Chapter 24: Every Word

The public library on the east side of the city had a leaking skylight.

Its reading room smelled of dust and warm paper.

Lu Chen had worked there for three years, before Su Lu took him.

On the first Saturday of spring he walked up its front steps with Su Ye's hand in his.

The woman at the desk looked up, and her mouth fell open.

"Chen? Is that you?"

"It's me."

"We thought you'd gone to the other side of the world."

"Only across town."

She looked at the tall boy beside him, with curly hair and a gray suit and an easy smile.

"And this is?"

"Su Ye," said Su Ye, and shook her hand with both of his. "I'm the reason he stopped coming to your staff dinners."

Lu Chen choked.

She laughed out loud.

They went to the long table under the broken skylight.

Lu Chen used to eat his lunch there alone.

Ma Rui was already there in a clean gray suit with a thermos of tea, looking nervous.

He had been promoted twice in a month and did not know where to put his hands.

"The lawyer sent it over this morning," he said. "He asked me to say it's ready."

He slid a stapled paper across the wood.

Su Ye took one look and grinned.

"Read it to me."

"It's twelve pages."

"I've got all day."

Lu Chen sat down and pulled the pages toward him.

He knew what was in them.

He had drawn up the shape of it himself two weeks before, and the lawyer had polished the rest.

It didn't matter.

He cleared his throat.

"The Su Ye Foundation for Public Libraries," he read.

"To be funded by the personal shares of Su Ye in the Su Group, in an amount of..."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Betrayed the Heir, Then Returned to Save Him from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.