A Secretly Capable Child Is Seeking For Her Dad - Chapter 289

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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A Powerful Child Searches for Dad Episode 289

 

Pides’ eyes wavered.

 

“Ardiana. Why are you here….”

 

Ardiana let out a short sigh.

 

“To think you would commit such a reckless act without even knowing the treasury manager had changed.”

 

An even deeper silence settled over the treasury.

 

Ardiana continued speaking.

 

“Brother. Times have changed.”

 

Pides stared at his sister, feeling his mouth go dry.

 

“In the past, you had nothing to fear in the Imperial Palace. There was no need to be careful, no need to watch anyone’s reactions. Who would dare expose the shameful secrets of a prince favored by the Emperor?”

 

His past life, which had been nothing but smooth sailing, flashed through his mind like a panorama.

 

His father was the Emperor, and by his side was a mother who loved him more than anyone else in the world.

 

A life where he could obtain everything he wanted.

 

A life where no one dared to say he was wrong.

 

That was the kind of life it had been.

 

“When I was eight years old.”

 

A firm voice scattered his reverie.

 

Ardiana looked directly at him.

 

“Brother, you should have pushed me off that cliff.”

 

Ardiana’s voice trembled subtly.

 

“Do you know how much I regretted not dying that day for the rest of my life?”

 

Pides’ lips parted.

 

“Every time I faced the assassins you sent. Every time I was poisoned and wandered between life and death.”

 

“….”

 

“I regretted that I should have ended my life then, when I was too young to know how to endure, when I had no attachment to life whatsoever.”

 

Pides’ hands automatically clenched into fists.

 

He gritted his teeth and asked.

 

“So what are you saying? That we should catch up on old times here and now?”

 

Ardiana raised her gaze.

 

“You were right, I was wrong. Are you saying we should debate such things now!”

 

Pides threw off the robe he had been wearing on his head.

 

His bloodshot eyes glared at Ardiana as if to kill her.

 

“Ardiana…! Do you really not understand?”

 

“….”

 

“You and I were like slaves in a gladiatorial arena. We were born that way from the beginning! Unable to live without killing each other, never able to coexist!”

 

Pides panted heavily.

 

Then he shouted again.

 

“So I did nothing wrong! You were the one who was weak and foolish! What does the incident at the cliff matter! What about the assassination attempts! In the end, there was no evidence!”

 

“….”

 

“And you could have left the Imperial Palace! Right? If you knew it was an unfavorable fight, you should have done so long ago! There were so many opportunities, but you…!”

 

“It’s my home too!”

 

At that moment, Ardiana’s voice echoed through the treasury.

 

She stared directly at Pides with wide eyes.

 

“The home where I have memories with Mother. My home where the only happy memories remain! The grave of the nanny who cared for me in my childhood, the greenhouse I visited whenever I was lonely, are all here in Jedo.”

 

“….”

 

“How could I abandon this place and run away?”

 

For Ardiana, running away was no different from another kind of death.

 

But Pides snorted mockingly.

 

“So you stayed? Because of such trivial sentimentality?”

 

He took a step closer to Ardiana.

 

“Don’t lie, Ardiana. You’ve been waiting for a day like today! Acting innocent, pretending not to know, until you could finally stab me in the back!”

 

Ardiana’s expression hardened.

 

The loyalists kept their mouths shut with complicated expressions.

 

Pides continued with a voice filled with madness.

 

“What words did you use to seduce those who were on my side? Did you incite them to kill me here? Since you’d become the sole heir if I were gone, you were aiming for that….”

 

“Your Highness. Please stop now.”

 

Baltazar stepped forward.

 

His face showed a mixture of sorrow and determination.

 

“…His Majesty seems unlikely to survive the night.”

 

Pides doubted his ears for a moment.

 

He stood frozen in a daze, then let out a hollow laugh.

 

“What?”

 

“I’m coming after hearing the attending physician’s message. His Majesty’s breathing is already critical. It will be difficult for him to survive past dawn.”

 

Pides’ face slowly turned ashen.

 

Fear and relief struck him simultaneously.

 

‘In the end….’

