Chapter 328 (2/2)

Then, how did she manage her job until now?

I clicked my tongue when I suddenly recalled something.

I see. It was Lady Monique, not Jiun, who was in control of the internal affairs of the palace department.

Suddenly, I made a hollow smile. I have forgotten her until now, but these days something came up, which often made me recall her.

As expected, the palace department didn’t discard the documents related to her. I ordered the director of the palace department to give up Jiun’s policy and reintroduce what Lady Monique had practiced. At that moment, I suddenly recalled Lady Monique’s golden eyes wet with tears. Before I knew it, I ordered the director to bring me all the documents related to her.

While walking down the hallway of the empress’s palace, I kept thinking to myself that there was nothing special to my order, I just did it to find the mastermind, and that I could find out something meaningful because Lady Monique was in charge of the internal affairs.

Was it because I kept thinking of her? I had a big quarrel with Jiun when I casually mentioned Lady Monique’s name, frustrated with the lack of progress Jiun made in handling the palace affairs. Nonetheless, I felt I should put up with her because I loved her, but my spontaneous anger at the moment made me tell her what I honestly thought about her, which I had hidden from her until now. When she spat out what came to her mind recklessly, I slapped her in the face.

Back to the Central Palace, I picked up the documents sent by the palace department. Then I put my hand on my forehead while reading something that Lady Monique seemed to have written down in her round handwriting style. What is it all about?

I thought she was trying to act as the real owner of the inner palace by pushing Jiun out, but she didn’t. On the contrary, she prepared documents on the operation of the internal palace for Jiun. I thought she didn’t care about me at all, but she knew even my trifling taste.

I suddenly remembered what Jiun told me in the past. She said Lady Monique must have been clumsy like her at first.

Really? Just like me who knocked myself out to catch up with my father, the emperor, Lady Monique also had to go through all kinds of trials and hardship to be the empress. Just like me who got used to hiding my feelings, she also lived, keeping all her thoughts and feelings to herself.

Why didn’t I ever try to ask her why she was so indifferent, and what she thought about me?

I always guessed about her on my own. I never tried to find out what she was thinking about me or how she felt toward me. I just took it for granted that she was like a doll with no feelings, a touch cookie only serving the interests of her faction.

Why did I think so? Why did I always look at her with prejudice?

After agonizing for a long time, I finally wrote a letter to Duke Lars. I spent lots of time finding the right person to contact the duke without inviting suspicion from the nobles.

A few weeks later, Marquis Enesil, who just inherited the title, came up to the capital to see me with a reply from Duke Lars. The duke said if I could not find anyone I could trust, I could rely on the marquis carrying his letter. He also said he would think about how to help me.

As for the investigation of my poisoning, Marquis Enesil reported that Duke Jena was the mastermind, and that the antidote Marquis Mirwa was correct. Thanks to that, I neutralized my poisoning with the antidote. Now I was looking for a way to solve this with a fresh mind.

In the meantime, the news that Jiun got pregnant made the situation worse for me. If her baby was a boy, I would be a dead man as soon as the baby was born. The nobles knew it would be much easier to install the just born crown prince as the next emperor and control national politics. Besides, they could make use of Jiun easily who would be queen mother.

At that moment, I came to think of a very bad thing. How about getting rid of the child? If I could do so, I could overturn the situation in my favor.