Both Sect Heads Wanted Out of the Marriage, So They Tried to Ruin the Town Together novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: Elder Rong's Trunk
Elder Rong came in without knocking and sat down on her trunk in the middle of the kitchen.
She looked at the crooked sash on her great-nephew.
"Good," she said. "You're thriving."
"Great-Aunt," said Zhuyuan, "you said quietly undone."
"I said it very quietly, dear. Nobody heard."
She undid the brass clasps and lifted the lid.
The trunk was full of yellow ferry tickets, tied in bundles with red thread, one bundle to a year.
She took the oldest from the bottom, gone the color of tea, and handed it to Luoyi.
On the back, in a neat old hand, someone had written TREATY.
One. No one is hurt. Two. No lying to each other. Three. No marks the Inspector can find.
Four. We fail honestly at the Fair, as a team. Five. We do not fall for each other.
Luoyi read it twice and sat down on the nearest goat.
"That's my clause," she said.
"It's the only clause anyone ever breaks," said Rong. "I wrote five. Your Old Brewer wrote the first four."
The Old Brewer had taught Luoyi to taste when she was six, with a cup of rice wine under her nose.
He crossed the river every Sunday on the first ferry, and the whole valley thought it was the feud.
"Forty-five years ago a decree married us over the same toll," said Rong. "We spent a hundred days trying to ruin this Hearth."
"The town fed us dumplings until we gave up."
"Then the Concord asked us to write the rules for the next pair."
"So we wrote the forfeits, so nobody could leave."
"We wrote Article nine, so saboteurs would have to be sly, and sly people get caught fixing things."
"We wrote the one bedroom. Your aunt added the goats."
Luoyi stood up.
Something hot was climbing her throat.
"You picked us," she said. "On purpose. Because we'd hate it."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Both Sect Heads Wanted Out of the Marriage, So They Tried to Ruin the Town Together are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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