Chapter Three: Whose Face Did the Moon Borrow?

He lifted his hand. The red cord tightened, and names across the black stone lit one by one. Shen Wu found her own name among the crowded carvings—not once, but many times. Shen Zhao. Shen Wu. Wen Mo. Lu Bainian. Zhou Jibai. Fine lines joined them and finally converged on Gu Ye. "Why is everyone connected to you?" "Not to me. To the contract." His face had gone pale from blood loss. "In your previous life, you saved forty-three Moon Borrowers from slaughter by splitting your name into forty-three pieces and hiding them inside their future lives. I kept the final piece." "Then why are they calling me Shen Zhao? To take it back?"