I Pretended To Be Dead And Ran Away (22 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 5
The room was a mess with the remnants of the restraints that Tanasis had hastily undone.
The gag that had been in his mouth was loosened enough that he seemed able to speak, and the restraint around his neck was completely undone.
And the restraints on his limbs had somehow all been removed as well.
As I examined the state of the loosened restraints, I realized.
“You work fast.”
There were no signs of the shackles being forced open. Perhaps in that short time while I was bringing him here, he had pretended to be unconscious and taken the keys in advance.
Clang.
Sure enough, seeing the key ring lying scattered near the broken flower pot, a sigh escaped me.
“That was close.”
If Felix found out that I almost let Crown Prince Tanasis escape because the keys were stolen, I would definitely be a dead man.
At that thought, goosebumps rose all over my body.
“Ugh……”
Tanasis let out a groan as if he was regaining consciousness, so I quickly fastened the restraint around his neck again.
Clang.
With the sound, the long chain extending from the wall to his neck pulled taut.
“Ugh……!”
To move Tanasis’s body, I tried to put my arms under his armpits and drag him backward. But he was so heavy that he wouldn’t budge.
“Why! Did you! Get even! Heavier! In that time!”
Struggling with all my strength, I barely managed to drag him to where the shackles fixed to the wall could reach.
Click.
Soon, I fastened the restraints back on Tanasis’s limbs as well.
The problem was that they should have been fixed tightly to the wall as originally intended, but now they had to be extended to their maximum length.
For one thing, Tanasis was too heavy.
If this was really the weight of someone unconscious, then clearly when I dragged him here, he had pretended to be out and cooperated just enough.
“Phew.”
I felt utterly exhausted, probably because I had exerted so much force that my palms were sweaty.
My ribs still hurt. It might have been bruised from being pressed down earlier.
“You…… let me go…… right now.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s difficult. Please cooperate.”
When Tanasis glared at me, I unknowingly said that.
Blood was trickling down from his forehead.
I looked around the lit room. As expected of a secret room, it was spacious and grand.
The large chandelier seemed to symbolize a splendor and wealth unfit for an underground space.
Compared to the other terribly poor underground prisons, this place was extraordinarily luxurious, as if it had been built for this purpose from the start.
A chandelier larger than a person, a bed wide enough to have been taken from a royal bedroom, and even a desk and shelves.
It was as if a royal’s room had been replicated exactly.
No, in reality, it must have been made this way to capture Tanasis.
Ever since Tanasis’s mother, the Empress, killed Felix’s mother, this plan had been in motion.
And though I couldn’t know the exact truth, there were rumors that the Empress was involved in the death of the late duke as well.
From the beginning, the reason Felix captured Tanasis instead of Tanasis’s mother was for revenge.
I did wonder why it was the son instead of the target of revenge.
‘Why me! Why did you capture me? If you have a grudge against Mother, you should have captured her!’
‘Because the thing the Empress loves most is you. If I kill you in the most painful way, your mother will understand my pain.’
I had read such a conversation between them once, so I understood.
“I’m really here to treat you. You’ve been bleeding too much since earlier; at this rate, it’s dangerous.”
Even at those words, Tanasis was warily glaring at me with his bright yellow eyes.
“You think I’ll believe you?”
“You probably won’t. But there’s no choice.”
I took the key ring and placed it far away near the door.
Then I realized how the chain connected to the right wall was linked to his shackles.
“Ugh!”
Rattle!
I turned the pulley near the right wall.
As expected, the chain connected to Tanasis was sucked into the wall, gradually shortening.
Soon, as the pulley rolled on its own, he ended up standing stuck to the wall. With a precarious expression, he hung limply.
“Please cooperate……”
“I got it!”
When he shouted irritably, I snapped back to attention.
Realizing that he was no longer a threat, I hurriedly gathered the first aid kit that had been scattered messily because of Tanasis.
I turned over the spilled water bucket and luckily placed the dry towels that hadn’t gotten wet on the bed. Then I headed to the bathroom.
Even the bathroom was extremely luxurious.
But there was no time to admire it, so I appropriately turned on warm water from the sink to fill the bucket. And then I headed straight back to where Tanasis was bound.
“Let me say this in advance, but I’m very timid.”
“So what.”
He still had the gag on.
I noticed that the strap between his lips had lost its function and the gag was loosened, making it precarious.
“The gag must be broken?”
“I don’t know.”
After soaking a towel in the warm water from the bucket, as I tried to approach, I closely examined the fixed part of the gag around his neck again.
“I said in advance, but I’m very timid. How broken is the gag?”
“Ha.”
If the gag was completely broken, what if he bit me while I approached?
At that thought, my body trembled again without realizing it.
“If it’s broken, how is it still hanging on your mouth? Do you have no sense?”
“That gag is originally supposed to prevent speaking.”
“This one was like this from the beginning.”
“Really? You’re not deceiving me?”
“Just disappear. You’re driving me crazy.”
I approached Tanasis very slowly. I gently wiped the blood flowing from his forehead with the towel. He remained still, just sighing.
“Explain why I’m so sleepy.”
“It’s probably because you hit your head.”
“Not that. Since earlier…… I’ve been so drowsy.”
“It’s probably because you’ve lost a lot of blood.”
