The Immortal Emperor Returns novel · Chapter 13 of 24
Chapter 13: Eighty-Four
Chu did not move.
The brazier popped.
Outside, the army was still chanting his name, softer now.
"Say that again," he said.
"I was eighty-four years old." Shuang's voice was quite level. "I am twenty-four now. But I remember all sixty years in between."
"Sixty years."
"Since the day I signed your sentence the first time."
He sat down slowly on the other bed.
"Tell it from the start."
She held her cup with both hands and looked into it.
"The first time, Gu held my mother in a cellar."
Her voice did not shake.
"He told me if I refused to sign, she would be dead by morning. I was twenty-four. I signed."
She looked up.
"I watched you die. You looked at me on the block as if you already knew."
"I did."
"I know." Her mouth shook. "I have thought about your face every day since."
The wind pulled at the canvas.
"I could not touch Gu. He had every ministry. He crowned the boy and ruled twenty years through him."
She set the cup down.
"I stayed in the Court of Review and became its Chief Justice. I gathered every scrap. The practice sheets. The Quiet Ash ledger. The seal-carver's confession, after the man was dead."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of The Immortal Emperor Returns are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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