Blood of the Beggar

"Eighteen-year-old Xiao Zhi only wanted to steal a piece of white cake. By accident, she ended up in the blood test—and her blood merged with the Emperor's, marking her as the princess lost twelve years ago. But another girl, flawless and noble-born, tested the same. Unversed in court ritual, with foreign-looking green eyes, Xiao Zhi was swiftly branded an impostor—then accused of stealing a golden bell and carrying barbarian blood, nearly cast out of the palace. Until the Empress traced a ringing fake bell to a basin treated with alum—the trick that makes blood falsely merge—and uncovered a palace insider and a northern conspiracy. On the day of the ancestral temple ceremony, the false princess unraveled layer by layer. And the beggar who hid scraps of food in her sleeve turned out to be the jewel the royal house had sought for twelve years."