I was so surprised that I couldn’t answer right away and just stared intently at the Emperor.

The Emperor, who looked like what the 13th Prince might look like when he gets older, stared back at me with his lips curved upwards.

He seemed to be in a much better mood than when he threw the inkstone, perhaps because the 9th Princess’s matter was resolved well. No, but why did that good mood suddenly jump to changing my position?

When I couldn’t answer immediately, the Emperor spoke again.

“You passed the civil service exam with excellent grades. It’s a bit awkward for you to enter the Royal Academy now, so if you have ambitions for a high official position, I’ll move you to the Secretariat.”

This was something that hadn’t happened before the regression. I was flustered and kept staring at him, but when it seemed the Emperor was becoming displeased with the long silence, I just answered whatever came to mind.

“But, hasn’t there already been talk of marriage? My family already considers that I will marry His Highness the 13th Prince. If the marriage falls through now, the elders of my family will be disappointed, Your Majesty.”

“I heard you have a younger sister by one year.”

“!”

“We haven’t even exchanged the formal marriage proposal yet, and there’s been no official talk of marriage. If we marry your younger sister to the 13th Prince, your family elders won’t be disappointed.”

I’m not particularly good at reading others, but now I think I know what the Emperor is thinking.

Before this happened, it would have been difficult to suggest marrying the second daughter of the Yo family to the mistreated 13th Prince.

But now that there’s been talk of marriage, and the fact that the Emperor holds the secret of the Yo family remains unchanged.

So he thinks that because of my secret of dressing as a man, our parents won’t be able to refuse this marriage proposal.

I quickly lowered my gaze. My heart started beating at an incredible speed.

Lin Hwa marrying the disciple? Lin Hwa and the disciple? And I’m to go to the Emperor’s Secretariat to prepare to become his confidant? This is crazy. It can’t happen.

The engagement of Lin Hwa and the disciple… I don’t know what the outcome will be. If Lin Hwa and the disciple marry, perhaps the disciple won’t kill me in this life for Lin Hwa’s sake.

Or conversely, he might mistreat Lin Hwa out of revenge against me. Since they both dislike me, they might even get along well because of it.

I can’t even guess how the wedding of these two will turn out.

The problem was me. The disciple is gathering his confidants one by one again after the regression. It’s a sign that he’ll aim for the throne again this time.

Before the regression, the 13th Prince, having gained power, eliminated his siblings and deposed the Emperor. In that process, the disciple got rid of all the Emperor’s confidants except for a few very useful talents.

Becoming the Emperor’s person was no different from jumping off a cliff while hanging onto a rotten rope.

“You don’t seem to like it.”

Ack! The Emperor’s voice had lowered even more in the meantime. He obviously expected me to readily accept his proposal with an “Oh, I’m so honored. Long live! Long live! Long, long live!”

But whether the Emperor glared coldly or not, this wasn’t something to decide right away.

Why did I say I would marry the 13th Prince? To survive! It was to survive! I don’t want to go off to die on a side road!

“I apologize, Your Majesty. Of course, I would be delighted to become Your Majesty’s confidant. However, this humble one loves His Highness the 13th Prince with all his might. This humble one’s heart breaks just seeing His Highness the 13th Prince’s shadow, such is my love for him. So it’s difficult for me to say anything. I apologize.”

In the end, I had no choice but to sell out the 13th Prince again. However, the Emperor looked as if he didn’t like even that answer of mine.

No, rather, he seemed even more displeased when he heard that I “love the 13th Prince” than when he was waiting for my answer.

Does he think it’s not virtuous to talk about loving someone when we’re not even married yet?

But I stubbornly held my ground. Even as I saw Song Taegam standing with his mouth wide open, I put on a brazen face.

“…”

After a long silence like that. The Emperor waved his hand and warned:

“Withdraw. Withdraw and think carefully about my words again. Which direction would be better for your and the Yo family’s future.”

