\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 7\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a rundown apartment building.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But that was the best I could afford to rent back then.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bryant opened the door expertly. The spare key was still under the doormat, and he remembered it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The place smelled musty, long uninhabited.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But he didn\u2019t seem to care, walking in and calling out, \u201cMs. Morrison!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Right. He didn\u2019t know Suzan was dead and gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was resisting me for Corinne at the time. I never got the chance to tell him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019d never know I attended two funerals that day: one for my birth mother, whom I\u2019d never met, and another for the Suzan who raised me through every hardship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Only after seeing Suzan\u2019s memorial portrait did Bryant realize it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He slumped onto a dusty stool, burying his face in his hands. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I smiled bitterly. Tell him what?\u00a0<\/p>\n
That after Suzan died, I was penniless and couldn\u2019t even afford a proper funeral?\u00a0<\/p>\n
That I accepted that identity only because I wanted to give Suzan a\u00a0<\/p>\n
0.00%\u00a0<\/p>\n
10.18\u00a0<\/p>\n
decent farewell?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even if I told him, would he have stopped blaming me for \u201cstealing\u201d Corinne\u2019s place?\u00a0<\/p>\n
At this time, Bryant called the housekeeper, asking, \u201cStill not back?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, Mr. Whitney. Mrs. Whitney would never be like this. Could something have happened?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat could happen to her?\u201d With that, Bryant hung up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
See? I knew it. He would never believe me. He only believed what he saw himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He rubbed his temples. Getting up to leave, he knocked my notebook to the floor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This was bad!\u00a0<\/p>\n
I frantically stepped in front of him, trying to stop him from opening that notebook. But I was a ghost. I couldn\u2019t stop anything.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I crouched on the floor in defeat. My last shred of dignity was about to be stripped bare before him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That notebook didn\u2019t just record my miserable past. It was also filled with my love for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He picked up the notebook and strode to his car.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He drove fast. So fast, as if trying to catch something slipping away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the car turned onto a muddy path, I guessed where he was headed- the place where my adoptive mother kept me alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
10.18\u00a0<\/p>\n
I recorded that place in my notebook. But why go there?\u00a0<\/p>\n
He drove for a full day and night to reach the small mountain village. The road was too narrow for the car. He had to walk.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The deeper he went, the grimmer his expression grew.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I guessed a silver-spoon man like him had probably never seen so many dilapidated mud-brick houses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Honestly, this was after I\u2019d had charity funds used for repairs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I used to live in a thatched hut. When it rained, water dripped through the roof onto me-downpour outside, shower inside.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The village was isolated. His out-of-place presence made the locals turn and stare.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He stopped one and asked, \u201cMarjorie\u2026 Did she use to live here?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
That person shook his head.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unwilling to give up, Bryant gave my adoptive mother\u2019s name.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, that black-hearted woman! Died of illness eight years ago. She raised that girl like an animal. Karma, I tell you!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Bryant heard the word \u201canimal,\u201d his brows furrowed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Later, when he pushed open the door of the broken-down thatched hut, the sight of the massive iron cage inside froze him completely.\u00a0<\/p>\n
65.10%\u00a0<\/p>\n
1018\u00a0<\/p>\n
Joseph King is an editor and storyteller who ensures every chapter is clear, polished, and engaging for readers.<\/p>\n
Moon-Cursed Princess by Mark Twain 7 \u00a0 Chapter 7\u00a0 It was a rundown apartment building.\u00a0 But that was the best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-your-life-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22856\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}