to the courtesans’ quarter left in me.”
Ning Chen looked puzzled. “Why are you all so afraid of me saying it? All I was going to say is that I’m praying for His Majesty, asking heaven to preserve His Majesty’s health. What’s frightening about that?”
A twitch went across all three faces.
“Beat him. The degenerate. He’s shameless!”
Ning Chen looked wary and waved the saber in his hand. “Don’t you come near me. Careful, or I’ll take you one stroke apiece and send you into the palace as eunuchs.”
Gao Ziping held Feng Qizheng and Chen Chong back. “All right, that’s enough of that.”
He looked at Ning Chen. “You had your plan worked out from the start?”
Ning Chen nodded.
“Ning Chen, your nerve is unbelievable… Borrowing His Majesty’s authority to frighten Chen the Gold Coat. If His Majesty ever hears about it—”
Ning Chen waved a hand. “Relax. Not everything I said was false either.”
Gao Ziping asked, not following, “Then you could have just said it. Why go to the trouble of taking the blade? That was dangerous.”
“I took the blade so that idiot Chen Lezhang would actually listen to me… If he hadn’t believed me, all I could have done was swing it and fight him. I was hardly going to let him walk me into that room and come out a cripple.”
They were still talking when quick footsteps sounded.
Their faces changed. Chen Lezhang hasn’t come back, has he?
Feng Qizheng ran over, pressed his face into the gap in the cell door and squinted out.
Then, excited: “It’s the boss. The boss is here!”
Gao Ziping and Chen Chong brightened.
Ning Chen, meanwhile, whipped the saber under the straw, dropped to the floor and started groaning in pain.
Gao Ziping and the others stared with their mouths open.
And what is this maneuver?
Pan Yucheng came up at a fast walk.
Miss Nanzhi had caught a chill, and he had spent the day looking after her.
He’d only just gotten back, heard about the business with Ning Chen, and hurried down to the cells.
Pan Yucheng reached the outside of the cell and asked, “Are you all right?”
The next second he saw Ning Chen lying on the floor, and his face changed on the instant.
“What’s happened to Ning Chen?”
As he said it he drew his saber and brought it down in the same motion.
A clang.
The chain on the cell door was cut clean through with the one stroke.
Pan Yucheng crossed quickly to Ning Chen’s side. Ning Chen’s face was chalk-white and there was blood at the corner of his mouth, and Pan Yucheng’s already cold face got a great deal worse.
“Old Pan, you’ve come at last.”
Ning Chen said, with no strength in it at all, “Any longer and I think Chen the Gold Coat would have finished me off.”
Pan Yucheng’s eyes narrowed. “Chen Lezhang put you to the question?”
Ning Chen shook his head with difficulty. “No. He just beat me half to death like a man out of his mind.”
Pan Yucheng’s face was ice. “You three. Take Ning Chen to the sixth department.”
The sixth department is the Inspectorate’s own infirmary, and every man in it is a fine physician.
Pan Yucheng got up and strode out.
“Boss, where are you going?”
“To have it out with Geng the Purple Coat.”
Once Pan Yucheng was gone, Ning Chen sat up.
Gao Ziping looked at him with nothing to say.
Ning Chen complained, “What’s that look for? I did it for you as much as me. This cell is dark and cramped and there are rats and roaches running everywhere. Once through it is plenty. Did you actually want to move in?”
Feng Qizheng grinned shamelessly. “We’re not blaming you. It’s just — next time you put on a performance, could you give us a little warning first?”
“He’s right, I was completely lost just now. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing.”
Chen Chong said it, then leered. “Well, since we’re out — the courtesans’ quarter it is. Old Feng says he’s buying.”
Black lines came down over Ning Chen’s forehead.
These dirty old lechers. I’m ashamed to be seen with them.
Elsewhere, Pan Yucheng walked briskly out of the cells, and did not go looking for Geng Jing, because he knew Geng Jing had gone into the palace.
He went straight to the fourth department.
“Is your Chen the Gold Coat in?”
Chen Lezhang was sitting there nursing his temper.
Being frightened into a headlong retreat by Ning Chen in the cells had cost him a great deal of face.
After he got back he had spent a long while badly shaken.
Only now was he coming out of it, and starting to wonder whether what Ning Chen had said was true or false.
The more he thought about it, the more certain he became that Ning Chen had been lying.
And just then he heard Pan Yucheng’s voice outside.
Chen Lezhang laughed coldly.
Pan Yucheng has come to plead for Ning Chen, obviously.
This Pan Yucheng. That face like a slab, all day every day. The sight of him is irritating.
And because he came into the Inspectorate at the same time as Geng the Purple Coat, whenever there’s something good going, Geng Jing looks after Pan Yucheng first. I’ve had my fill of Pan Yucheng for a long time.
This is a good opportunity. I’ll make things difficult for him.
“Ask Pan the Gold Coat to come in!”
Chen Lezhang called it toward the door.
The silver coats outside let him through, and Pan Yucheng came in.
Chen Lezhang sat behind the long table with a cup of tea in his hand and asked, with a smile that went no deeper than the skin, “How does Pan the Gold Coat come to have time for my fourth department?”
Pan Yucheng came to a stop opposite him and said flatly, “As a rule I don’t have time. But for beating you I always have time.”
With that, he put a foot into the long table in front of him.
Bang!
Chen Lezhang, sitting behind the long table, was knocked flying, chair and all, and slammed into the wall behind him.
The chair came apart on impact.
Chen Lezhang grunted and went sprawling on the floor.
Enraged, Chen Lezhang slapped the ground with one hand and came up in a single bound.
But what met him was Pan Yucheng’s whipping kick, like a steel rod, tearing the air with a terrible sound, and it caught him square on the shoulder.
Chen Lezhang went straight sideways through the air.
Bang!
The long table under the window where the case files were laid out came apart under him.
Chen Lezhang shuddered, and blood came out at the corner of his mouth.
He gave a roar, sprang up and fixed his eyes on Pan Yucheng.
“Pan Yucheng, you dare raise a hand to me?”
Pan Yucheng said nothing and walked toward him, one step at a time.
Chen Lezhang went mad with rage, past all containing, and screamed, “Pan Yucheng, do you think I’m afraid of you? You’re not walking out of my fourth department today.”
With that he came at Pan Yucheng like a starving tiger onto meat, one fist driving in.
Chen Lezhang’s punch was hard and heavy, with real weight behind it, and it was very fast.
And Pan Yucheng slipped it easily, and backhanded him across the face… The slap sent Chen Lezhang staggering backward with one cheek red and swelling.
Chen Lezhang roared and came at him again.
Pan Yucheng made a small contemptuous sound, put out a hand and turned Chen Lezhang’s fist aside without effort, and then his hand moved like lightning.
Two cracks, and Chen Lezhang took both slaps full in the face.
Neither was light. They left Chen Lezhang seeing stars, his face burning.
Pan Yucheng shook his head. “Raising a hand to me. The courage does you credit, but it’s very stupid… If I were you, I’d stand still and take my beating like a good boy. You might get hit fewer times that way.”
(End of Chapter 92)