Chapter 14: The Gathering Storm
Li Shun silently repeated those seven words several times in his heart, his brows lifting slightly.
“Just these seven words are worth five leaves?”
Zhou Xunzhen leaned back into his chair, his expression unreadable. After a long pause, he let out a faint sigh.
“You only see these seven light, fleeting words on the surface. What you don’t see is the centuries of bloodshed behind them. Countless bones piled high, storms of slaughter that never ceased.”
Li Shun fell into thought, a chill faintly creeping into his heart.
“It seems this Zhou Xunzhen carries quite the story himself…”
At that moment, a sliver of dawn light slipped through the crack of the door, slanting inward and landing squarely on Zhou Xunzhen’s composed profile. In that boundary between light and shadow, Li Shun suddenly noticed something unusual.
In just a few short days, the corners of Zhou Xunzhen’s eyes, once as smooth as jade, now bore faint, fine wrinkles. His entire demeanor carried a subtle air of decline, like the setting sun nearing the horizon.
“You seem to stay inside this bookshop all the time. I’ve never seen you step outside,” Li Shun asked, almost without thinking.