I’m The Male Lead’s Biological Daughter, But I Want To Live With The Second Male Lead! - Chapter 106

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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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Episode 106
In that instant, the image of Iaan flickered across Francesca’s mind, and her composure shattered.
Edward regarded her with a steady, penetrating gaze before he spoke.
“So let this be clear to you, Empress Consort—as of today, I have revoked your internal authority in full. Now, you may withdraw.”
“Ha……!”
The command for her dismissal that followed broke whatever restraint Francesca had left.
She jerked upright from her seat, her face contorting.
“Do you truly believe my father and the Central Nobility will simply stand by and allow this?”
“And if they do not, what then?”
“What—what did you just say……?”
His reply was so unbothered, so casual, that Francesca found herself at a loss for words.
Until now, Edward had gone to great lengths to avoid friction with the Central Nobility, who favored the use of beastmen as raw materials.
He had feared they might even touch the Wingryeon family—the Empress Consort’s own house.
In return, the Central Nobility had been careful not to openly provoke Wingryeon either.
This unspoken rule had held firm all this time.
‘He means to break that rule openly?’
Something was terribly wrong.
Francesca changed tactics and resolved to coax him instead.
“Your Majesty—could this perhaps be because of the new pieces in my Collection that I recently unveiled?”
She lowered herself back into her seat, her voice taking on a pleading quality.
“I am grieved by what befell the Empress Consort’s beloved cats—their sudden, tragic deaths. But that was mere coincidence, nothing more. Your Majesty, my Collection pieces were conceived long ago—”
“By the designers you had executed to silence them, no doubt.”
“……!”
For a moment, Francesca felt as though the breath were being torn from her lungs.
‘How does he know that?’
Yet Edward’s expression remained perfectly composed.
“Did you honestly believe I would not know that your Collections are plagiarized works—stolen from impoverished designers and presented as your own creations?”
He spoke with the casual certainty of someone who knew her favorite dishes.
Francesca’s mind could not keep pace with what was happening.
But Edward’s revelations showed no sign of stopping.
“And this particular design was rejected once, three years ago, was it not? Surely you do not expect me to believe that is mere coincidence?”
“Your Ma—Your Majesty…… That is…….”
“Even after ascending to the position of Empress Consort, you have not abandoned your ambitions—so much so that your reputation has spread beyond our borders. Yet the truth is that you are nothing but a plagiarist. Have you given any thought to how this diminishes the standing of our realm?”
“Your Majesty, I can explain all of this. Those designers were in fact promising talents whom our house had been patronizing—”
“You knew that any ideas conceived under your family’s patronage belong wholly to the house, did you not? But did those designers know that accepting your patronage would cost them their lives?”
Francesca’s mouth closed again, her hurried attempts at explanation cut short.
This secret was known only to herself and her father Gonsalves within the family.
Yet somehow Edward knew of it. How?
And how much more did he know?
‘If the truth comes out—that my Collection is built on the family’s embezzlement—even the Central Nobility will turn against us.’
Knowing this, Francesca dared not open her mouth.
But if she remained silent, she would lose all her internal authority.
‘For Iaan’s sake, I cannot let that happen!’
“Your Majesty, I have erred grievously. I confess my transgressions.”
With desperate urgency, Francesca descended from her chair and knelt before Edward.
“I mocked the Empress Consort for the misfortune she suffered. As the Mother of the Realm, I should have conducted myself with greater dignity, yet I allowed jealousy to cloud my judgment. But Your Majesty, I implore you—please reconsider.”
Tears gathered in those green eyes that had been so coldly contemptuous only moments before.
“For the sake of our child, of Iaan—please…….”
Edward did not love Francesca, but he did not hate his own blood either.
Knowing this, Francesca had always used the Crown Prince as a shield, as she did now.
“……’Our’ child?”
Edward’s reaction was peculiar.
For the first time since this meeting began, he regarded Francesca with eyes that burned with the utmost coldness.
It was a gaze that went beyond mere dislike or hatred—it brimmed with contempt and revulsion.
The air became so glacial that Francesca felt her shoulders bow under its weight.
