Everyone Was Obsessed With Me After I Became the Youngest Princess Favourite - Chapter 124

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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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Meanwhile, at that very moment.
The children who had been expelled from the reception room were all gathered in Diana’s Room.
They couldn’t leave young Diana alone, and since her room adjoined Lia’s Room, they figured they’d quickly learn the outcome of this commotion.
“Here, Diana. Eat this candy and stop crying.”
Allen handed a piece of candy to Diana, who was crying pitifully.
Diana sniffled but couldn’t tear her eyes from the candy, quickly opening her mouth like a baby bird.
Under normal circumstances, Allen would have been charmed by such a sight, but his expression was dark.
“Diana.”
“Hmm?”
“Tell me honestly—just to your big brother.”
“Tell you what?”
“Does Lia’s hair really look like that to you?”
Even Allen, who rarely beat around the bush, found the question difficult to ask, his tone cautious.
Jack, who had been lost in thought, and Taize, who stood gravely by the door, both turned their heads.
Everyone waited with tense eyes for Diana to speak.
“Sister?”
Diana cried out with a cheerful face that didn’t match the serious atmosphere.
“She’s pretty!”
“No, that’s not what I meant…”
“The prettiest in the whole world!”
“I know you think she’s pretty, but that’s not it—is her hair actually pink?”
When Allen finally gave up on indirect questioning and asked directly, Diana’s large eyes blinked.
In an instant, tears began to well up in Diana’s eyes, which had only just stopped crying.
“Big brother is stupid! Mean!”
“D-Diana…”
Allen, flustered, quickly reached out to comfort her, but Diana pushed him away and cried out.
“Sister’s hair! It’s like pretty cotton candy! And her eyes! They’re just like the hairpin!”
“Cotton candy?”
“Hairpin?”
Jack and Allen froze simultaneously.
Could it be…?
“Diana. Are you talking about the hairpin I gave you before?”
When Allen asked with a stiffened face, Diana, whose lips had been pouting, nodded.
As if that alone wasn’t enough, she ran to the Dressing Room and returned with the hairpin Allen had given her as a birthday present.
“Back then, I wanted to show Mom! I said it was pretty because it matched Sister’s eyes! But big brother got angry…”
The memory of that day seemed to surface, and Diana’s expression grew sullen.
Allen fell silent, staring blankly at the hairpin.
The pink diamonds embedded in it gleamed brilliantly.
“This is driving me insane.”
I hadn’t thought Lia and Diana were lying from the start, but it was still a story that was hard to believe easily.
If I hadn’t gotten angry that day, what would have happened? The thought made my heart suddenly plummet.
“Back then.”
Jack, who had been silent until then, suddenly opened his mouth.
“When Lia was very young, she used to ask the orphanage children something.”
“What did she ask?”
“How her hair color and eye color looked to them.”
And after hearing the children’s consistent answers, Lia’s face had seemed more melancholic than usual.
The way her shoulders turned as she said, ‘…I see,’ had been particularly small, and it remained etched in my memory.
Perhaps the memory that lingered was because she came to me last of all and asked, which had secretly hurt.
〈Your eyes are a deep brown, and your hair is a softer shade of brown.〉
Jack had answered like this at the time, as if he’d been waiting for Lia to ask.
Not wanting to answer plainly like the other children did, he’d done his best to express something special, but having spent his whole life in a small orphanage, his vocabulary for expression was limited.
If she asked now, I would have said, ‘Your eyes are the color of deeply brewed hazelnut coffee, and your soft golden-brown hair sometimes gleams like gold when it catches the sunlight.’
In that moment, Jack’s gaze grew dark.
After coming to House Elrad, Diana and many others who cherished Lia had appeared.
But Jack still believed he was closest to Lia and knew her best.
Of course, there were times when Lia showed unexpected sides that surprised him, but that belief remained unchanged.
‘It was definitely like that….’
Then a commotion began to sound from outside.
Wondering what had happened, a startled Taize opened the door and went out.
When Taize returned shortly after, he conveyed that Askart had collapsed while standing and was urgently moved to the Marquis’s Residence, and that it had been confirmed Lia was the Grand Duchess Bellus.
Jack thought he truly knew nothing about Lia anymore.
* * *
Fortunately, there was nothing seriously wrong with Askart’s body.
According to the Marquis’s Residence physician, the sudden shock added to a body fatigued from several days of sleepless nights had consumed a great deal of his vital energy.
Relieved by the assurance that he would be fine after a good sleep, I realized I was lying in the Grand Duchess’s Bedchamber.
While urgently moving Askart to the Marquis’s Residence, it seemed I had ridden in the carriage cradled in the Grand Duchess’s arms.
Following the Grand Duke who suddenly collapsed, and now I had been brought here held by the Grand Duchess….
