While Harchen was sitting at his office desk examining documents and listening to Philip’s explanation, the head butler reported that the leader of the Heun tribe hunters had arrived.
“Your Majesty, shall I have him wait in the audience chamber?”
“No, have Calip personally escort him to the reception room.”
“As you command.”
Calip waited for Bark and his subordinate walking down the long corridor. As they entered the palace and walked down the hallway, Calip explained the royal etiquette protocol to them.
“You should know this now that the Heun tribe are citizens of the empire.”
Bark and his subordinate Biie entered the reception room and greeted politely as Calip had taught them.
“What is your surname?”
“As a Heun tribe hunter, I have no surname.”
“Didn’t you approach Patricia knowing it was Evas?”
At Harchen’s words, both Bark and Calip widened their eyes in surprise. Bark’s subordinate Biie, not understanding the emperor’s words, stared blankly at his chief who was gasping.
Evas.
Evas was the family name of the empress’s natal family and the surname of Emperor Kazan of the Tane Empire.
“The mothers of Heun tribe hunters are Amirs who take vows of chastity and celibacy, right? Then who would their fathers be, Calip?”
“What? I-I don’t know.”
Calip alternately looked at the emperor who had dropped a bombshell and Bark, then covered his mouth with his gloved hand.
Though Bark had silver hair with a bluish tinge, pale eyes, and a tall, large build, when his overall features were scaled down, he resembled Patrick in a strange way.
“I met a blind Heun tribe lutist of Amir origin, ah, her name was Hairin.”
As Patrick pointed her out, she walked to the center of Grazia Hall, straightening her usually hunched shoulders and raising her head high to glare at Kazan.
Watching her bold demeanor as she revealed her name and age of forty-seven, Harchen realized that the confession she had made to him was not the whole truth, and that there was a hidden truth between her and Kazan.
He had vaguely thought so, but when he saw the hunter chief standing next to Patricia in the Heun tribe village, he felt a surge of irritation like when dealing with Patrick.
So he became certain and found it distasteful.
“With her eyes and face distorted, she attacked Emperor Kazan with the little white of her eyes she could barely see. I suspected that she couldn’t have committed such a reckless act risking her life based solely on the grudge she confessed to me.”
Calip marveled at the emperor’s insight.
“Another strange thing was that the empress wanted me to either take her away or execute her on the spot.”
Calip also remembered that day. The empress had wanted to get rid of the Heun tribe old woman more than necessary.
“Try to deny it if you can.”
The emperor rose from the sofa, walked towards the wall and took down a sword hanging there. He placed the sword on the table.
“If my prediction is wrong, you will have to pay the price for the crime of insulting my empress that you uttered yesterday.”
Bark leaned his upper body forward and bowed his head slightly.
“I am impressed by Your Majesty’s intuition. Yes, that’s correct.”
Huh, Calip finally let out the breath he had been holding.
“Well then, explain the circumstances surrounding what you said yesterday.”
Bark recounted his participation in the princes’ rebellion in the Kingdom of Marcus, the heartless Emperor Kazan who rode past the fallen crown prince in the pouring rain, and how he followed who he thought was the crown prince only to encounter Patricia emerging after her bath.
Harchen had a premonition. Though only half-blood, this man would likely cross the line out of obsession with blood ties and cling to Patricia, no less than Patrick who had shared a womb with her.
The one saving grace was that Patricia had no memory of him and this man was her younger brother.
I need to draw a clear line.
“So you saw my empress’s body?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Harchen picked up the sword on the table, unsheathed it, and brought it to Bark’s face.
“I’ll have to gouge out your eyes then. I’ll ask again, did you see my empress’s body?”
“I did not see it.”
“That’s the correct answer. Do you know that my empress has lost her past memories?”
“Yes, I am aware.”
“I will accept you as my empress’s half-brother. However, for the time being, refrain from confusing the empress and keep silent.”
It would be even better if they didn’t meet at all.
“Yes, I will keep that in mind.”
“Now, tell me everything about the deaths of Empress Pamila and the maid Eva.”
As he listened to Bark’s explanation, Harchen’s chest burned, then filled with wet cotton, then became cold.
“What about the funerals for the empress and the assassin?”
“The Heun tribe throws traitors, thieves, and criminals into birch forests for crows to divide their flesh and souls.”
“I see. Was a funeral held for the maid Eva?”
