The Bride Who Read the Contract novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: A Month's Wages
The bell stopped ringing.
Thousands of faces turned from the bottom of the steps to the top.
Genzo stood in the street in his ragged coat with the bowl held up in both hands.
He had let his hair grow out grey. His moustache was gone. He had found a coat with the cotton coming out of the elbows.
He looked like every poor old man in the capital.
He had always been very good at looking like things.
"I raised her," he called up the steps.
His voice broke beautifully. "I fed her. I taught her to read."
He held the bowl higher. "And on the first day of the year she stands in my robes at the top of my shrine."
"Shame," someone muttered.
"And she lets me starve in the snow."
People were murmuring.
An old woman near the bottom looked up at Fumika and shook her head.
A man in a work apron put a coin in Genzo's bowl.
"Twenty years I served this shrine," Genzo said. "She took my house, my name, my wife. She took everything an old man has."
The murmur grew.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of The Bride Who Read the Contract are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
← Chapter 22 · All chapters · Chapter 24 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend