Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The next day at the Hour of the Rabbit, Shen Xingjian and I slipped out of the Huo Mansion through the back gate.

West Manor wasn’t far from the capital, but it was incredibly remote. The manor was surrounded by wasteland, and even the stone lion at the entrance had a broken ear, looking as if it had been deliberately forgotten by the world.

When Nanny Zhou saw me, the color drained from her face instantly.

“M-Miss…”

She looked at me as if she were seeing someone who shouldn’t exist.

My heart sank further. “You recognize me?”

Her lips trembled for a long time before she suddenly collapsed to her knees, old tears streaming down her face.

“It’s this old servant’s fault for being useless. I failed to protect the Second Miss, and I failed to protect you…”

That kneel effectively stripped away all remaining pretenses.

Nanny Zhou led us into a dilapidated room in the backyard. The room was empty, yet in the corner sat a bronze mirror, a zither, and a long desk for practicing calligraphy. On the desk lay stacks of copybooks filled with the delicate small regular script I usually wrote, and there was even a copy of the Ode to Spring Water I had composed at a flower banquet last year.

On every single copybook, another, more clumsy hand had repeatedly traced over the characters.

Huo Lingning.

Huo Lingning.

Huo Lingning.

My skin crawled.

“She lived here?” I asked.

Nanny Zhou nodded, her voice shaking. “The Second Miss lived here all along. Madam ordered people to teach her how to play the zither, how to write, how to behave, and how to speak. They even corrected her repeatedly on exactly how many degrees the corners of her mouth should turn up when she smiled.”

“Why?”

Nanny Zhou closed her eyes in pain. “To make her just like you. So like you that one day, she could die in your place, or take the fall for a crime that must never be admitted.”

My fingertips turned cold, and I nearly lost my footing.

Shen Xingjian steadied me and asked sharply, “How did she die?”

“Half a month ago, the Second Miss managed to sneak out once,” Nanny Zhou said, wiping her tears. “When she came back, she was soaked to the bone. She said she had to go to the capital to see you, saying that the Master and Madam were plotting something big, and if she didn’t tell you, you would lose your life. But the next night, Madam came to the manor herself. After that… the Second Miss died in the well.”

“In the well?” I stared at her. “But she was poisoned before she hit the water.”

Nanny Zhou froze, her face turning even paler. “This old servant… I only saw her being carried out. She had been changed into clean clothes. Madam said she had thrown herself into the well to commit suicide and told me to keep my mouth shut, or else no one in the entire manor would survive.”

As she spoke, she reached under the bed boards and pulled out a small bundle.

Inside the bundle was a set of old clothes for a young girl, a wooden puppet, and a thin booklet.

I opened the booklet; it was filled with the Second Miss’s handwriting.

At first, it was just calligraphy practice, but later it turned into intermittent diary entries.

“Today I learned how to bow like the Eldest Miss again. Nanny said my waist wasn’t straight enough, that I looked like a peasant.”

“Madam said I’m lucky. As long as I learn to be like her, I can live the life of a legitimate daughter.”

“I saw Sister from a distance today. She was teasing a parrot under the veranda; she was so beautiful. She’s not like me; she looks like someone who was truly raised with love.”

“I want to go see her, but Nanny says I can’t.”

My eyes suddenly burned.

So she had seen me long ago.

And yet I never knew that there was another person in this world connected to me by blood, locked away only dozens of miles from me, learning how to be me.

Turning to the last few pages, the handwriting had become very messy.

“I overheard the Master and Madam saying they want to send the coffin back before the wedding. As long as they claim Sister is a fake legitimate daughter, they can keep all the dowry and account books left by the Gu Family, and the marriage with the Shen family can be broken off naturally.”

“They are afraid the Heir will investigate the old accounts.”

“I am not Huo Lingning. I am Huo Shuyue.”

“If I die, please tell Sister my name.”

My hands shook so violently I could barely hold the booklet.

Shen Xingjian suddenly pulled out one of the pages and held it before me.

On that page, Huo Shuyue had written a line in even smaller characters.

“Nanny Zhou said that the one with the crescent moon birthmark on the right ankle is the child Madam Gu raised with her own hands.”

I was stunned for a moment, and in the next heartbeat, I realized something was wrong.

“You just called her the Second Miss,” I looked at Nanny Zhou. “Why the Second Miss?”

Nanny Zhou opened her mouth, and her tears suddenly fell even harder.

“Because… because back then, the late Madam Gu gave birth to twin girls. The one with the crescent moon birthmark was the firstborn who entered the world first.”

“Miss,” she sobbed, “you are the true Eldest Legitimate Daughter of the Huo Family.”