Reborn as the Weakest Heiress, I Gave My Inheritance to the Enemy's Daughter novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Storeroom

The cold storeroom lay under the east terrace, down a flight of stone steps.

Its door was plain oak with an iron lock.

Linxia knelt and inspected the lock for a moment.

Then she drew a thin pin from her hair and had it open before Zhaoxue could ask how.

"I had a very boring childhood," she said. "Lots of locked rooms."

The door swung inward on a breath of cold, damp air.

Zhaoxue held the shuttered lantern high and opened its slit.

The storeroom was a long stone cellar, as wide as a barn.

Rice sacks stood along one wall in neat towers.

Casks of salted fish stood along the other.

Between them, in the dark middle of the floor, lay a row of long wooden crates.

Their lids had been pried up and nailed down again, and one nail had been left proud.

Linxia put her hand on the nearest.

"Hold the light," she said.

She worked the lid loose with her knife.

Inside lay black cloth, folded in neat squares.

Zhaoxue's mouth went dry.

She lifted the top square and shook it out.

It unrolled to the height of a man, heavy and cold, with a pole sleeve at one edge.

A black banner, with white wave crests stitched along the lower hem.

The same banner that had hung over her in Pine Hall.

The same black.

"These are ours," she whispered. "These are Salt Tide's."

Linxia did not answer.

She had taken the other end of the cloth and drawn it flat under the light, and she was looking at it with a stillness that frightened Zhaoxue more than a shout.

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