I pressed firmly on his forehead to stop the bleeding. Then the blood stopped flowing. I looked at the gauze on his abdomen that I had stuffed in yesterday to stop the bleeding.
Clearly, the bleeding on the abdomen had stopped too, so there seemed to be no more worry.
“There’s a strange smell.”
“You must be intoxicated by the smell of blood.”
“It’s coming from you.”
Suddenly flustered, wondering what smell was coming from me, I inhaled. But all that came from me was a fragrant perfume scent.
Since Felix was extremely sensitive to smells, the servants allowed in the main building had to use designated perfume.
So I would smell like wild grass.
“Is it the scent of grass?”
“No. Peach blossom…… smell.”
“Isn’t that a fragrance?”
“Shut your mouth. It’s annoying.”
At Tanasis’s words, I closed my mouth and forced a smiling expression. I soaked the towel in the bucket again and wiped the blood that had trickled down his nape.
“Remove the gag.”
“Then Your Highness might bite me.”
“You seem to know who I am.”
Without answering that, I wrapped the towel around my fingers and inserted them near the perforated gag to wipe the blood.
I turned my eyes back to his abdomen.
“There’s a bed and a bathroom here. It can’t be that they made it this way to keep you tied up forever.”
“That’s not up to me, Your Highness.”
Saying that, I gently lifted his shirt and grasped the gauze that had been stuffed into the abdomen for hemostasis.
“It’ll hurt.”
“Do you think it doesn’t hurt now? Just hurry…… Ugh!”
As he said, I quickly removed the gauze instead. Then he grimaced with a gravely pained, pale face.
“This needs to be stitched later. I’ll give you medicine, so you have to take it.”
“Heok, ugh……! How do I know what medicine it is?”
“It’s antibiotics to prevent infection in the wound, painkillers, antipyretics, and a bit of nutritional supplements.”
“……Are you a doctor?”
“I got it from a doctor.”
Then I placed new gauze on his abdomen and secured it with a pressure bandage.
“Ah.”
When I told him to open his mouth, he glared at me.
“I won’t take it.”
“Okay, then. Life is so hard for me too……! Hey!”
I picked up the antibiotic pill and shoved it into his lips through the gag. Then I quickly pressed on the wound on his abdomen.
“Ugh! Cough!”
Whether from pain or not, he swallowed the pill as is.
“You……!”
“Then rest well!”
With that, I grabbed the bucket, the bloodstained towels, and the key ring and fled out of there.
****
There were still many things to do even at dawn.
‘Do you know why you shouldn’t pass through the third floor in the late dawn? Because the master wanders around. So you just need to make sure no one goes up to the third floor.’
‘Is that the chief steward’s job?’
‘Yes.’
‘Easy.’
But the duty room I had to return to was on the fifth floor. If I went back to the annex now, the servants would suspect something.
If I, who decided to stay in the duty room, returned to the annex before morning, even the knight guarding the door would find it strange.
So I had no choice but to check the situation on the third floor and stay on the second.
From the stairs between the second and third floors, I stealthily peeked into the third-floor corridor.
Since nothing was visible in the corridor, I thought this was the moment and was about to quickly take off my shoes and go up.
“Found you.”
But at that instant, Felix appeared from who knows where in the pitch-black darkness, smiling with his bright red eyes shining.
“I’ve been looking for you for a while.”
“Ah, M-Master!”
In my panic, just as I was about to make an excuse.
Felix’s body crushed me down, and we fell to the floor with a thud.
“Found you.”
He said that and smiled while looking at me with unfocused eyes.
‘If you’re on the third floor at dawn, you’ll definitely die. And very miserably, with your neck twisted or your head separated from your body.’
I never imagined Chief Steward Mariven’s words meant this. Felix approached me smiling, and when his large hand touched my neck, my body trembled.
I thought my neck would be twisted like this, but his hand went to my hand instead. As if to subdue my struggling.
“Master!”
Whether unconscious or not, he forcefully interlocked our fingers.
“Ah!”
Soon, the slightly large ring on my hand slipped off completely. His gaze fell on my instantly lengthened hair.
When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem
This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Synopsis:
“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”
Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.
Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.
While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…
Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.
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Chapter Comments (22)
Inline Comments (54)
‘The missing Princess of Nuremberg is a mana purifier—one born only once per cen
Could it be her? Is it possible that she’s living in a state of shock and no one knows her identity?
Reniel trailed off uncertainly, unsure whether this warranted gratitude.
Could it be her? Is it possible that she’s living in a state of shock and no one knows her identit
“Th-thank you…?”
Could it be her? Is it possible that she’s living in a state of shock and no one knows her identit
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Wait, what? For real? How come the Nuremberg Princess is hiding her gender and work at the mansion of the Duke who technically her archenemy? And Renal is Tanasis’ fiancee? Wow, never expected it to be revealed this early.
Very good story and i do prefer it if any person will give it a try worthy of your time
So apparently Renal is regarded as a threat for imperial family for her purifying ability and decided to make her Tanasias’ fiancee for close monitoring and helped him control his artificial ability. But Renal must’ve sensed or found out something that can put her life in danger. Thus she went into the hiding in the enemy’s nest and disguised as a man with the ring’s help. I wonder what kind of finding Reniel got to the point it threatened her life.