Everyone Was Obsessed With Me After I Became the Youngest Princess Favourite - Chapter 118

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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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My trembling pupils wandered around her neck before losing focus, circling aimlessly through empty air.
“A necklace? What on earth are you talking about….”
Her voice, which had sunk to a low murmur, gradually filled with anger.
The Grand Duchess rose, trembling violently, and cried out.
“You reckless, wicked thing! How could a child be so cunning and deceitful? Leave at once. Never show your face before me again!”
“I, I…!”
“If you speak one more word here, I truly will not forgive you. How dare you impersonate my daughter! How could someone like you ever be my daughter!”
“…!”
It felt as though my heart had plummeted to the depths of an abyss.
My vision blurred in an instant, my breath caught, and my mind grew distant and hazy.
I clenched the hem of my skirt tightly to hold back my tears, but my trembling body would not obey.
In the end, I could say nothing and turned to leave.
* * *
“Sigh….”
After the despondent child’s figure, as though she had set down everything, disappeared from view.
How much time had passed?
The Grand Duchess, who had been standing motionless in that spot for some time, suddenly felt all strength drain from her body as she collapsed heavily into a chair.
Yet her heart, which seemed ready to burst from her chest, still showed no sign of calming.
Overwhelmed by a desolate feeling that left her unable to move even a fingertip, the Grand Duchess squeezed her eyes shut.
Then tears, accumulated from some unknown moment, streamed relentlessly down her cheeks.
It was as though a bottomless abyss of darkness sought to swallow her whole.
She recalled the child’s words from moments before—words that had struck like a bolt from the blue.
“Wicked thing. How could you mock someone so cruelly….”
The child had already weighed heavily on her mind these past days.
She had been impressed by how the small girl had ensured her father did not miss his treatment window, and when she heard that the child had aided in finding her daughter, she felt such astonishment and gratitude.
Perhaps that was why—whenever the Grand Duchess heard that Lia had visited the Marquis’s Residence these past few days, she would unconsciously slip from her bedroom and watch the child from afar.
〈Now, now, I told you not to run. If you fall, who am I supposed to blame! You’re going to give this old woman a heart attack, the way you toy with my emotions!〉
Marquis Diapel, her own father, would raise his voice as though scolding the child, yet his lips would quirk upward in an instant, and when the child laughed sheepishly, he would watch her anxiously, unable to contain his delight.
He was utterly smitten with the child.
And the Grand Duchess, who observed from a distance, felt precisely the same.
The way the child scurried about in her small frame was fascinating, the way she swallowed her food was admirable, and even her simple smile made it impossible to tear her eyes away.
She longed to approach, to touch the child’s hand, to stroke her hair, and to apologize for the harsh words she had spoken before.
She wished to tell her that her name was truly beautiful, that it suited her perfectly.
But the Grand Duchess could not.
Each time she saw the child, her heart ached as though pierced by a thorn embedded in her nail.
She was not unaware that this pain stemmed from her guilt toward her daughter, Adriana.
The Grand Duchess suddenly recalled the Duchess Elrad’s question.
〈Your Highness, but why Diana? There is also your niece, Clara.〉
It was not difficult to discern why she had posed such a question.
For even though Diana was the daughter of a friend, it would have been more natural to become godmother to her sole niece, Clara, rather than to a complete stranger from the House of Elrad.
“Adriana’s position cannot be filled by anyone else, madam. Not by a single soul.”
The Grand Duchess answered with a bitter smile.
As a mother with a daughter of her own, the Duchess Elrad immediately grasped the meaning behind those words.
Diana was the daughter of an old friend, so she could offer appropriate interest and affection as a godmother.
Even as young Diana grew and came to regard her as a godmother, she would never covet the position of Grand Duchess, which rightfully belonged to another.
But Clara was different. She shared the same blood, and that was precisely what made it troublesome.
Long ago, she had already clashed with Askart over Clara’s covetous nature toward what belonged to my daughter.
Though Clara was not entirely lacking in perception and restrained herself in my presence, maintaining proper boundaries, if I were to make her my goddaughter, she might truly behave as though she had become the Grand Duchess herself.
I could not bear to watch someone else parade around as my daughter, not even in death.
‘And toward my nephew, no less….’
To feel such emotions toward a complete stranger—a child I had no connection to.
I shuddered at my own contempt and the guilt I felt toward my daughter.
The tender affection and warmth that rightfully belonged to Adriana kept flowing toward that child instead, and I could not endure it.