Then Edward spoke, his voice emerging from somewhere deep within.
“Since the First Night, I have not set foot in your chambers. So you believe that I…….”
His words came from somewhere far below, dredged up from his depths.
“……am a man who does not even know what it is to hold a woman.”
“……!”
Francesca’s heart was now clenched so tightly that even breathing had become a struggle.
Edward picked up his teacup again, leaving Francesca to her anguish.
“Even if I revoke the Empress Consort’s internal authority, she won’t allow a Paternity Test to proceed—the one she’s been blocking with that very power. So you may go now.”
His words drew Francesca’s consciousness back from the distant, drifting place it had wandered.
“You’re… truly saying that?”
He would embrace Iaan even knowing everything?
There was an old saying about affection born from raising a child.
Edward was as gentle as he was fearful—perhaps such a thing was possible.
Hope flickered in Francesca’s eyes as tears began to overflow.
But Edward’s next words were more than enough to shatter that fragile hope.
“Unless Eschlide Grand Duchy suddenly ceases to be my heir, I still need a crown prince.”
To Edward, Iaan was not a beloved child.
Merely a successor.
Francesca’s shattered hopes gave way to a wail.
“How could you… how could you be so cruel? Even if I deserve it, Iaan doesn’t—he’s done nothing wrong!”
Iaan was eleven years old this year.
Though he might not be Edward’s biological son, he was still a child they had raised together for eleven years!
The Grand Duke of Eschlide had not hesitated to wage a legal battle between houses for a child he barely knew.
He had not hesitated to openly abandon the Empress Consort—her—for Mabel, whom he had lived with for barely a year.
But how could a father so easily cast aside his own child?
Francesca wept as if coughing up blood.
But the gaze Edward turned toward her remained… deeply unsettling.
“I agree Iaan is innocent—but hearing you say it makes me bitter. Did my child in Lillian’s womb deserve to die?”
His flat, emotionless question struck Francesca like ice water poured over her head.
Over the crumbling Francesca, Edward’s contempt poured down.
“If you’re so grieved, go tell Iaan’s true father that the Emperor permits it—that he should now show fatherly affection. Ah, but didn’t they also say he wasn’t their child?”
Only then did Francesca understand.
Edward was not a fearful, small-minded man at all.
He had simply waited beneath the surface, quiet and still.
Waiting for the moment to corner Francesca completely.
Before Francesca left the Reception Hall, Edward spoke one final time.
“With internal authority revoked, you must replenish your private funds used to pay Caesar’s compensation, and take responsibility for having known of and exploited his confinement and abuse of Sophia while doing nothing.”
Edward had drawn his blade deliberately, and his words lacerated Francesca’s entire body.
But she herself had been the one to hand him the hilt.
Francesca had been defeated by nothing other than her own arrogance.
In this way, Edward had already learned what Caesar and Francesca had done.
And Empress Consort Lillian knew as well.
“Are you truly… all right with this?”
Not long after Francesca left, Lillian came to find him.
Edward, who had been sitting in the same chair massaging his temples, lifted his head.
Lillian hesitated under his gaze before speaking.
“It was a secret you’d been saving for nearly ten years.”
Ever since Lillian had nearly received the Subjugation Mark, Edward had kept his blade sharp while appearing withdrawn.
To give arrogant Francesca no opportunity to become cautious.
To seize the tail of a greater evil and utterly ruin Francesca.
The more one’s opponent let down their guard, the higher the chance of victory.
Lillian too understood this perfectly and had been supporting him all along.
“Did you come to scold me for wasting something so precious?”
Edward managed a weary smile.
He knew it too.
It was not a secret weapon to be spent on something this trivial.
“But those cats were like children to me as well as you.”
Edward, gazing at Lillian, buried his face in his palms.
“They were the only… they were like children, the only way to ease even a little of that helplessness that day.”
Edward could not forgive Francesca.
That demonic woman who had stolen his children twice—he could never…
“My love…”
Lillian embraced Edward as he finally began to weep.
The couple held each other and mourned the children they had been powerless to keep.

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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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