49 Times Left, Master! (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 16
I was worried he might dodge me and let me fall to the floor—but luckily, my disciple did hold me up.
Right. Now that I think about it, even after poisoning me, this brat still supported me perfectly. Catching me whenever I wobbled beside him must be the last shred of conscience this disciple has toward his master.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m… I’m just… afraid… of blood…”
Anyway, the important thing is to keep him from remembering the moment he killed me.
He can’t be allowed to recall that time, get furious all over again, and try to kill me once more.
“I’m scared of blood.”
I whispered faintly, barely audible, and pressed myself tightly against my disciple.
How long had we stood like that? But this disciple showed absolutely no reaction. Why?
Did I suddenly look like a wounded, delicate herbivore? Like a rabbit—or maybe a bird?
Hoping for some response, I slowly looked up at my disciple.
“!”
But instead of sympathy, he was staring down at me with an expression that clearly said, “Why is my master acting like this?”
His gaze wasn’t that of someone looking at an injured rabbit—it was more like someone watching a monkey scratch its back with its foot.
This brat. What a terrible brat.
I cursed inwardly. But if I suddenly acted perfectly fine now, that would be truly humiliating—it’d be obvious I’d been faking illness.
So, knowing it wouldn’t work, I kept clinging tightly to my disciple and breathed rapidly.
“My breathing… my breathing…”
Reluctantly, my disciple finally supported me and led me outside.
“Let’s go out first. The space is cramped, so the smell of blood must be stronger in here.”
“That sounds good. Ah… this is exhausting.”
“You’ll feel better once you get some fresh air.”
Even after stepping outside, I deliberately stayed pressed tightly against my disciple and refused to let go.
Perhaps the effect of my prolonged acting was finally showing. My disciple tried to seat me on a large nearby rock, but when I clung to his side and wouldn’t let go, his breathing faltered for the first time.
Then, he lightly tapped my shoulder—almost as if about to steady me—and asked,
“Master.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Would blood seem less frightening if you were holding my collar?”
“!”
Ah. In my haste to cling to him, I didn’t even think about where my hands were. How foolish!
But if I pull my hands away now, wouldn’t that seem even stranger? Or is it stranger not to? Maybe I should slowly remove my hands and ask why that eunuch was acting that way…
Just as I hesitated, repeatedly clenching and unclenching my hands, I sensed someone nearby.
Thinking it was perfect timing, I quickly lowered my hands as if startled and turned around—only to find the Empress’s senior lady-in-waiting standing a short distance from the door.
For some reason, Lady Go stood there with her mouth agape, staring blankly at us. Only when her eyes met the Thirteenth Prince’s did she hurriedly smile and bow.
“I pay my respects to His Highness, the Thirteenth Prince.”
While other princes and princesses had treated the Thirteenth Prince as practically invisible during his days of neglect, the Empress occasionally sent her senior lady-in-waiting to check on how he was faring.
Not because she favored him—more likely because, as head of the Inner Court, an elder of the imperial family, and stepmother to the children of concubines, she felt obligated.
Thus, it wasn’t strange at all that the Empress’s lady-in-waiting appeared here. What was odd was that she seemed more flustered than usual.
Could she be thinking I’d been overly familiar with the Thirteenth Prince?
“What is it?”
The Empress’s lady-in-waiting proved herself a master of social grace. As soon as the Thirteenth Prince asked, she composed her expression and replied warmly,
“Her Majesty the Empress heard you had fallen ill and, worried, sent me to check on you. She said not to hesitate to ask for anything you might need.”
“How kind of Her Majesty.”
I could bet my purse the Thirteenth Prince’s words were a lie—after all, before his return, he’d once said the Empress was the third person he hated most in the world.
But since even Lady Go, who knew the Empress disliked the Thirteenth Prince, could feign such kindness, it wouldn’t be fair to accuse him of being insincere.
“Please tell Her Majesty I remain well thanks to her care.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Thus ended Lady Go’s unexpected visit. But as soon as she left, an awkward silence suddenly settled between my disciple and me.
It was because my act of pretending to be frightened had been abruptly and awkwardly cut short.
