I Sealed the Demon Lord for a Hundred Years, Now He Wants His Jailer novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Alley

Yue Chenjue felt Wuhen's whole body go tight in his arms.

"Lan Zhu," Wuhen said again, very quietly, to the boy across the road.

The boy took one step forward and stopped.

Chenjue saw the gray robe and the shaking hands, and he saw the way those wide eyes slid from Wuhen's face to his own.

He knew that look.

It was the look of a creature that has heard what lives in the dark and has just found it holding a peach.

"He's one of yours," he said.

"He's nobody's. He brought my rice." Wuhen's voice was tight. "Don't hurt him."

"I wasn't going to."

"Your face says you were."

"My face says I'm hungry." Chenjue turned toward the inn with its green door. "Go inside. I'll talk to him."

"No."

"You can't stand, Jailer," Chenjue said.

"I'm not a parcel."

"You're my parcel," Chenjue replied.

He kissed the white temple, quick and hard, where nobody on the road would see.

"Upstairs. Eat a peach. I'll be ten breaths."

For a moment he thought Wuhen would fight him.

Then the thin shoulders eased, and Wuhen gave one short nod.

Chenjue set him on the inn's front step, passed him the bag, and watched until the door closed behind him.

Then he crossed the road, and the boy flinched.

"Please," Lan Zhu said in a high whisper. "Please, my lord, I only came to see if he was alive."

"In there." Chenjue jerked his chin at the alley. "Talk."

It smelled of dye and wet stone, and the walls were blue to the height of a man.

The boy pressed his back to them.

"I ran when the lake broke."

The words tumbled out of him.

"They told the outer disciples to hide in the lower halls."

"But I saw them lead the Master out in chains, and I followed the road to the border," Lan Zhu answered.

"I've been sleeping in a dyer's shed for two days."

"Why?" Chenjue asked.

"Because he's the only person in Azure Peak who ever asked me my name."

Chenjue said nothing.

"He was kind to me," Lan Zhu whispered.

"Every day for six years I carried his rice. He never complained."

"He only asked if the weather was fine, and whether the lake looked thinner," Lan Zhu said.

"Thinner?"

"The seal. He always knew when it was weakening. He said he could feel it in his teeth," Lan Zhu replied.

The boy wiped his nose on his sleeve.

"Last winter he stopped being able to stand. I wanted to bring a healer."

"The Sect Master said no."

Chenjue's voice came out very level.

"Tell me what the Sect Master said, in the order he said it."

"I sweep the records hall."

Lan Zhu swallowed.

"The oldest scroll on the seal says the Sword Saint would keep it ten years, until the sect forged a new anchor."

"Ten," Chenjue answered.

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