I’m The Male Lead’s Biological Daughter, But I Want To Live With The Second Male Lead! - Chapter 108

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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 108
“Ying…?”
Winter, who had been listening silently to Kellic’s account, turned to look at Mabel.
[Really?]
[Cancel. Betrothal?]
[Not doing it?]
“Yes, yes! Of course! Oh, right. You remember the Empress Consort visiting? That was to help stop my betrothal too.”
Winter had not been in the parlor when the matter of a guardian was discussed.
Since she had only been told afterward that the Empress Consort became her guardian to help Mabel, there was no reason she should have known.
[White Lion Beastman.]
[I trust her.]
The moment Lillian’s name was mentioned, Winter’s aura withdrew completely.
She had found it odd when the Empress Consort suddenly agreed to become a guardian, but now it all made sense.
“Phew…”
Kellic exhaled, narrowly avoiding being crushed by Winter’s overwhelming presence.
But Mabel still could not rest easy.
[Crown Prince.]
[Handsome?]
[Ideal type.]
[Mabel?]
[Talked?]
[How much.]
[What subjects?]
[How many times?]
[Meet. When?]
Winter’s interrogation had begun.
Since Winter knew nothing of Mabel’s betrothal, she questioned her relentlessly on every detail.
As a result, Mabel spent the entire night making excuses until the moon hung high in the sky.
* * *
It was late enough that even the palace attendants had been dismissed, save for a skeleton crew.
A figure in a black hood quietly made their way to the Empress Consort’s Palace.
The figure concealed themselves cleverly in the shadows beneath the trees and crept toward the Garden.
The movements were practiced—far too practiced to be a first attempt.
But there was nothing to find in the Garden.
‘It must be inside after all…’
The figure, hidden behind thick trees, clicked their tongue in frustration.
But there was no time to dwell on it.
The figure quickly slipped past the patrolling guards and into the interior of the Empress Consort’s Palace.
Whether it was because of the late hour or because they had timed it perfectly, it hardly mattered.
Fortunately, while searching through the Empress Consort’s Palace, they encountered no one to stop them.
Emboldened by the ease of their progress, the figure continued their search.
“Mew, mew…”
The sound of a cat’s cry came from a room near the Empress Consort’s Bedroom.
In an instant, the figure pressed against a pillar, eyes widening.
‘Found it.’
Moonlight streamed through a window in the corridor at that very moment.
Beneath the black hood, a pair of green eyes, gleaming with madness, shone with an eerie light.
Without a moment’s hesitation, the figure moved toward the source of the cat’s cry.
In a soft cradle lay six kittens, barely surviving the recent tragedy, squirming pitifully.
Though the sight was pitiful and somehow endearing, the green eyes of the figure gazing down upon them remained cold as frost.
For a moment the figure stared at the kittens, then drew something from their robes.
Scrape.
It was a short dagger.
The figure raised the finely honed blade high.
The hand that moved to plunge it toward the kittens harbored not a shred of hesitation.
Then—
Clang!
“…!”
Without a sound, someone appeared and seized the figure’s wrist.
“Guh!”
Then he twisted his wrist sharply, forcing the sword from her grip.
Clang!
The blade clattered across the marble floor, its echo shattering the silence.
Ian’s eyes snapped toward the one who’d interfered.
In that instant, Ian’s green irises widened.
“You—the Eschlide Grand Duchy……?”
Zigmund was there.
His face was twisted in strain, like a man confronting a truth he refused to believe.
“How……”
Zigmund muttered the words through a throat tight with emotion, but the intruder lashed out with a leg.
Yet there was no escaping a Grand Master.
Zigmund subdued him before he could flee, pinning him swiftly.
Someone appeared before the figure whose arms were now bound firmly behind his back.
“So it was you after all.”
Lillian—mistress of this palace—stepped forward.
She emerged from the darkness with quiet steps, drawing near.
She reached out with pale fingers and ripped the hood clean away.
