I’m The Male Lead’s Biological Daughter, But I Want To Live With The Second Male Lead! - Chapter 65

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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 65
Sophia first heard news of Mabel at the trial.
‘How on earth did he find out where I am?’
The telegram that arrived directly, bypassing every other channel, made Sophia gnaw at her fingernails.
‘Zigmund, you shouldn’t be looking for me in the first place. You’re my childhood friend. A few research projects like this—you could have simply yielded them to me.’
If he’d known I took them, he should have backed off quietly and pursued some other line of work.
Why make people suffer needlessly?
‘I’m not even using the Subjugation Mark on you, after all.’
Though strictly speaking, it was more accurate to say I couldn’t use it.
In any case, Sophia felt deeply betrayed by Zigmund’s refusal to appreciate her restraint, how he continued to tighten the noose around her.
And now he’d sent a telegram, of all things, so brazenly.
“How much more do you need to torment me before you’re satisfied, Zigmund!”
Sophia trembled with the sting of betrayal from the childhood friend she’d once known.
The contents of the telegram were especially troubling.
If she didn’t want her location exposed, she was to strip parental custody of Mabel from Caesar!
‘What on earth is happening?’
Sophia, who had been biting her fingernails until they bled, made straight for the City District.
She was loitering near a newspaper stand, trying to get her bearings, when—
“They say the princess of Asilonia is that much of a genius?”
“Yeah! That’s why two houses are fighting over her right now.”
At the gossip of the crowd, Sophia’s eyes went wide.
‘Mabel—that child is still alive?’
The last image Sophia held of Mabel was from when she’d barely learned to walk.
She had refused to let the girl nurse properly, so contemptuous of the child who had driven a wedge between herself and Caesar. Yet the girl possessed a grip on life so tenacious that she’d managed to survive and stand on her own two feet.
Without anyone to properly care for her, the child had grown steadily.
The thought filled Sophia with something close to horror.
That one day this child would walk, run, even speak.
That she would become a full person, develop a personality.
That she would go on living her own life, having already torn Sophia’s and Caesar’s to shreds!
‘It makes my skin crawl!’
The nausea welling up inside her became unbearable.
Sophia had fled from Caesar’s coldness, yes—but she had also fled from Mabel.
Still, before she left, she had given the child a name.
‘If someday that girl’s grave has no name on its marker, it would reflect poorly on my dignity.’
Sophia had no intention of falling into ruin like this.
Her plan was to return in glory before Caesar, to laugh at his belated regrets.
Yet here was that girl, the one she’d named so carelessly on a whim, still living.
They were calling her a genius!
Sophia hurried to buy a newspaper and confirm it herself. The people’s words were true.
Zigmund and Caesar were engaged in a legal battle over Mabel, it said.
The article splashed across the front page twisted Sophia’s mouth into an ugly smile.
‘So that’s why he never found me.’
Crackle.
As Sophia crumpled the newspaper in her fist, pale tendons stood out on the back of her hand.
Her fingers trembled with cold fury.
Caesar’s search net had grown slack lately, which had made her anxious.
Why had he given up looking for her?
That wouldn’t do—he still needed to be desperate for her, so that she could laugh at him for it.
Being hunted was exhausting, yes, but not being hunted was its own kind of dread.
Now, at last, she understood why.
‘Ah….’
Caesar hadn’t stopped searching for Sophia out of remorse.
He hadn’t been chasing a wife who’d made a mistake—he’d been chasing the research she possessed, the research that belonged to Zigmund.
Then he discovered that Mabel was a genius, and he changed targets.
To Mabel, who would be easier to handle than Sophia herself.
In that moment, understanding crystallized within her, and Sophia immediately set about writing a petition.
In her document exposing Caesar’s crimes, there was not a shred of concern for Mabel.
It contained only one obsession: to bring Caesar to ruin.
Because of the petition Sophia drafted, Caesar was utterly defeated in court.