As Harchen heard the testimony about Eva’s death and the Heun tribe’s funeral customs of dressing the deceased in their everyday clothes in a palm wood coffin and making a grave near water, he felt his breath catch.
Patricia…
The empress said that from the moment she brought Patricia to the West Tower, she had carried her in her own hands. She had washed, fed, and raised her with her own hands.
Even after the royal marriage, she made flimsy excuses and stayed by Patricia’s side, enduring mistreatment from the maids and servants of White Palace.
How did she endure the death and sorrow of the maid who, even to an onlooker, cherished Patricia more than her own body?
“She never left her side for a moment from her days as a princess until now. When she wore armor and went to battle, she stood praying on the castle walls until she returned. When she wasn’t by her side, she prayed to God and the dead every moment to protect the princess. For the first time, she didn’t pray even though she wasn’t by her side. Because Your Majesty the Emperor was with her…”
The skinny, rod-like maid glared at him, the emperor, with shining eyes. As if reproaching him for not blocking the poisoned arrow while being right by Patricia’s side.
And she spoke in a resolute voice.
“From now on, I have firmly decided not to leave Her Majesty the Empress’s side, whether alive or dead.”
How could such a maid close her eyes, leaving her princess who had lost her past memories like a naked body and was wounded on her shoulders and back in a strange place?
How did she cut off the sorrow of leaving the princess alone, which was greater than the fear of approaching death?
Harchen felt a hot iron pressing down on his throat, choking him as it went down.
Eva, even in death you’ll be by Patricia’s side.
Silence fell over the bright office space. The sound of Harchen swallowing something was heard a few times from his throat.
“Is there anything else to report?”
The emperor, with a gloomy expression, asked in a tight voice.
“There is nothing else to report.”
Bark held out the white envelope in his hand.
“What is this?”
The emperor looked at the marriage proposal inside the envelope and tilted his head, looking at Bark.
“It’s a marriage proposal for Princess Carolina II.”
“That’s not what I meant. Does Carolina know about this? Did you two discuss it?”
“No, just me alone.”
“Alone… Why? Did something happen between you two while she was staying there? Did you kiss or something?”
Flustered, Bark immediately waved his hands and replied.
“No, nothing like that happened.”
“Then, have you fallen for Carolina? Did you develop something like feelings of love?”
“…”
Bark couldn’t readily answer that he had. Certainly, he felt fluttery and his heart raced when he saw her. He liked her scent and her upright character. But he couldn’t be sure it was love.
She was someone he had paid attention to out of resentment towards the empress dowager’s contempt and jealousy of Patrick. But he might have developed such feelings even if she had been a different woman, not necessarily Carolina.
As he entered the palace today, he wanted to meet Patricia, his blood relative, more than he longed for Princess Carolina.
If he had to have tea with one of them right now, he would certainly choose Patricia.
“I’ll pass this marriage proposal on to Carolina. But as far as I know, Carolina seems to like Patrick a lot. Patrick feels the same way.”
Harchen couldn’t read any unavoidable anguish of love on Bark’s face.
As he heard Philip’s report about Bark’s meeting with the empress dowager, he guessed that Bark must have been hurt by the empress dowager’s contemptuous behavior.
He wouldn’t be reckless enough to propose out of rebellion against that contempt.
“You can fall for someone. But love isn’t achieved just because one side falls for the other unilaterally, and you don’t seem to have fallen desperately enough.”
Bark bristled at the words that hit the mark, but it was true that not enough affection had built up to refute them.
“Was it like that for Your Majesty? Did you… fall at first sight?”
“Hah, are you already throwing your weight around as a relative?”
Bark blushed at Harchen’s words “relative” and “throwing your weight around.” Somehow, it felt like words that tickled his heart.
Harchen rubbed his face with both hands and looked straight at Bark.
For a moment, Bark flinched. He was glad he was a man. If he had been a woman, there would have been no need for questions about falling in love – his face said it all with its breathtaking beauty.
He wondered if someone with such arrogant beauty could love someone else with burning passion.
They say if a man’s beauty is too outstanding, he lives up to his looks. Then wouldn’t that make my sister, Patricia, suffer later? Oh, oh, my sister. But is this also throwing my weight around as a relative?
Bark blushed again as he thought about this.
“That’s right, I fell at first sight and fell again the second time, but I was so angry I thought I’d go crazy because she didn’t recognize me. I just wanted to grab her tightly and do something… Do you understand?”
