Chapter 324 (2/2)

I don’t know when it started, but strangely enough, I often got annoyed and angry. I couldn’t figure out why, but I got more irritated when I saw my concubine, Lady Monique. I really hated her indifferent look as well as her lackluster eyes. Perhaps I was more annoyed because I felt she looked at me like the late marquise who she resembled so much.

As I was already on edge, I often acted recklessly even before I organized my jumbled thoughts. I even cut a servant who rubbed me the wrong way. Despite that, I felt satisfied and even joyful rather than thinking my punishment was excessive.

Stopping by the Royal Knights Division building, I stopped for a moment when I heard several royal knights talking to each other. Stopping Earl Penril who came out to greet me, I listened to them silently. I was speechless when they said that although Lady Monique’s status was concubine, she was like the queen, and that she had a strong backing unlike the current empress who had no support base at all once she lost favor with the crown prince.

How cunning she is! I told her to help Jiun, who was lacking as the empress in many ways, but she had been acting like the real empress until now?

I made a feigned smile at a young knight’s confident remarks and other knights’ nodding at him.

Oh yes, the next emperor should be produced by the Monique family because the concubine from the Monique family is clearly different from me who had a commoner’s blood and Jiun whose family background was questionable.

It looked like even Monique thought of herself like that. And that’s why she was ignoring Jiun, who was superior to her in rank.

Duke Lars found fault with me, while pretending to act politely.

I was dumbfounded to hear that. How cunning and persistent she is! Not content with controlling the women’s palace and making a fool of the empress, she even pressed the duke to have me sleep with her?

I gnashed my teeth in spite of myself. Is the pro-emperor faction treating me like a stallion? Well, they wouldn’t care about my intentions at all because they are only concerned about producing the next emperor from their faction. To them, I am only a nominal ruler as well as a stallion to succeed the imperial family, nothing more or less.

I made a feigned smile. What did I expect from them? Anyway, the only ruler they trusted was the late emperor. If I had not been the only successor, they would never have served a dumb man like me. Even if there was another successor than me, they probably would not care at all.

The same was true of the concubine. She was a woman made only for the emperor, so she would have embraced anybody if some other man than me had succeeded to the throne.

When I went to the empress’s palace with a troubled heart, I saw Jiun crying. She said it was all her fault and that she was sorry for interfering with me and Lady Monique. Then she asked me to go to Lady Monique. Curious why she said that, I called a maid serving her to explain what’s going on.

She revealed that she had been to Concubine Monique’s palace today. The moment I heard it, I blew my top. I clearly warned her not to approach Jiun. Did she now go as far as disobeying my order?

I went to see Lady Monique to give her the last warning. Despite my threatening attitude, she was unusually composed and calm. Despite my dishevelled outfit, she arrogantly asked me to respect her opinion, with her perfect posture. The way she looked down at me and spoke to me as if to remind me that she was different from me who had a commoner’s blood was testing my patience and reason.

Oh, you were a woman like that from the beginning. Unlike me, who was always ignored because I was clumsy, you were always praised for your excellence. You received everyone’s love when I was craving for their attention. Nevertheless, you just focused on what you were doing, while belittling everything I could not have despite my hard efforts.