 

Lavania had failed to find an antidote.

 

The Emperor was critically ill and would leave this world before sunrise.

 

“As soon as His Majesty closes his eyes, a regent must be decided immediately. So we tried to send someone to Your Highness this afternoon, but….”

 

Baltazar sighed.

 

“The newly appointed treasury manager showed us this.”

 

Pides stared blankly at the paper in Baltazar’s hand.

 

It was the letter he had sent to the treasury manager through his aide that morning.

 

“…The regency. No, the throne is a position where honor and legitimacy are valued above all else, Your Highness.”

 

Baltazar’s voice seemed to fade into the distance.

 

“How could someone caught embezzling from the national treasury sit in that position?”

 

Pides staggered in his place.

 

However, coming to his senses, he soon shouted in desperation.

 

“No! It’s all slander! It’s just Ardiana’s scheme to bring about my downfall!”

 

Ardiana stepped forward.

 

“Stop it. The deposed Empress Lavania has already been imprisoned.”

 

Pides’ eyes trembled.

 

“She came to my palace and confessed. She said she gave medicine to His Majesty the Emperor without knowing it was poison.”

 

Ardiana sighed.

 

“For some reason, she seemed urgent. She said it was all her mistake, and she had been hiding it because she was worried about being deposed if it was discovered. Furthermore.”

 

She looked directly at Pides.

 

“She repeatedly added that you, brother, had nothing to do with this matter.”

 

Feeling his head go numb, Pides staggered in his place.

 

That morning.

 

He recalled going to Lavania in anger and threatening to abandon her.

 

At that time, Lavania wailed and pleaded.

 

How could he abandon her?

 

Seeing that, Pides thought.

 

That his mother would ultimately become a burden and hold him back.

 

That something like taking all the responsibility upon herself, thus bringing this incident to a graceful conclusion, would never happen.

 

But why.

 

“Mother, why on earth….”

 

“She probably didn’t want to cause trouble for you, brother.”

 

Ardiana said emotionlessly.

 

As he met her eyes, another loyalist stepped forward in front of Pides.

 

“Your Highness, regarding Her Majesty the Empress, discussions of execution are already underway.”

 

“What… what on earth are you talking about? Mother simply made a mistake. She didn’t know it was poison, and fell for someone’s scheme…”

 

“That’s not it. Additional evidence has emerged of her complicity in the death of the late Empress long ago, and multiple attempts to assassinate Her Highness the Princess.”

 

Pides stood frozen in place.

 

His breathing was already fluctuating irregularly.

 

Baltazar spoke again.

 

“Sigh, Your Highness. Evidence is accumulating one by one. No matter that she is Your Highness’s birth mother, with so many charges against her…”

 

His head was spinning.

 

The loyalists’ words seemed plausible.

 

But Pides could see the reality.

 

‘The power structure has changed.’

 

The flow that had once leaned only toward him and Lavania when the Emperor was healthy.

 

Now was completely tilted toward Ardiana.

 

Though his vision seemed to blur, Pides barely managed to collect himself.

 

He spoke in a trembling voice.

 

“Then… I don’t know.”

 

Don’t look back.

 

Keep moving forward.

 

These were the very things Lavania had told him repeatedly until her mouth was dry.

 

“Everything was Mother’s doing alone and has nothing to do with me! I neither knew nor heard that Mother was carrying out such deeds…!”

 

That was when it happened.

 

“Bring her in.”

 

At Ardiana’s words, the treasury door opened.

 

Then a woman was dragged inside.

 

Shoulders trembling as if terrified.

 

As soon as he confirmed the familiar face, Pides doubted his eyes.

 

“You are…”

 

She was the woman who had been Lavania’s maid.

 

The maid bowed her head, trembling violently.

 

“On the day His Majesty the Emperor collapsed. We were the ones who carried the food to the banquet hall…”

 

She glanced at Pides then squeezed her eyes shut.

 

“I definitely heard it that day! Her Majesty the Empress exchanging heated words with Your Highness Pides! What to do going forward, whether this matter could be covered up, those were the only kinds of words spoken!”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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