Fake Daughter Is the Real Legend novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Rooftop

The tile slid out from under Ruyun's hand and fell into the dark, and she heard it break on the stones of the yard.

She did not look down.

She got both hands on the frame of the skylight, kicked it open with her heel, and dropped through.

The loft was a low, dusty room under the roof beams, hung with old lanterns.

The strongbox sat in the middle of the floor, its iron lid thrown back.

Lingxue knelt beside it with a lamp in one hand and a folded paper in the other.

The Grand Princess's red cord lay at her knee with the little silver key still on it.

Her bridal pink was torn at the sleeve, and her feet were bare.

She looked up and smiled.

"There you are, Sister."

"Put the lamp down."

"It is her will," Lingxue said. "It names you. Everything, in your name. The farms, the shops, the Guard." She tilted the paper toward the flame. "If it burns, the Marquis is her heir, and he loves me. He will do whatever I ask."

"He is on his knees to me this morning."

"He is a coward. He will get up again."

"Lingxue." Ruyun's left sleeve was soaked to the elbow, and her arm shook. "It is over. Your aunt told the prefect everything."

"My aunt is a stupid old woman."

"She raised you."

"She sold me for forty taels of silver and a story." Lingxue's voice cracked, just once, and then it was hard again. "Nobody gets it if I do not."

She pushed the corner of the paper into the flame.

Ruyun threw herself across the box.

She caught the burning edge in her bare left hand, closed her fist on it, and felt the fire bite her scarred knuckles.

She did not let go.

She tore the paper out of Lingxue's fingers, rolled to her side, and pressed her fist flat against the floorboards until the light went out in it.

The smoke curled up between her fingers.

Lingxue lunged for the lamp, and an arm came down through the skylight and caught her by the wrist.

"That will do," Shen Zhuo said.

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