It’s a threat, right? It must have been a threat. It’s clearly a threat to fear the consequences if I don’t do as he wants.

As I walked away in a daze, I wondered why things had gotten so tangled again. Should I not have spoken up to defend Sun An?

But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have received this proposal from the Emperor, but Sun An would have been in danger. At the time, I made the best choice I could. But why did the Emperor have to pop up here of all places?

The Emperor before the regression didn’t pay much attention to me, did he? He just saw me as the teacher of a prince he didn’t like, right? Why is he suddenly moved by my loyalty! Lin Hwa is cursing me for being disloyal!

How long did I walk in a daze like that? Maybe because I had received too much mental attack, my legs weakened and I felt nauseous again, so I couldn’t walk anymore and entered a nearby garden to sit leaning against a tree. I couldn’t sit on the street after all.

As I was trying to catch my breath,

“Yo Yohwa.”

I heard a voice calling me from the sky.

“!”

Startled, I looked up, and unexpectedly, the 3rd Prince was in the tree. The frail 3rd Prince! As I stared with my mouth wide open in surprise, he twisted his body slightly, and a leaf fell right into my mouth.

“Ptoo ptoo!”

As I was frantically spitting out the leaf and rubbing my mouth, the 3rd Prince fell to the side with a bunch of leaves.

I was wiping my mouth frantically and then panicked again and fell to the side. The 3rd Prince looked at me and smiled gently.

“The National Lecturer is always bright whenever I see him.”

I’m bright, Your Highness? Didn’t you see the dark clouds surrounding me? But as the 3rd Prince reached out his hand towards me, I couldn’t give any answer.

The 3rd Prince’s hand. The long and beautiful hand of the 3rd Prince. The fair and delicate hand of the 3rd Prince. I stared blankly at the 3rd Prince’s hand approaching right in front of my nose and then turned my gaze to look at the 3rd Prince.

I realized that the 3rd Prince’s hand was in front of me. But I couldn’t think of what to do next.

Why is he reaching out his hand to me? Am I allowed to touch his hand? Is he showing me his hand? Is he saying that even his hands are beautiful? Should I praise his beautiful hand?

As I was staring blankly like that, the 3rd Prince asked gently.

“Aren’t you going to take it and get up?”

Only after hearing those words did I realize that the 3rd Prince hadn’t reached out his hand to show it to me, and I quickly got up.

But I couldn’t bring myself to take that beautiful hand to get up, so I got up by pushing against the ground.

Then I saw that the 3rd Prince seemed a bit embarrassed, so I quickly explained why I couldn’t take his hand.

“Your Highness’s hands are so fair and beautiful and clean, but my hands are covered in dirt right now. If I were to take Your Highness’s clean hand with my hand to get up, Your Highness’s hand would get dirty. That’s why I didn’t take it, so please don’t look sad.”

“?”

The 3rd Prince, upon hearing my words, seemed to have his misunderstanding cleared up, and after looking perplexed for a moment, he burst into laughter.

“Really. You’re always so spirited whenever I see you.”

“Pardon?”

Is he talking about the day we shot arrows? Was I spirited that day? I don’t think I was spirited, I just showed a bit of cowardice trying to stay away from the 9th Princess’s attention.

As I was standing there dazed, stuck on the 3rd Prince’s words “always so spirited whenever I see you”, the 3rd Prince, checking his disheveled appearance from climbing up and down the tree, said,

“You don’t seem to remember. Well, it was when you were very young.”

“Pardon? Wh-what do you mean when I was very young?”

“When you were much younger than now. I visited your house once.”

The 3rd Prince said this while looking at me, and as soon as I heard those words, my jaw nearly dropped. The 3rd Prince remembers that?

There’s one time a year when I, who always lived disguised as a man, return to women’s attire. It’s when I pay respects to the ancestors.