Yet continuing the act now would feel odd too, so I finally dropped the pretense, straightened my clothes, and calmly asked,
“Your Highness, wasn’t the man collapsed in the storeroom earlier your eunuch? Did you punish him?”
Perhaps my carefully phrased question seemed awkward to him?
My disciple stared at me strangely, then turned sideways—and for a fleeting moment, one corner of his mouth seemed to twitch upward.
But he turned so quickly I couldn’t tell if I’d truly seen his lips curve or merely imagined it. Then, in a flat tone, he said,
“It wasn’t me.”
At those words, I numbly nodded.
“Oh. I see.”
After all, at this point in time, my disciple was still playing the fool—there’s no way he’d have beaten his own eunuch so harshly… wait.
No—if that were the case, I shouldn’t just say “Oh, I see” and let it go! Realizing this belatedly, I asked in surprise,
“So someone else reduced your eunuch to that state?”
To my words, my disciple replied casually,
“I suppose so.”
What? “I suppose so”? I gaped in greater astonishment. His calmness was absurd.
A prince’s assigned eunuchs and maids reflected his dignity. For someone to treat the Thirteenth Prince’s eunuch that way was no different from humiliating the prince himself.
Even if that eunuch was a lazy good-for-nothing who offered the prince little help—still, how could he remain so indifferent!
“Who on earth was it?”
I suppressed the urge to ask, “Aren’t you even angry?” and instead asked plainly.
“Ask him yourself.”
But the moment we returned to the storeroom and heard from the eunuch who had beaten him, I couldn’t help but eye the Thirteenth Prince suspiciously.
“My apologies, Your Highness, but even I don’t know why I was struck. I was on your errand, fetching flowers from Unhwa Garden, when suddenly the Seventh Prince summoned me and beat me over some absurd pretext.”
Unhwa Garden was right next to Seonhan Palace, where the Seventh Prince resided. The Seventh Prince had long been on bad terms with the Thirteenth Prince over a dispute involving borrowed horses.
Moreover, just yesterday, that eunuch had been deeply disgruntled while running the Thirteenth Prince’s errands. Could the sharp-eyed Thirteenth Prince really have missed that?
“……”
Suspicion surged within me as I stared at the Thirteenth Prince. Perhaps sensing my gaze, he turned from impassively looking down at the eunuch and met my eyes.
Words rose to my throat, but I swallowed them and quickly put on a concerned expression.
“Why would His Highness the Seventh Prince do such a thing?”
[This is the timeline separator]The Empress leaned back in her long chair, leisurely reading a book, and without looking up as Lady Go approached, asked,
“Have you returned?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The Empress had been unsettled by what the Ninth Princess had said yesterday, so she used the Thirteenth Prince’s feigned illness as an excuse to send Lady Go to observe him.
She wanted to find out whether the Thirteenth Prince was still acting foolish, whether he had anyone around him, and whether his illness had truly been feigned.
If he was still behaving like a fool, the Empress could live in peace for another six months.
Then, the Empress grew puzzled. As she turned a page, she sensed Lady Go’s gaze and lifted her head.
Normally, Lady Go would bring tea or snacks and casually share what she’d seen or heard—but now she simply stood there, silently staring at her.
Closing her book, the Empress asked,
“There’s nothing interesting in Wolmoo Palace. Yet you seem to have seen something amusing there.”
Since the Empress prompted her, Lady Go eagerly opened her mouth as if she’d been waiting,
“Actually, Your Majesty, I witnessed a rather curious scene there.”
“A curious scene?”
“Yes. Yo Dae In—that is, Yo Yohwa—was clinging tightly to the Thirteenth Prince.”
“!”
The Empress, who had been listening calmly, nearly bulged her eyes.
“Clinging to him? You mean they were that close?”
“No, literally clinging. When I arrived, she jumped away in surprise. I’d expected them to dislike each other since they’re close in age—but they seemed like an unusually affectionate master and disciple.”
Lady Go didn’t seem to imagine anything beyond that; she simply smiled as she recounted the story.
But upon hearing this, the Empress immediately recalled that Yo Yohwa was a woman.
