White Empress, Ashes of Love Sequel

Chapter 32

"What is this?" Runyu asked, his eyes wide in surprise as he looked at the mess of diamonds, unrolled scrolls and paintings covering the floor of his room. "What have you done?" he added forcefully toward the woman seated on the floor amid the wreckage.

"I should ask you the same question," she returned coldly without looking at him.

His gaze shifted from Annchi to the scroll unfurled in her lap, his brows scrunching in confusion before something caught the corner of his eye.

His cabinet doors were wide open. The cabinet that only he should be able to access.

"How..." he breathed out before fixing her with a glare. "I will ask again. What have you done?" he grated out.

She finally turned her attention to him, her expression bland and unfeeling.

"I wonder that you should lie to me and tell me that you've been searching for this, when in reality, you've had it the whole time. Would you care to explain the purpose of your deception?"

"What deception? What is this? Have you been crying?" he asked, his vision fairly blinded by the massive amount of scattered gems.

"Oh, I don't believe those are mine. Perhaps you could tell me..." she trailed off.

"Tell you what? Annchi -" he started as he took a step toward her.

"Stop!" she commanded.

The sharp tone of her voice caused him to comply as his eyes darted between the weathered and faded script of the tiled scrolls and the unfurled fabric paintings surrounding her. His focus pinpointed on the paintings. All of them depicted images of white haired people with wings outstretched.

"Is this..." he started as he dropped to a crouch, his hand reaching out for the scroll closest to him.

"My tribe's history? Yes. But you already knew that," she answered.

"I didn't!" he insisted. "Where did you find this?" he asked in genuine awe.

"Does anyone but you know how to open that cabinet?" she asked.

His gaze flicked to the opened doors of the object in question and back to her.

"No."

"So why are you acting as if this is the first time you are seeing these things? You obviously put them in there."

"I didn't! I swear, I have not seen this."

"And yet you are the only one that can access it. Forgive me if I have a hard time believing anything that comes out of your mouth," she responded flatly.

"I'm not lying! There must be some explanation..."

"Explain this," she stated as she held her hand out, the two pieces of arrow appearing before she tossed them in his direction. They landed with resounding clangs on the marble before him.

He didn't bother touching them, only looked from one to the other and back up to her.

"You can't tell me you didn't recognize your brother's arrow the first time I showed you."

"Where did you get -"

"I pulled the other from a dead man's body in the Mortal Realm. The one your brother shot. I would say they are an exact match, don't you think?" she asked with a tilt of her head.

"Xufeng did not kill you."

"No, I don't believe he did. The question is, why would you keep this from me? Why would you lead me to believe you were investigating when the only thing you did was hide it?"