Ines felt a piercing coldness, but she did not shrink back.

Examining Ines as if probing, Angeliana smiled provocatively.

“You’re a cautious person. You.”

“…,”

“I can’t tell what you’re thinking just by looking at your expression. Are your eyes envying me right now? Or are they observing me objectively?”

Ines remained silent. Even Ines herself couldn’t judge how she was currently viewing her.

“I know everything about how you’ve been living so far. And how Carson has been waiting by your side for such a long time.”

The name Carson, spoken so familiarly, caused a dull pain. Since realizing her feelings towards him, there hadn’t been a day when her heart didn’t ache.

Seemingly aware of Ines’s discomfort, she added with a smirk, “You’re a careful person.”
“We got along since we were young. There was no distance between us when we were very young, so I easily allowed him to call me by my name.”

“…….”

“For such a long time, if I say I’ve never held a man as extraordinary and beautiful in my heart, that would be a lie.”

Even from Angeliana’s perspective, is Carson really that extraordinary and beautiful?

“Is it true that Carson personally made you a maid and brought you to the imperial palace?”

There was nothing to deny, so Ines didn’t respond. Angeliana tilted her head slightly, smiling subtly.

“It was quite shocking that a man like him could do that.”

At that moment, someone knocked on the door. Soon, a familiar maid working in the imperial palace came in.

Except for the imperial family, palace maids do not serve anyone else. However, both the giver and receiver of the service seemed unfazed, as if it were natural.

“Even Benjamin says there’s no need for tea.”

When she laughed, the maid smiled faintly and blushed.

After the maid left, leaving only the two of them again, Angeliana slowly traced the handle of the teacup with her fingertips. At that moment, the image of Carson’s white and long fingers lifting his chin overlapped with Ines’s eyes.

Following that image, Ines was confronted with a chilling face. When their eyes met, Angeliana tilted her head slightly with a puzzled expression.

Huh, Ines took a deep breath. And she understood the nature of the discomfort she felt.

The owner of those fingers was none other than the former empress. Angeliana resembled the former empress unbelievably.

In a moment, Ines’s eyes sparkled.

“Ines, unless it’s something from my home, I usually… can’t touch things without gloves. Do you know whose hands have touched this object?”

“…….”

“Still, I want Carson so much. Even though I know your hands have already tainted him.”

Even as she dared to say that she had been tainted, she showed no sign of discomfort.

“Because he is the emperor who will make me perfect. And he is also a perfect man.”

After taking her hand out of the teacup, she put her hand back into the glove. Once the image of the former empress overlapped, Ines could no longer see her as she was.

“I understood the emperor’s intentions, but I don’t know your intentions.”

“Is my intention important?”

Ines, who had been silent all along, spoke, and the hand putting on the glove paused. Then, she laughed, as if finding it amusing, with no kindness in her eyes as she looked at Ines.

“As you say, it’s not important. But whether you are a realistic person or not is important.”

“I am not a realistic person.”

“Then are you someone who dreams aimlessly?”

“No. I am…”
Ines briefly reflected on the life she had lived. Then the answer came quite easily. At the moment when her beliefs and long-standing promises were softly crumpled in her bedroom last night, the emotion Ines felt was strangely exhilarating.

Originally, Ines was not someone who retreated due to fear. After ascending through time, she had persevered for one and only one thing.

“I am a blind person.”

It was an unexpected statement, and deep wrinkles appeared on Angeliana’s forehead. However, the emotion resembling discomfort was quickly suppressed.

“Do you mean you have no thoughts or calculations?”

“Yes. I… ”

Ines took a deep breath, inhaling deeply and exhaling in short bursts several times. The moment she uttered these words, she and Angeliana became static. Once again, her life began preparing for war. Her back naturally straightened.

“I have never acted with calculations or considerations. There has always been only one path.”

Even when dealing with Joseph and Jamern, there was only one path.

When she judged that it would become dangerous if Carson did not become the emperor, there was only one path she could take.

And now, at this moment, she finally realized.

There is only one path left for her, the path that leads to Carson.

“You mentioned the emperor’s intentions, but said you don’t know my thoughts?”

Ines spoke with a faint smile.

“As I mentioned earlier, my intentions are not important. His thoughts are my thoughts. His future is my future, and what he desires is exactly what I desire.”

Angeliana laughed as if she found it incredible.

“That blind devotion doesn’t seem as dull as not knowing how dangerous it is…….”

“…….”

“That blind devotion will inevitably make things difficult for him.”