Beguiling the Enemy’s Patriarch - Chapter 173

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

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Side Story Part 1, Episode 11
Ever since Decarve Belgot was born, the calamities that had occasionally ravaged the Belgot Continent ceased with remarkable abruptness.
[Well, I did prevent a life that should have been born long ago from coming into existence. The world had every right to resist.]
Raulus spoke thus.
[Still, thanks to how well I’ve been sustaining things, we’ve managed to avoid any major catastrophes, little one.]
Of course, he didn’t neglect his boasting either. Yet if even that insufferable voice sounded tender to me, you could imagine just how blissful I felt in that moment.
“Take good care of yourself, Dev.”
I whispered to the sleeping child. Truly the most beautiful flower in the world—our first, Auredhian’s and mine.
* * *
Auredhian had harbored a secret wish: that the child would resemble Yerenika. His long-cherished dream was to see five or six little Yerenika’s darting about the Imperial Palace. Even if he couldn’t have five or six, he quietly hoped that at least one would inherit her features.
Yet in appearance, Auredhian’s wish remained unfulfilled. Decarve was unmistakably his father’s spitting image. Lustrous silver hair with an exquisite sheen, and reddish-tinged crimson eyes. When expressionless, he was truly Auredhian’s mirror image. His innate divinity was equally extraordinary. It was so pronounced that even Raulus, who had manifested on the surface the year the child was born, expressed visible displeasure.
[I thought he’d be the last one to resemble me the most, but what is this!]
Yet Auredhian had no time to lament that his son resembled him. The only aspect of Decarve that mirrored him was his appearance alone.
“Kyaaaa!”
“You seem to be in a good mood today, my son?”
Everything else was purely Yerenika’s. His temperament, his mannerisms and speech patterns, even his smallest habits—all hers. Decarve was a naturally adorable child who demolished every wall in the Imperial Palace without hesitation. With his bright, radiant smile and his endearing whimpers, he was so much Yerenika’s child that Auredhian couldn’t help but dote on him. Since the boy refused to leave his bedroom even when sleeping, Yerenika often found herself having to chase her husband out to his office.
“Papa!”
“….”
Yet when his son first uttered what was presumably “papa,” even she couldn’t bring herself to push him away. That day, she had to hold him tight and hear him say thank you nearly a hundred times without moving an inch.
At first, he truly felt that one child was enough. But once Decarve passed his second year, a different desire quietly began to stir.
“…I wish I could see pink hair, Yeni. Or perhaps sky-blue eyes would do as well.”
“Pardon?”
Pink and sky-blue. He thought it would be wonderful if the world held one more of his most beloved colors.
“We have a son already, so perhaps it wouldn’t be bad to have a daughter as well….”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
Yerenika narrowed her eyes and gave him a sidelong glance.
“Dev is so adorable.”
“He is adorable. The most adorable and lovely child in all the world. But….”
He paused for a moment and let out a sigh.
“No matter how I think about it, he resembles me far too much.”
“I like it that way, though?”
“I… wish to see a child who resembles you as well.”
Smoothly, his hand drifted toward his wife’s waist. He wrapped his slender waist in his embrace and drew her close. Yerenika yielded willingly and spoke as if to herself.
“Very well. I was already thinking about it, since Dev might feel lonely being alone… Oh, wait!”
Yerenika, who had been holding a teacup, let out a brief cry.
“Here! In the office!”
For him, the location hardly mattered. But since Yerenika grew tired easily unless it was the bed in the bedroom, he obediently carried her there instead.
* * *
Yet Auredhian’s wish remained unfulfilled this time as well.
“At this point, don’t you think your blood runs far too strongly?”
“….”
Their second child was a daughter, exactly as he’d hoped. Up to that point, everything was truly wonderful.
‘Silver hair again…?’
Aizena Belgot, their second-born, inherited the bloodline of the Belgot Imperial Family as richly as her older brother—a daughter with silver hair and crimson eyes.
“Aizena, Aizena! You little troublemaker, how many times did Mother tell you not to slip in and out through the Audience Chamber windows…!”
“Kyaaaa!”