Because I’m registered as a girl in the family genealogy, my parents had the strange logic that I could wear women’s clothes when paying respects to the ancestral tablets.

Thinking about it now, paying respects to the ancestors was probably just an excuse, and my parents likely wanted to ensure that I wouldn’t be too unfamiliar with women’s clothing in case I needed to return to a woman’s appearance.

Just like they raised me as a boy but registered me as a girl in the family genealogy.

That day was the same. After finishing preparations to pay respects to the ancestors, my parents gave a holiday to those working in the inner quarters and sent them all out. I paid my respects to the ancestral tablets along with Lin Hwa.

Afterwards, my parents and Lin Hwa went out of the inner quarters to do other things, but I changed back into my usual clothes and stayed alone in the inner quarters, wandering around. Since I had only changed clothes, all my hair ornaments were still in place.

Then I ended up in a situation where I climbed a tree and couldn’t come down. It was because my long, spiky hair ornaments got caught somewhere in the tree.

I was groaning in pain, afraid to shout in case others might come until my parents returned, when I saw a boy in a tree across the wall.

The boy was the 3rd Prince, who was visiting briefly because his mother’s side was a distant relative of our family. The boy was looking at the sky from the tree when he discovered me and his eyes widened.

But it was only for a moment. The boy immediately crossed the wall to this side, and shouted to me from under the tree.

“Jump down. I’ll catch you.”

He seemed to have misunderstood that I was struggling because I couldn’t get down from the tree.

Fortunately, by then my hair ornament had also come loose. More precisely, the hair ornament was still caught in the tree, but my hair had slipped out of it.

Anyway, as I was young then and had no particular fear of crushing a prince, I immediately jumped down, and the prince broke his ribs in exchange for catching me.

But right after I jumped down, I didn’t know his ribs were broken. I was only scared that I had shown my half-male disguise to an unfamiliar guest.

“I-I’m a child my father had from an affair.”

To me, who was so surprised that I sold out my father, the prince smiled as brightly as fully bloomed spring flowers and whispered in my ear.

“I’m weak, so I’m not allowed to climb trees. If you keep my secret, I’ll also keep secret that you climbed a tree.”

Fortunately, the boy didn’t seem to be suspicious of my attire. He might have thought that the adults in the house had playfully put accessories that many girls wear on my head.

After all, there are many accessories that both boys and girls use.

When I saw that the boy didn’t find me strange and considered my secret to be just climbing a tree, I felt relieved and nodded, then confessed to him.

“Actually, I am a child born to my mother.”

The boy opened his big eyes wide, then burst into laughter and pinched my cheek.

“You’re really cute.”

“You find me cute?”

I asked in surprise. It was always Lin Hwa who was called cute. Maybe not when we were very young, but at that time, I didn’t receive such compliments because I was smaller and weaker than the other boys my age who were growing rapidly.

When adults saw me, they would worry saying things like ‘You need to eat better’ or ‘The child is small for his age’ or ‘He looks too weak’ or ‘He seems frail’.

But when the most handsome boy I had ever seen exclaimed that I was cute, I couldn’t believe it.

“Yes. You’re the most spirited and coolest person I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m cute?”

“The cutest.”

“Me?”

“Of course.”

“Your Highness is also the most handsome person I’ve ever seen.”

The 3rd Prince laughed heartily and picked me up to spin me around, and I fell completely in love with him.

Later I heard that he suffered from several broken ribs, but since our meeting remained a secret, I didn’t get scolded by my parents.

At the next ancestral rite, thinking he might come again, I climbed that tree and waited all day, but the 3rd Prince never appeared again.

I thought he would have naturally forgotten that brief encounter. But to think he remembers something from when we were children.

As I was staring at him blankly, both surprised and touched, the 3rd Prince brought up something unexpected.

“I heard there’s been secret talk of marriage with the thirteenth. Have you decided to stop dressing as a man?”

I stared at him with wide eyes. He knew I was a woman?