Sorrow In Autumn

Chapter 33 Choices Made

Wow, we are nearly at the end of this story!

So...I said this was going to be a historical fantasy story, with no crime whatsoever...I lied. In my defense the crime plot just happened...really...  ;)

Note: 2000 li is about 1000 km. Which is something like Baoding to Lanzhou.  Or Paris to Bucharest. Or Baltimore to Dallas.  Imagine that on a horse...

For DD, the Gao Yu'er fan, who refused to let me forget Zhu Hong. :) In this crazy world, she was in love with Kunlun, but when she confessed, he advised her to look at Jie Ming. For all the qualities in him she thought she loved, his cousin had in spades and in him, there was a life partner who would cherish her. She realized that he was right and that she had a chance at happiness.

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The air was vibrating with power like a plucked string, tension seeping through the assembled people, followed by closely by the threat of violence.

Standing at the back of the courtyard, with a ruined wall in front of the Hanga valley sweeping down below him in paintbrush strokes of black and green, Kunlun however exhausted and now wounded, faced the forces against him with easy courage and that sharp mind.

This could have been ten years ago, his cousin as untouched by the hands of time as the great pillars of the Gates.

The ones before him, perhaps even Zhao Xin Ci, had no idea what Kunlun was truly capable of, if provoked. And, Jie Ming thought as he looked between the parties, no one else realized fully that for all Kunlun's pretense of courtesy, the Emperor of Dixing was going to agree to whatever Kunlun planned.

The Emperor of Dixing was going to fight at Kunlun's side and the forces across the courtyard would die here tonight.

And that was going to be a problem.

The love of his life, Zhu Hong would forever be hunted.

Kunlun would be forever tainted by the bloody massacre he was more than capable of, blamed and shunned for this single night. Forced in Jie Ming's nightmarish visions of facing justice in the Lord Guardian's court or elsewhere like the Middle States.

Shen Wei would end them all.

And everything Kunlun had suffered and ensured would be for nothing. The hollow, broken years of searching for him would be worth nothing.There was one way to save his family and Jie Ming was going to take it, if he had to die to do it.

Kunlun was annoyed and that was edging to true anger. Shen Wei knew it and hovered close enough to guard his back with the Royal Guard on his left side. Lin Jing now free was trying to get to Kunlun's side and Zhu Hong knelt before Kunlun.