A mischievous little demon who was utterly unpredictable about where she’d dash off to next—she was the spitting image of Yerenika in that regard. Clearly, their bloodlines hadn’t blended smoothly but had instead diverged in the starkest possible way.
Her appearance was his blood. Her true nature was Yerenika’s blood.
Watching faces identical to his own spinning through the Study and Garden, mimicking everything Yerenika always did, was somewhat bewildering for Auredhian.
“Father.”
“Daddy!”
But fundamentally, he was a father far too soft with his children. Yerenika was always pointing that out.
“Don’t give them everything they ask for. They’ll develop bad habits.”
“But….”
“Aizena, don’t hide behind your father. Come here. How many times did Mother tell you not to practice sacred cultivation in the Garden?”
“Yeni….”
“Decarve too. Because of you two, the gardener has aged ten years in just a few days….”
Glistening crimson eyes gazed up at him—a pair on the left, another pair on the right, and yet another pair in the middle. Yerenika sighed and gestured to her husband.
“…Auredhian, come here. How can proper discipline work when you’re like this?”
“It seems sufficient enough….”
“Mother….”
Fortunately, Auredhian knew exactly which words and expressions of his wife could weaken his resolve. And his children had inherited that uncanny ability in full.
“Those eyes won’t work on me….”
Glistening, glistening, glistening.
“Won’t work….”
So in the end, it was always three against one.
* * *
It was an unusually scorching summer. A husband who adored his wife and two children who clung to their mother like glue kept Yerenika confined within the Imperial Palace throughout the season. The excuse was that the outside heat was too dangerous.
“Is overprotection hereditary?”
Yerenika said this with exasperation. Yet all three of them still had no intention of allowing her to venture out into the blazing sun.
Auredhian glanced back toward the tea table set up in the shade of the Garden. His wife, parasol in hand, sat with a slightly sullen expression, sipping lemon tea with floating ice.
‘Has she really pouted a bit…?’
“Dad, hurry!”
His five-year-old daughter dangled from his arm, pestering him. Auredhian reluctantly tore his gaze away from the tea table.
A crackling sound. Pale silver flames rippled through the air before fading away.
“See? Now you try.”
Born a natural sacred conduit, his teaching method was simple: ‘Just try it.’ Show the children a demonstration first, then have them imitate. Yerenika found this peculiar approach bewildering, but….
“Like this?”
Most fortunately, both children inherited their father’s talent—they were nothing short of geniuses when it came to wielding sacred power.
“Yes. Well done. Easy, isn’t it?”
“Yes!”
Decarve summoned the purifying flames first, and Aizena eagerly followed suit.
“Me too!”
Pop, pop. Purifying flames no larger than a thumbnail bounced and danced through the air. Both children’s eyes widened in perfect synchronization.
“Wow. How beautiful. Can I go show Mother?”
Decarve, his small hands brimming with purifying flames, gazed up at his father with sparkling eyes. Auredhian began to nod with an expression of pure adoration, then paused for a moment.
“Deb.”
“Yes?”
He lowered himself and wrapped his arms around his young son’s shoulders, drawing him close. Aizena, already claiming one of his arms, brightened at the gesture. Auredhian smiled softly and whispered something to the children. Upon hearing their father’s words, Decarve broke into a grin.
“Okay. I understand.”
“Aizena should go first!”
“Let’s go together!”
A seven-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl scampered through the courtyard.
“Mother, Mother.”
Aizena, who had reached the tea table first, tugged at one of her mother’s arms. But it was Decarve who whispered first into their mother’s ear.
“Father asked me to tell you.”
The boy whispered softly into his mother’s ear as if sharing the world’s most precious secret with only one person.
“That he loves you very, very much.”
“Ahahaha.”
A delighted laugh rang out. Mother’s smile was always beautiful.
“So that’s what Father said.”
“Yes!”
“Then will you go tell Father something for me?”
The most beautiful mother in the world whispered into Decarve’s ear. A radiant smile bloomed across the child’s serious face.
“Yes! I’ll bring him right away, Father!”
Silken silver hair gleamed in the sunlight as it crossed the beautifully tended garden. And following behind, another shimmer of that same luminous silver.
In the lush summer courtyard, they were the most dazzling flowers of all.
【Side Story 1. Flowers】 Complete

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

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