A satisfying and thrilling conclusion it had been.
Yet there was no time to savor the victory.
‘Zigmund, you damnable creature!’
The telegram had contained a trap.
It promised not to reveal Sophia’s location, but said nothing about not pursuing her.
With Mabel’s survival and Caesar’s betrayal consuming her thoughts, she’d overlooked the wordplay entirely.
Sophia, who had fled to the Hermetic State to prepare her thesis presentation, now had to evacuate in haste.
Yet strangely, wherever Sophia tried to hide, suspicious figures appeared.
What was even more peculiar was that they looked far too rough to be knights of the Archduke Household.
Sophia, her hood pulled low, was attempting to slip past as an ordinary passerby.
“Listen, we keep coming up empty. That arrest warrant must be genuine, yeah?”
“Of course. The Eschlide Grand Duke himself said so—that woman who plagiarized the thesis will be made an example of. Execution.”
At those words, Sophia felt her breath stop entirely.
‘Execution… execution?!’
As if betraying her weren’t enough—her childhood friend meant to kill her.
‘What have I ever done to you…?’
The shock was too great. Sophia collapsed where she stood.
How much time passed while she lay unconscious?
Crackle, crackle….
Sophia’s eyes fluttered open to the sound of logs burning in the hearth.
‘Where… am I?’
Carefully lifting her eyelids, she gazed at the ceiling—and found it achingly familiar.
“Gasp…!”
Startled, Sophia bolted upright.
The sudden movement brought a sharp vertigo, the world spinning.
As her vision darkened and she swayed, someone caught her.
“Are you alright?”
That voice—unforgettable, never once forgotten.
It was Caesar.
“I… why am I here…?”
Waking in Caesar’s bed, Sophia couldn’t find her words.
After everything—after she’d escaped—to end up here so easily, so pathetically.
Her despair was beyond articulation.
As Sophia bit her lower lip, caught in bitter defeat, Caesar spoke quietly.
“Zigmund is looking for you.”
She knew that already.
And you, Caesar—you’ve been searching for me too.
Not for me, but for Zigmund’s research that I possess!
Anger burned in her eyes as she lifted her head and stared at Caesar with murderous intensity.
Yet something was wrong with him.
His one remaining blue eye glistened with tears.
“If things continue as they are, Sophia… you’ll die.”
Caesar suddenly pulled her into his arms.
His body trembled faintly.
Like a man desperately worried for the woman he truly loved….
‘Why…?’
Sophia’s lips quivered with confusion.
Caesar suppressed a sob, drew a long breath, then gripped her shoulders and spoke.
“So listen, Sophia—abandon Zigmund’s research.”
“…What?”
Abandon it?
But you’ve been searching for it too.
And now you want me to abandon it?
Sophia couldn’t understand what Caesar was saying.
“As long as you hold that research, Zigmund will keep hunting you. He’ll harm you in the end. I wanted to tell you because you seemed unaware of this.”
“What do you mean…”
“But recently, after Mabel went to work under that bastard, he stopped pursuing you. So I thought you were safe. That’s why I waited, respecting your wishes, hoping you’d return. But then…”
What followed was almost impossible to believe.
And yet, it was exactly what Sophia had so long hoped for.
“Keeping that child alive was my choice. Seeing her was agonizing, but still—hoping you might return…”
Caesar knelt before Sophia, tears streaming down his face.
“I’m begging you. Please, come back to me. What does Alchemy matter? What does the family matter? I only need you, Sophia. From the very beginning, you’ve been the only one for me.”
That night, Caesar pleaded with Sophia again and again.
Beyond the window, snow had begun to fall.
Venturing out in such weather would be foolish—he wouldn’t get far before being caught.
Sophia calmed the gasping, weeping Caesar by saying she would think about it.
Alone in the bedroom after Caesar left, Sophia turned his words over in her mind.
It was a transparent excuse, hardly worth dwelling on.
But Sophia knew the truth.
She would spend this winter in this mansion.
Perhaps even when the year turned and new seasons came, she would remain.
– I only need you, Sophia. From the very beginning, you’ve been the only one for me.
Despite years of flight and hatred, Sophia still loved Caesar.
Foolish Sophia.
It should not have been this way.

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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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