“Agh!”
He tried to bolt, but Zigmund’s presence made that impossible.
The intruder’s identity lay exposed at last.
“Your Highness, the Crown Prince.”
The one who had tortured Lillian’s cats so mercilessly, who meant to slaughter even those who’d survived.
It was Ian—barely eleven years old.
“This……”
Faced with a cruelty so grotesque, Zigmund found himself at a loss for words.
That afternoon, Zigmund had sent an urgent message to the Empress Consort.
It told of Sophia’s presence in the underground dungeons of the Asilonian ducal residence, and that the Empress surely knew of it.
Yet remarkably, Lillian already knew.
She’d learned it soon after becoming Mabel’s guardian, during a conversation about Edward and Mabel.
Lillian had quietly summoned Zigmund and told him of the secret Edward had been preparing for nearly ten years.
She assured him that the Empress could no longer trouble Mabel.
Zigmund apologized for being of little use to her, and in response, Lillian had made a request.
– The one who hurt my cats must be inside the palace. I’ve set a trap to find them.
The moment Lillian became certain the criminal was within, she spread word that six of her cats had survived.
– And just now, someone overheard Edward and me speaking. I’d like your help catching that person.
– Will His Majesty not learn of this?
– No. I don’t wish him to know. Not yet.
By then, Lillian had already guessed the culprit.
The Crown Prince. Ian.
There was but one reason Edward had never deposed him, despite knowing he was no blood heir.
Lillian could bear no more children.
If Ian were removed from succession, public clamor would demand Edward take a second wife to secure the line.
Edward refused to sacrifice an innocent woman to such a fate, just as he would not spend his nights with any woman but Lillian.
Some might say he had abandoned his duty as Emperor, but she alone wished to stand beside him.
So Lillian had hoped to bury this matter quietly.
“So it was you, after all.”
“……!”
But fate had other designs.
Lillian spun around, startled even more than Ian himself.
“My love……!”
Edward stood before them, his expression grim as he fixed his gaze upon Ian.
In truth, Edward had known someone was listening in the Immortal Chamber.
But he’d trusted that Lillian had a plan, so he’d held back.
It was only when he heard she’d secretly summoned Zigmund that he came rushing in, seized by urgency.
He harbored no suspicions of impropriety between the two.
He was simply afraid—afraid that if a Grand Master had been called, the danger must be grave.
“When did you realize? Surely not from the start……?”
Lillian hugged herself and took a small step back.
Even Ian, not yet fully grasping the situation, looked at Edward with trembling eyes.
But Edward merely shook his head.
“No, I was certain only when I realized someone was eavesdropping. The Immortal Chamber—only direct descendants are permitted near it.”
Ian’s face twisted in an instant, as if struck by sudden understanding.
Having possessed everything as crown prince, he had overlooked this obvious fact.
“Yes, Ian. Now you see it. How much I’ve been tolerating you all this time.”
At Edward’s words, Ian bit down on his lower lip.
That look again.
That insufferable, magnanimous gaze—as though he were bestowing grace on all beneath him.
Ian despised that expression in Edward’s eyes.
“Tolerating me? Don’t make me laugh. When has Father ever actually been a father to me, even once?”
Ian thrashed against his bonds, voice breaking with emotion.
Held fast by Zigmund’s grip, he could only writhe, yet his defiance came through unmistakably clear.
“It’s always been the same. Father was always desperate to keep Mother and me apart! Were we ever family to him? To him, Mother and I have always been the villains!”
Ian’s cries poured out, raw and bitter.
Lillian’s face stiffened slightly.
Yes, the tangled knot binding these three together was, at its heart, an affair of adults.
To Ian—barely eleven years old—it amounted to nothing but the suffering of his mother, Francesca.
“Don’t you pity Mother? Isn’t it unbearable to see Mother go to such lengths just to win Father’s attention?”
Ian’s voice fractured into tears as he cried out.

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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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