The Constable Booked the Assassin Every Night novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: In My Keeping
There were two coats in the bundle.
The first was black wool with red piping at the collar and cuffs, a constable's coat, cut to Shouzhi's shoulders to the finger.
"I cut it the day you came home with the first Crow file," said Xiuying.
"I finished it in the cell."
"They gave me a candle."
"They gave you a candle?"
"I told the jailer I'd sew his wife a shawl."
The second coat was quilted, long and warm, in indigo with an ochre lining.
Qinghe took it from her hands.
Inside the collar, in gold thread, was a tiny persimmon leaf.
He looked at it a long moment.
"It's the mark on the book," he said.
"It's the mark on the family," said Xiuying. "Put it on, child. It's cold, and you've been wearing the same robe for three days."
He put it on.
It fitted him as the skin fits a fruit.
His chin shook, and he turned it into a cough, and Xiuying pretended she had not noticed anything at all.
They walked to the east lanes in the new coats, in the early light, through a city still hung with the stubs of lanterns.
Everyone they passed looked at them.
A baker's wife left her counter to stare.
An old man bowed to Xiuying, and she bowed back.
The blue door of the house under the persimmon tree stood open.
Somebody had swept the step.
She took them into the kitchen, where the clay stove was already warm.
The jar sat in the middle of the scrubbed table with its slit lid, and the red-wrapped book beside it.
"Sit," she said.
They sat.
She lifted the lid of the jar.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Constable Booked the Assassin Every Night are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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