“Yes, very much.”
As Harchen confessed his feelings for Patricia, Bark didn’t know why he felt breathless and his throat burning.
“I’ll tell you because you’re you. On our wedding day, I was waiting for her and my body kept inflating like a balloon and then deflating like it had been pricked with a needle, but when she appeared, she just fell asleep on her own.”
Behind Harchen was Calip, and behind Bark was his subordinate Biie, both leaning in close to listen seriously to the emperor’s confession about love.
“Actually, even now my emotions move steeply. I react even to the slightest touch or brush. Depending on her movements, twelve times a day… Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
The three answered simultaneously.
“So I’d rather have time pass quickly and have children soon and reach a stable period. Then even if Patricia touches me, I could pass it off casually and wouldn’t have to be on edge.”
Harchen frowned as the three looked at him with reddened faces.
Yesterday, he had confessed his love for her in front of his mother. Why on earth was he able to confess his love for Patricia well to others but not in front of her?
Today, if he gets the chance…
“Then, shall I pass this marriage proposal on to Carolina?”
Bark picked up the white envelope lying in front of Harchen again.
“No, I’ll think about it some more.”
“Bark, the Heun tribe village has a good location but it’s in poor condition. Make a reconstruction plan to widen the carriage road leading into the village and rebuild the houses. Listen to the assistant’s explanation about the documents or designs. Calip, guide him to Philip’s office.”
Bark bowed to the emperor with shining eyes full of enthusiasm before leaving.
Ex-husband Wants Reconciliation
One-line summary: Chasing the wife to the crematorium (making an effort to attract someone who has become indifferent), the female lead doesn’t look back, the second male lead takes the position.
Intro:
To repay the kindness of the older generation, Su Mu crossed into a female-dominated world and became a live-in daughter-in-law of the Yan family, single-handedly saving the Yan family from fire and water.
But her husband, Yan Jiyue, the eldest son of the Yan family, treated her with sarcasm and never showed her a good face.
It wasn’t until after Su Mu’s death that this pampered and arrogant young master shed a few fake tears and pretended to want to die for love.
This life’s kindness was enough. If there was a next life, she would definitely kick Yan Jiyue away.
Who knew that the heavens would be so kind as to allow her to be reborn, returning to the time when she had just married into the Yan family.
Su Mu glanced at the Yan eldest son, who still spoke coldly to her, and threw a divorce letter in front of him.
“Let’s divorce!”
***
Yan Jiyue never imagined that he would be reborn. He happily went to find Su Mu, wanting to make up for the mistakes he had made in his ignorant youth.
Wasn’t the reason the heavens allowed him to be reborn to let him reconcile with Su Mu?
But when he pushed open the door to Su Mu’s room, the person lying on the bed was another man.
Su Mu’s personal attendant, Xie Yi.
Yan Jiyue hated him so much that his teeth itched. In front of Su Mu, Xie Yi was a gentle and considerate whisperer of sweet nothings, but in reality, he was vicious-hearted and deliberately sabotaged their husband and wife relationship.
In the previous life, it was he who secretly hid in Su Mu’s coffin and committed suicide, stealing a step ahead of him to be buried with Su Mu.
Yan Jiyue’s eyes were filled with hatred as he cursed, “What kind of thing are you? Your background is lowly, what right do you have to occupy Su Mu?”
Xie Yi looked at the sleeping Su Mu and no longer pretended to be a whisperer of sweet nothings.
He proudly stuck out his belly, “I have the right because my belly is capable of giving the Wife-master a daughter.”
***
Yan Jiyue was consumed with jealousy. He spread rumors that Xie Yi had once been branded with the mark of a “harlot” on his chest.
But on the night Xie Yi cut off the flesh bearing that mark, Su Mu suddenly realized something was amiss.
“How did you know the exact moment I was poisoned? And why did you show up a month early?”
Xie Yi remained silent, blood from his wound soaking through his robes. His sapphire eyes brimmed with anguish – or was it just a flawless act?
Between a once-arrogant husband now seeking redemption, and a gentle soul willing to die for her – who truly held the darkest secrets? And could it be that Su Mu and Yan Jiyue weren’t the only ones given a second chance at life…?
[Reading Guide]
1. True divorce, chasing the wife to the crematorium, the female lead doesn’t look back, the male lead is Xie Yi.
2. The ex-husband did not cheat, he just realized too late and didn’t realize that he liked the female lead.
_____
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