Chapter 6: Moonlight Reveals the Heart

Rouya came to see him the next night, holding a small brocade box.

“Big Brother,” she said, head bowed, her voice trembling, “I know I have no right to apologize on my parents’ behalf, but… back then I saw with my own eyes what happened in the back courtyard. It was my mother who forced your mother to drink a sleeping draught, and then staged the scene to frame her.”

Yifeng looked at his young cousin, his feelings impossibly tangled. For ten years, he had believed that everyone in this house who bore the name Xue was his enemy. But in front of him now was a seventeen-year-old girl, her eyes red from eleven years of a guilty conscience.

“Why only tell me now?” he asked, his voice no longer as sharp and cold as before.

“Because I was afraid.” Rouya choked back a sob. “Afraid that speaking up would destroy my whole family, afraid that you’d hate me too… But I can’t stay silent while I watch you nearly get killed again.”

She handed him the brocade box. “These are the real account books of the estate. I secretly copied them before my father could destroy them. With these, Big Brother, you’ll surely have enough to expose everything before Grandfather.”

Moonlight fell through the lattice window, lighting up the girl’s resolute face. Yifeng stood silent for a long time, then finally nodded. “From today on, you’re still my little sister. What your parents did, I’ll deal with. You are not to blame.”