So whenever our eyes met, I deliberately turned away coldly and treated her with utmost harshness.
For fear that in a moment of weakness, I might show her kindness.
‘But that child claims to be Adriana….’
The moment I saw the child make such an absurd claim, it felt as though ice water had been poured over my head.
How could I ever forgive a child who dares to claim she is Adriana?
Yet something was strange.
Why did my heart ache as though it were being torn apart?
Why could I not stop seeing the image of the child clenching her jaw as though holding back tears, the vision haunting me again and again?
I closed my eyes tightly once more, then opened them. With great effort, I swallowed down the lump that had risen to my throat.
I concluded that all these emotions were merely the aftermath of my anger.
“It’s fortunate I’ve come to understand my true feelings now.”
If my father or Askart were to learn that the child had claimed to be Adriana, they would never treat her as they do now.
I rose abruptly from my seat.
“Ugh.”
But in that moment, the headache that had seemed to be improving over the past few days returned with force, and my head felt as though it might split open.
The chest pain was unbearable, far worse than before.
I had just sat back down on the sofa to steady my breathing.
“Your Highness!”
“You’re here? We’ve been searching everywhere!”
The maidservants rushed into the Greenhouse with panicked expressions.
“My, what’s happened to your complexion….”
The maidservants were alarmed by the Grand Duchess’s pallid appearance and labored breathing, and hastily moved to fetch water and medicine.
But the Grand Duchess waved her hand dismissively.
“Summon the Butler.”
* * *
I burst into my room, slammed the door shut, and immediately buried myself beneath the blankets.
My face was already damp with tears.
Yet still, sorrow overwhelmed me, and I pulled the blanket over my head, crying aloud like a child.
Once the tears began, they showed no sign of stopping.
Instead, they grew more violent until I could barely breathe, my gasps becoming increasingly ragged.
At some point, my chest heaved as though my breath might cease entirely, and I hastily threw off the blanket, choking as I dragged my sleeve across my eyes to wipe away the tears.
No matter how much I cried, there was no mother in this world to hold me.
“There never was one to begin with… and now there truly isn’t.”
I sobbed and muttered to myself.
How much I had worried. How much I had longed. How much I had….
The image of the Grand Duchess screaming that I was no daughter of hers refused to leave my mind.
Her failure to recognize me was unbearably bitter, achingly sorrowful.
“Everything is ruined. I’ve destroyed it all.”
But I also knew the truth—I had acted far too hastily.
“I should have waited a little longer.”
I should have spoken once I had more concrete proof.
Desperate to reunite with my family and gain their recognition, I had acted with the recklessness of a child.
Regret crashed over me belatedly, and my nose began to sting.
‘What if… I’m not truly Adriana?’
As my heart crumbled, whispers of doubt began to surface.
Yet the moment I had faced the Grand Duchess, everything—from my reflection in the mirror that had never made sense, to the emotions I felt toward Askart and the Marquis—had convinced me utterly that I was Adriana.
So I could not deny it, no matter how lacking in definitive proof.
“What exactly is this necklace….”
I had thought it was unmistakable proof.
Though I did not wish to revisit it, I forced myself to recall the memory through my sobs.
“A necklace? What on earth are you talking about….”
She had said exactly that.
While I could understand her not recognizing the necklace itself, her words sounded as though she had not even seen it at all.
“…!”
In that instant, my mind went white as though struck by lightning.
Only Diana could see the face I saw.
So it was not strange that only in her eyes would my necklace be visible.
Now that I thought about it, there were countless inconsistencies.
Despite how carefully I had hidden it, that greedy Director had never discovered the necklace.
From my days at the Orphanage through my time as a beggar, not a single child besides Diana and myself had ever spoken of this necklace.
The children were curious by nature and could easily have found it by chance and shown interest.
As my certainty grew stronger, goosebumps prickled up my neck.
What had once been my most precious possession now felt only terrifying.
I raised my hand to tear the necklace from my body and cast it to the floor.
“…?”
But my hand would not obey.
“What is this….”
I stared down at my palm with a vacant expression, the necklace refusing to budge even slightly.
It was as though my own body was rejecting any will to remove it.
The moment that realization struck me, the blood drained from my entire being.
The Grand Duchess had been kidnapped.
Yet there was no way the kidnapper would have abandoned the Grand Duchess at the Orphanage while leaving behind the very proof of her parents’ identity.
Which meant this—the only thing that had remained with me all this time—was….
“A possession of the man who kidnapped me.”

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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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