Celebrity Lady - Chapter 164

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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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Celebrity Lady
Side Story, Episode 6
Lark lowered his hand in a hurry. The smile had already vanished from his face.
“Me?”
“What do you mean? I clearly saw it. What were you smiling about?”
“I was…… smiling?”
Lark sighed, looking flustered.
“I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“No…….”
Lark’s lips trembled as his expression filled with worry. The shadow that had momentarily lifted from his face descended once more, as if he’d never smiled at all.
Wow. Is it really that shocking?
One moment lost in thought, smiling, and the next instant his face goes dead again…….
“Darling, when you look so disappointed like that, it makes me depressed too. We’re trying hard, so the baby will come. Don’t let it upset you.”
“Yeah…… You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Lark managed a weak smile and pulled me close, pressing his lips to my forehead. His arms trembled as he held me.
* * *
Three years ago, when the former second prince Naysen kidnapped me while plotting to seize the throne.
Suspecting that I was the Contractor of the Wish Spirit Wishit, Naysen threatened me to use my last remaining Wish for him.
But I had long ago resolved that if a day came when I had to make my Final Wish, I would wish for Wishit’s freedom.
Looking back now, I was recklessly bold.
If Wishit vanished after becoming free once I’d made that Wish, I had no clever way to survive the mad Naysen.
At the time, I didn’t think it through. Pure audacity…….
But after losing consciousness and coming to, fortunately I was safe.
Though Wishit disappeared, I knew he had been freed. And I prayed he would be happy, with or without me.
He came back a week after we parted.
“Hello.”
I never imagined he would greet me as though nothing had happened.
“Let me introduce myself again. I’m the ‘Spirit King,’ Wishit.”
The Wish Spirit—no, the Spirit King Wishit—returned to me in his true, beautiful form.
A form so genuinely beautiful, without a trace of falsehood or artifice, that even Diolus, his first Contractor, had never seen it before.
“I’ve come to Recontract, Rubetria.”
And so, my beloved spirit.
The great king of all spirits.
Wishit is now…….
“Hehehehe. Ahh, this is fun, isn’t it?”
Lying on the bed in the Empress’s Chamber reading a Romance Novel…….
I told him not to eat in bed, but he stubbornly refuses to listen. He’s scattering cookie crumbs everywhere as he snacks, leaving the mattress a mess.
“If you read lying down like that, you’ll hurt your back. Sit properly at the desk and read.”
“Why would a spirit hurt his back?”
“And stop dropping crumbs!”
“You’re really something, the way you fuss.”
Wishit snapped his fingers. The cookie crumbs scattered and vanished at once.
“Wow. You use your power for that?”
“I can use my strength however I want.”
…….
Now that he was free, Wishit had become utterly capricious!
A Spirit King was extraordinary. He could do anything except resurrect the dead—and honestly, if he could foresee when anyone would die and bring them back beforehand, there’d be no death at all. A true omnipotence.
‘My respect to the wisdom of my ancestor, Diolus!’
Now I understood perfectly why she had wished for her spirit to become “a powerless one who can only grant three wishes.”
If there were a god in this world, it would be closest to Wishit, and if a god indulged every human whim one by one, what would become of the world?
In that sense, Wishit must have foreseen everything and chosen me deliberately.
I was a remarkable human who could seize wealth, power, honor, and happiness—everything ordinary humans desire—without Wishit’s aid!
“Hehe.”
Lost in self-admiration for a moment, I laughed, and Wishit gave me a strange look.
“What now?”
“Nothing.”
True to form, I had Recontracted with no less than the Spirit King himself, but I had never once wished for anything to satisfy my own desires.
Well, not that I haven’t wished for anything at all.
I’ve accepted small help only for matters beyond human capability. For instance, things like “Make contraception 100% effective!”
And if there was one more thing I couldn’t reach with my own strength no matter how hard I tried, it would probably be…….
“You have something you want to tell me, don’t you?”
I was caught staring at my spirit without thinking. Wishit raised an eyebrow.
“What is it? Speak.”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing? Should I guess?”
Wishit chuckled, closed the book he’d been reading, and came closer to me. He tapped my belly with his chin.
