The Swapped Heir Came Home Hungry novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: The Hearing

Second Uncle did not come into the sunroom alone.

Two orderlies in white coats came behind him with a wheelchair, and a doctor Anzhi had never seen held a clipboard.

"Miss Qiu," said Second Uncle warmly, "I have been so worried."

"You are unwell, and this place is not suitable. I have arranged for a better room."

Qiu Fenglan did not answer. Her good hand was clenched in the blanket.

"She stays with us," said Yuan, standing in front of the chair.

"Yuan, you are overwrought. Doctor?"

"A transfer for medical observation, signed by the attending," said the doctor, showing the page. "It is valid."

The matron, at the door, looked at it and her face fell.

"It's in order," she whispered. "I can't refuse an order."

The orderlies lifted Qiu into the wheelchair.

As they turned it, she caught Anzhi's sleeve in her shaking hand and pushed something small and hard into his palm.

It was the biscuit tin.

"Tell the boy beside me," she whispered, "that I did not say no."

Then she was gone down the corridor, and Second Uncle turned in the doorway with a faint smile.

"You will want to rest, nephew. The trustees have agreed to hold the hearing at nine tomorrow. I thought you would appreciate the speed."

Linchuan, who had come in from the street without a sound, stood in the corridor with his hands in his pockets.

He watched the wheelchair go out of the door and said nothing at all.

"Let her go," he said to Anzhi, very low, when the car had gone. "The paper is good. Now I know which door."

The cellar archive was the only room in the house where Second Uncle's people did not look.

Anzhi went down to it after midnight with a lantern and a satchel, and laid out the evidence on the long table.

Receipt 6671. The black cloth ledger. The nursery photographs. The courier slip, the registry printout, the barley day book with its county stamp.

He set them in order, and then in a better order, and then sat with his hands over his face.

If the nurse did not come, none of it was enough.

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