‘The Thirteenth Prince feigned illness to bring Yo Yohwa to his chambers at night… and Yo Yohwa was clinging to him… Could the Thirteenth Prince know she’s a woman?’
The Empress fell into thought, recalling Yo Yohwa’s usual behavior—but quickly concluded that was impossible.
Yo Yohwa hadn’t disguised herself as a man after growing up due to some circumstance; she’d been raised as a boy from birth. Naturally, the Thirteenth Prince couldn’t possibly know she was a woman. Yet the two were so close…
‘Could Yo Yohwa be infatuated with the Thirteenth Prince?’
Just then, Lady Go added another piece of news.
“Oh, that reminds me—on my way back, I heard, Your Majesty, that His Highness the Seventh Prince picked a quarrel with the Thirteenth Prince’s eunuch and beat him.”
“The Seventh Prince?”
“Yes. What should we do?”
The Empress was about to tell her to pretend ignorance—but suddenly stiffened and repeated,
“The Seventh Prince?”
“Yes? Yes, Your Majesty.”
At Lady Go’s reply, the Empress’s eyes turned icy.
“Everyone knows the Seventh Prince despises the Thirteenth Prince and has been lying in wait. Yet he beat the Thirteenth Prince’s eunuch? And of all people, it was the very eunuch who betrayed the Thirteenth Prince? It’s as if the Thirteenth Prince used the Seventh Prince’s hand to deal with his traitorous servant.”
Lady Go briefly looked startled, then laughed and countered,
“But Wolmoo Palace has few attendants—could it not be coincidence?”
“Coincidence? Coincidence, you say…”
The Empress wasn’t so easily convinced. Narrowing her eyes, she set aside the book on military strategy she’d been reading.
In her mind flashed the image of the young Thirteenth Prince feigning dullness before the Emperor.
And then, last night’s headstrong Ninth Princess, who despite being scolded, kept whining to be allowed to marry Yo Yohwa.
Since childhood, the Ninth Princess had been stubborn—whenever she wanted something, she’d go to any lengths to obtain it.
Now, for the first time, she’d taken a liking to a person—so she’d surely exhaust every means to marry Yo Yohwa.
Lost in thought for a long while in the same posture, the Empress finally smiled faintly as a good idea came to her.
“That should do it.”
“Yes?”
“I must arrange an engagement for the Thirteenth Prince.”
“Yes?”
Lady Go was baffled. They’d just been discussing whether the Thirteenth Prince was cleverly hiding his intelligence or truly a fool—and suddenly, an engagement?
“Ah, are you planning to betroth the Thirteenth Prince to a daughter of some humble family? That would be fine too. Since he can’t rely on his maternal clan, giving him a powerless wife would ensure he accomplishes nothing, no matter how clever he is.”
But what the Empress said next far exceeded Lady Go’s expectations.
“What if we formally betroth the Thirteenth Prince to Yo Yohwa?”
Lady Go stared blankly at the Empress, jaw dropped in shock, for a long moment. Finally regaining her composure, she stammered,
“Your Majesty, what do you mean…?”
Male lead reborn without memories — but he still falls for her.
The person he finds displeasing in this life turns out to be his cherished wife-master in previous life…
Xie Zhi and Fang Xianxing who had known each other for less than three days through a blind date sat in the same car in front of the civil affairs bureau. They had a disagreement and failed to get married.
Xie Zhi immediately took out his phone, slid through his contacts, and randomly selected the next marriage candidate.
The woman snatched his phone and hung up. Looking at his phone wallpaper, she awkwardly changed the subject: “An ancient painting, eh? It looks pretty good, it’s just that the person in the painting looks a bit like me.”
When he heard this, he sarcastically mocked her for being so delusional, completely unaware that, the person in front of him was the reincarnation of Wen Ru, the famous prime minister of Yuan Shun whom he most admired…
The female CEO who doesn’t want to get married with a divorce agreement in hand × The male archaeological researcher who will only get married if he’s sure he can get divorced
This is truly just very frustrating why is the princess sooo infatuated girl have a back bone don’t ruin yourself for a man
How many chapters are replaced with that one about princess bomoon? Is it 3rd time already? 😭