The Constable Booked the Assassin Every Night novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: The Price
Qinghe was out of the window before the second knock.
He went over the sill in his shirt, with his boots and the pipa case in his arms.
The shutter closed behind him without a sound.
Shouzhi pulled on his trousers and his coat and went down the stairs two at a time.
His mother was already at the door, with her house jacket buttoned wrong and her hair in its bone pin.
"Mother, don't."
"They'll break it, Shouzhi, and the landlord will want the money."
She drew the bolt herself.
The captain of the Prefect's guard stood on the step with a dozen men and a torch.
He looked past her at Shouzhi, at his open collar and bare feet, and the thick-necked grin came back.
"Constable Tan. Still in your keeping, are we?"
"This is my mother's house."
"This is a warrant," said the captain, and held it up.
"Tan Xiuying, widow of the hanged Rong Mingde."
"Conspiracy with the Crow."
"Unless the Doors have a rule about this too."
They did.
A constable does not open a family case.
It was the oldest rule in the Hall, and Shouzhi had never once resented it before that night.
Xiuying laid her hand on his arm.
"Fetch my shawl," she said. "It's cold on the hill."
"Mother..."
"Fetch it, Shouzhi."
He fetched it.
She let him put it around her shoulders in front of twelve armed men.
Then she walked out under her own persimmon tree with her back as straight as a sewing needle.
At noon the Prefect came to the Hall.
He came in a palanquin, with Xiuying walking behind it in a rope.
Not in chains, in a rope.
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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