Read Chapter 17: — THE MORNING AFTER

By dawn, the river had given back what the night had tried to swallow.

Bodies floated against the reeds. Broken oars drifted between overturned skiffs. On the far bank, surrendered pirates sat in rows with their wrists tied while Jinyiwei officers moved among them, taking names.

The river-god banners had been torn down.

Tang Zheng sat on a crate outside a temporary command tent, wrapped in a blanket and looking deeply offended by the existence of morning.

Su Xiaoxi cleaned the cut on his forehead.

“You nearly drowned.”

“I noticed.”

“You were unconscious.”

“I was resting strategically.”

She tightened the bandage.

He hissed. “You’ve become violent since meeting me.”

“I’m adapting to circumstances.”

Across the camp, Lin Zuo was giving orders. He moved with the same controlled economy Tang Xiao once had, though age had put a colder edge on him.

When he finally came over, Tang Zheng looked at the sword in Lin’s hand.

His father’s sword.

The one bearing the four characters he had copied from childhood memory.

“Keep it,” Tang said.

Lin stopped.

“You gave it to me.”

“I know.”

“You spent ten years looking for the man who carried that inscription because of your father.”

Tang stared at the river.

“I spent ten years looking for a father who was already dead. The sword doesn’t change that.”

Lin sat beside him.

“No. But it changes what you do with it.”

Tang looked at him.

For the first time, Lin did not see Tang Xiao’s face in the young man before him.

He saw Tang Zheng.

That mattered.