I Sealed the Demon Lord for a Hundred Years, Now He Wants His Jailer novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Key

Lan Zhu knelt on the black jade floor of the audience hall with his forehead pressed to it.

Nine days had gone by since the inn at Peach Ford.

Zhu Ao stood behind him in his armor with arms folded.

"Get up," Wuhen said from the couch.

"Teacher."

"I'm not your teacher. Get up and sit where I can see you. What did you read?"

Lan Zhu rose, white and trembling, and sat on the very edge of a cushion.

Chenjue sat on the dais step with one knee drawn up and his eyes on the boy.

His hand rested lightly on the back of Wuhen's neck.

The ring of black glass shone on his finger.

"The Master keeps the scroll in the study under his writing table," Lan Zhu said. "I swept there once. It was open."

"What's it called?"

"The Sealing Brand." His voice shook. "It's a keeper's mark. It's set inside the dantian when the chain is put on."

Wuhen's hand went to his belly.

"I wore a chain for six hours," he said slowly. "The night of the binding. The elders held me down for it."

"That was when."

Silence.

Zhu Ao muttered something in the old tongue.

"What does it do?" Chenjue said.

Lan Zhu looked at the floor.

"It lies dormant until the demon lord's qi enters the keeper's core. Then it drinks from it."

He swallowed.

"When the core is full, it closes like a key. It pulls both of them back down under the ice."

"The demon lord sleeps again, and the keeper becomes the seal."

"Becomes it?" Wuhen asked.

"Dies, Teacher. And is bound to the lake for good."

The hall went very still.

Wuhen heard it.

A century in a stone hut, he thought, and they'd saved the best for the last.

"They knew," Chenjue said, flat. "They sent him to me knowing."

"The note on the gate said the thirtieth night," Zhu Ao said. "It's been twenty-one."

"Nine more."

"Nine," Chenjue said.

"Then nine nights I don't touch him."

Wuhen turned his head.

He had not expected it.

He had spent a lifetime preparing for how Chenjue would break, and this was not one of the ways.

"No," he said.

"Yes."

"Do you imagine that fixes anything?"

He kept his voice even.

"The brand fills from the qi. Without it my core won't heal, and I die by degrees instead of all at once."

"I'd choose the quick way," Wuhen replied.

"You'd choose nothing."

"I'd choose the quick way, and so would you," Wuhen answered.

Chenjue's hand tightened on his neck.

"Leave us," he said.

Zhu Ao bowed and hauled Lan Zhu out by the elbow.

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