Chapter 5 · free to read
Old Fu had forged a thousand seals and a hundred names, and drunk away every coin they earned him. He told himself the shaking in his hands was only the wine.
He knew her the instant the lamplight found her scarred eyes. Some debts wear a face you never forget, no matter how much wine you pour over it.
He read it once in silence, and his drunkard's tremor went suddenly, terribly still. That stillness told her more than the words would.
She had felt the wrongness of the bridge two steps before she reached it — the fog too still where it should have moved, the river too loud where a body waited above it.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.