The Marquis’s Residence staff and those who came from the Grand Duchy must have been quite shocked.
“Your Highness, I’ve brought medicine.”
“Leave it and go.”
The Maidservant who had been about to attend to her hesitated at the Grand Duchess’s words and carefully withdrew.
Another Maidservant also looked bewildered, seeing me planted squarely in the middle of the bed.
But the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess seated on either side of me seemed unable to take their eyes off me, appearing completely indifferent to the reactions of others.
Bianca, standing at the door, simply led the Maidservants out of the room with a pleased expression.
Alone with the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, I couldn’t hide my awkwardness and embarrassment, fidgeting with my fingers.
Swept up in the atmosphere, I acted childish and cried in their arms.
But even after I’d somehow ended up following them to the Marquis’s Residence, I wasn’t certain whether I should even be here.
‘Has it really been confirmed that I’m the Grand Duchess?’
Just because of a few words from some strange person who suddenly appeared?
My life has never flowed smoothly, not even once. So how could I possibly have such good fortune?
Somehow, this entire situation felt like a dream—unreal and impossible to believe.
‘What if I wake up and everything disappears?’
A sudden anxiety gripped my heart.
“Come now, little one. I’ve brought medicine to bring down your fever. Let’s take it quickly.”
The Grand Duchess poured the medicine onto a spoon and held it out to me.
Even though I’d bundled myself in thick clothing, I’d been exposed to the snow outside for hours, and my body had begun to burn with fever.
The Grand Duchess’s concern for me was so tender that I couldn’t believe this was the same person who had treated me so coldly before.
Faced with such an unbelievable sight, I suddenly understood that this was truly reality.
“Yes, little one. It will taste a bit bitter, but just bear it and take one spoonful.”
At that moment, the Grand Duke sitting beside me also spoke soothingly, his expression anxious.
He seemed to think I was hesitating because I didn’t want to take the medicine.
I fell silent and glanced at the medicine bottle the Grand Duchess had placed on the table beside the bed.
It was children’s cold syrup that Diana often took. Though the aftertaste was slightly bitter, it was far sweeter than the medicines adults took.
‘…But I’m not a child.’
Being called “little one” over and over made all the fever in my body seem to rush to my ears.
Sensing that taking the medicine quickly would end this situation, I opened my mouth promptly.
“That’s right, yes. Just swallow it like that.”
“How can you be so obedient?”
The moment I swallowed the medicine, tender words of encouragement came from both sides, as if coaxing a small child. But that wasn’t all.
The Grand Duke gently stroked my head, praising me, while the Grand Duchess carefully wiped my tear-stained face and hands with a damp cloth, asking in detail if anything was uncomfortable and whether the blanket’s thickness was adequate.
I nodded awkwardly while smiling with a hint of bittersweet emotion.
‘…I never knew being treated like a child could feel this good.’
In the past, even after I’d come of age, Master had constantly treated me like a small child, and now that I actually was one, such treatment felt both familiar and uncomfortable….
But today felt entirely different.
Deep in my heart, I had still been waiting for parents, just like a small child.
I realized this anew.
“Little one, what’s wrong? Does your head hurt?”
The Grand Duke reacted keenly as my expression grew somber.
Watching the Grand Duchess immediately place her hand on my forehead to check my temperature, I recalled the words she had whispered while holding me.
〈How much… how much I’ve longed to see you. I love you. I love you, my precious child.〉
Whether it was the memory of those words that made my eyes burn with tears, or the fever coursing through my body.
In a slightly hazy state of mind, I lifted my chin and spoke with confidence.
“This doesn’t hurt at all.”
“Hmm?”
“Things like this don’t hurt one bit.”
And I hugged the thick yet feather-light blanket tightly, murmuring.
“The real pain is having no one by your side.”
“….”
After leaving behind my life as a beggar and entering Terenthium, my entire body ached as though it had been trampled relentlessly by grueling training—a daily reality.
When my fever-flushed forehead desperately craved a single cool cloth.
When my parched throat yearned for just one drop of water.
Even then, I was alone.
In those moments, I would exhale burning breaths and burrow into my thin blanket, desperate to forget my solitude.
But not anymore.
“I wasn’t an abandoned child.”
Though I had grown up separated from my parents from the moment of my birth, I had not been abandoned.
That alone was enough for me.
And yet….
“Are you both truly all right with this?”
“…What?”
The Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, who had been listening intently to my words, tilted their heads slowly, as though they didn’t quite understand my question.
Their concentrated attention on me made me somewhat nervous.
Moreover, with my fever running high, my mind wasn’t functioning properly either.
In the end, I asked whatever came to my lips without thinking deeply.
“You’re not disappointed that I’m a daughter?”

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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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