“Make a baby for you?”
…….
Perceptive as always. He hit on exactly what I was worrying about, but I shook my head.
“No. It should work if we keep trying. Why would we need that?”
“It might not happen even if you try.”
Sometimes even the best intentions don’t yield results. So I’d been trying to stay calm about it…….
But seeing Lark’s reaction—the way he seemed to lose his soul when I said I still wasn’t pregnant—I found myself growing anxious too.
“Really, I’m fine. We’re healthy and young, so it’ll happen soon.”
“Whether it happens later or sooner, if you’re going to have a child anyway, why not wish for it from me? The result is the same.”
Wishit shrugged, as if unable to understand.
“Just implant a seed made from the blood and bone of you and the Emperor, half and half, into your womb. No one would ever know you had the baby through my power.”
“That doesn’t make sense…… I don’t want to have a child that way.”
I would be lying if I said I hadn’t hesitated—even for just a moment.
“Besides, when we Recontracted, we promised clearly, didn’t we? That no matter what, I wouldn’t reveal your existence.”
That was a contract term Wishit, in his position of strength, had requested. I, in my subordinate position, had agreed without question, and promised Lark I would keep it secret.
But as before, keeping secrets would be uncomfortable.
My reason for rarely ever wishing from Wishit at all was partly to ease that discomfort.
“Constantly borrowing your power while hiding your existence makes my conscience ache.”
Only if Wishit existed beside me as a mere “friend” and not as a “spirit” could I rationalize away that uncomfortable feeling to some degree.
“Why do they all make such a fuss about continuing the line of succession? I can’t understand humans at all.”
Wishit spoke brusquely. He had always disapproved of my suffering at the hands of those stuffy nobles.
“Even the Emperor, for all his words, is pressuring you, isn’t he? From the crack of dawn, harassing his own brother to find out whether you’re pregnant, and when he hears the baby hasn’t come yet, openly disappointed. You’re giving in to the Emperor’s expectations.”
“I’m not caving to expectations.”
“Yes, you are. I don’t understand it. You’ve always been someone for whom your own life mattered most, but since you decided on this child plan, you’ve been giving up and compromising so much. Why should you have to?”
Wishit pressed on, warming to his subject.
“If Lark had not been the Emperor? Or if you had not been this Empire’s Empress? If you held a position where that human ‘Duty’ was unnecessary, I know you wouldn’t have decided to bear a child.”
“That’s not true. I would have.”
“Really? Why? Because your husband wants it?”
“No. It’s my own will.”
…….
Wishit knit his brow, displeased with my answer.
“I’m not lying. I truly want to see my own offspring. Even back when I was Juliet, I didn’t think about marriage, but I wanted children. It’s been a long-held wish of mine.”
I stood and spun around once, taking in the room.
“Look at this. To think there could be another being as perfect as me? To come into this world and draw breath? How miraculous and joyful is that?”
Wishit looked sick. I flicked his lip as he openly frowned and laughed.
“And there’s one more reason I want to bear a child, which I discovered coming here.”
“What is it?”
“You.”
……?
I looked at my long-time friend Wishit. And I recalled the conversation we had shared the day we Recontracted.
“Why did you come back? Even though you became free, you still returned to grant wishes? Now with no limit on the number?”
A spirit choosing slavery?
To me, unable to comprehend, Wishit had said:
“It’s not so much that I want to grant wishes as it is that I want to be by your side. To remain in the human realm, I need to maintain a Contract.”
“You came…… because you wanted to live with me?”
“Yes.”
I was truly astonished then. I had never imagined I would mean that much to Wishit.
Even without the shackles of a Contract, even after regaining freedom, Wishit said he wanted to watch over my entire life from beside me, and I was moved to tears.
And.
If I were to spend eternity with Wishit, there was one worry I couldn’t help but carry.
“You are eternal, and I will grow old.”
A spirit’s time is infinite; a human’s life is finite.
Of course all beings must part eventually, but the reason I dreaded parting with Wishit especially was precisely this.
He would be left alone.
He would have to go on living in a world where I no longer existed.
“I’m afraid that you’ll be lonely after I die. When I imagine it, I feel… sad. So…….”

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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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