If I Were Reborn, I Wouldn’t Marry You - Chapter 159

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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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Chapter 159
Only Miela and Leonhardt, who had anticipated the situation, remained composed.
The Emperor and Empress, along with Elodie, were so shocked that the Inner Chambers fell into a heavy silence for a time.
Soon the door opened, and Prince entered with a puzzled expression.
“Your Majesty, what urgent matter required you to summon me so hastily?”
He appeared somewhat disheveled from rushing over at the sudden call, yet his characteristic gentle and benevolent smile was perfectly in place.
Simultaneously, his eyes moved busily to read the atmosphere within the Inner Chambers.
Shattered porcelain fragments scattered across the floor, Elodie’s ashen face, the Empress frozen in shock and horror, and even the Emperor—rarely seen with such a rigid expression.
Having read the ominous air, Prince smiled softly and feigned concern for Elodie.
“Surely you’re not scolding my wife merely for dropping a teacup?”
His demeanor as a dutiful son and affectionate husband appeared remarkably natural.
The Emperor let out a hollow laugh, as if finding the situation absurd and exasperating.
“Ha!”
At the Emperor’s reaction, Prince feigned alarm and raised his eyebrows.
“Has Elodie caused something far more serious than merely breaking a teacup?”
His acting was so masterful that those who hadn’t directly witnessed the poison’s purification would be completely deceived.
‘But everyone here clearly saw the poison in the tea Elodie brought.’
Especially Elodie, who had received the tea directly from Prince, would be even more shocked by his composed demeanor.
Elodie, whose mouth had been hanging open in disbelief, suddenly let out a cry.
“Your Highness made me offer poisoned tea to His Majesty!”
Elodie and Prince were a reasonably well-matched couple.
However, what existed between them was closer to satisfaction with a partner who fulfilled their respective needs, rather than affection.
Having been betrayed in even that modest trust, Elodie erupted in fury.
Prince feigned confusion, his eyes wavering as he questioned Elodie.
“What do you mean? Elodie. What tea are you referring to…?”
As if trying to properly grasp the situation, Prince’s gaze moved about restlessly.
Then Prince suddenly exclaimed in alarm.
“You’re saying that tea contained poison? Did someone consume it?”
It was a masterfully subtle rhetorical maneuver.
He pretended not to immediately understand which ‘tea’ Elodie was referring to, thereby asserting his uninvolvement.
Simultaneously, he feigned concern for unspecified others while leaving Elodie a slight opening for retreat.
‘Of course, if there’s nothing to salvage, he would push Elodie into the mire and close that exit.’
It was an obvious tactic to me, but it worked on at least these three people present.
Even Elodie wore a confused expression.
“Lady Roderick said the tea contained poison… that there’s a Secret Laboratory beneath Your Highness’s Palace…”
Though her words trailed off incompletely, it was sufficient for the perceptive Prince to grasp the situation.
And Prince seemed to have concluded that we knew far more than he had anticipated.
‘Prince couldn’t possibly suspect that our information about the poisoning came from the future.’
However, Prince did not yield so easily.
“Everyone here knows I have a hobby of potion-making—what secret are you referring to?”
Prince straightened his expression and denied the accusation, striding purposefully toward the table.
Without hesitation, he lifted the teapot and poured the steaming liquid into an empty cup.
“Judging by how things are unfolding, it seems I’m suspected of sending poison. But there’s no way to prove I didn’t do something.”
Prince looked between me and Leonhardt like a man bearing a false accusation, then lifted the teacup brimming with tea until it nearly overflowed.
“Will you believe me now?”
Gulp, gulp.
Prince drained the entire cup in one breath.
“Prince!”
The Empress shrieked in horror, but Prince set down the empty cup with a sharp clink and gazed at the Emperor with an expression of wounded innocence.
‘This madman….’
I couldn’t hide my shock.
It was colorless, odorless, and tasteless—but not impossible to cure.
It wasn’t instantaneous either.
Yet it was undoubtedly a deadly poison that would stop the heart within hours, and he drank it without a moment’s hesitation?
I recoiled silently in astonishment.
If this was a performance to prove his innocence, it was devastatingly effective.
Even the Emperor, who had agreed to have Prince drink the tea, bore an expression of shock.
Amid everyone’s horror, Prince feigned naïveté and blinked innocently.
“Is this really poison? I feel perfectly fine.”
Prince cast a cold glance at me and Leonhardt.
“Didn’t someone fabricate this false drama, spouting nonsense about poison that doesn’t exist, to frame me and my wife?”
Before I could even scoff at Prince’s shameless performance and counter him—
“No, this won’t do! Prince!”
The Empress’s face drained of color as she shrieked and rushed toward him.
Though Prince insisted he was fine, the Empress had clearly seen the tea spilled on the carpet react with the holy water.
She knew the poison took hours to work, yet Prince appeared as though he would collapse at any moment.
“Young Lady! Give me that holy water at once!”
The Empress glared at me with tears streaming down her face, her voice desperate.
At her anguished cry, even the Emperor, who had been in a daze, snapped back to attention.
“Y-Young Lady! Give the holy water to the 1st Prince immediately!”
The moment ‘holy water’ was mentioned, Prince’s eyes gleamed.
‘He drank it knowing full well there would be an antidote, yet he’s still concerned about his own body.’
I clicked my tongue inwardly.
Prince’s performance had been devastatingly effective.
‘I’d rather pour it on the ground….’
Failing to anticipate that this madman would be cunning enough to drink poison was my miscalculation.
I had thought too much like a rational person.
Without showing any reluctance, I withdrew the vial of holy water from my bosom and handed it to the Empress.
The Empress snatched it greedily and forced it to Prince’s lips.
“Drink it now! Go on!”
Prince accepted the holy water, feigning reluctance.
It was a flawless performance—a prince staking his life to clear his name of false accusations, yet succumbing to his mother’s insistence and swallowing the holy water. Pitiful in every sense.
As the holy water traveled down his throat, Prince’s brow furrowed slightly. It was surely the subtle reaction of the deadly poison and holy water colliding within his body.
Yet he showed no outward sign, merely wiping the corner of his mouth with a bitter smile.
“Now you can rest assured. This proves my innocence….”
“That hardly serves as evidence that you didn’t send the poison.”
It was Leonhardt who cut off Prince’s pitiful words, his eyes having remained coldly fixed on the situation throughout.
“Leonhardt! Your brother has staked his very life to prove his innocence, yet you persist in this obstinacy!”
The Empress lashed out, but Leonhardt didn’t so much as blink.
“If you were the one who crafted the poison, you would naturally know that it doesn’t stop the heart immediately after being consumed.”
“You, you…!”
“Which is precisely why you could drink it without fear.”
At Leonhardt’s cutting words that struck the mark, a brief spasm crossed Prince’s cheek.
Leonhardt, as if deeming them unworthy of further argument, issued a command in a heavy voice toward the firmly closed door of the Inner Chambers.
“Search the deepest underground levels of the First Prince’s Palace thoroughly and find that Secret Laboratory the Young Lady mentioned. Leave not a speck of dust—gather every shred of evidence: the remnants of poisonous plants, the tools used to refine the poison, and the ledgers of transactions with the Underworld.”
The knights, sensing the gravity of the situation, ultimately obeyed Leonhardt’s command.
“Your efforts were in vain, Your Highness. The evidence of your poison-making remains.”
Even with Prince’s desperate struggle, staking his very life, it had been for naught.
The tide had already turned in Leonhardt’s favor.
Leonhardt met Prince’s gaze and smiled the smile of a victor.

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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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