Royal Coup d'État - Chapter 16

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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 16
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Ding—
The elevator chimed brightly. Yesterday, the minutes inside had felt like an eternity; today, it had passed in strange haste.
Sun quickened her pace. Her steps toward yesterday’s conference room felt oddly buoyant.
“Word must have reached Prince Uigu’s ears by now.”
Seok-chul whispered nervously, glancing around them.
“And he’ll find it suspicious that you came here instead of the Secondary Palace.”
Unlike yesterday, the Third Floor Corridor was fairly crowded. She could feel people watching her, their voices dropping to murmurs.
“It’s all right.”
The Police Commissioner held Prince Uigu’s trust, and she knew well enough that others stood in Uncle Jung-baek’s camp too. After all, this was someone who’d boasted he could manipulate even the Task Force as he pleased. She hadn’t been naive enough to think her visit to Police Headquarters would go unnoticed.
But even if word of today’s transgression reached Uncle Jung-baek, she felt no fear. She had to come back here. There was a knot she needed to untie with Tae-o.
Her steps halted at the conference room door. She turned to Seok-chul.
“I’ll meet with him alone.”
“Since this isn’t an official meeting, I don’t think my presence would cause any problems.”
Seok-chul’s voice held clear displeasure. He still seemed bothered by yesterday’s dismissal at the threshold.
Sun smiled faintly and tapped his shoulder. The gesture meant: say nothing more.
“How could I refuse you?”
In the end, Seok-chul sighed and took a step back. His hand gripping the door handle tensed visibly. Even as he broadcast his discontent, he opened the door for her.
As the door swung open, the interior of the conference room came into view. Yesterday, it had been dark throughout, shadowed by the presentation materials; today, the lights burned bright.
And beneath those lights stood Tae-o. He sat perched on the edge of the desk, scrolling through his mobile phone, and looked up at the sound of the opening door.
Their eyes met across the threshold—Sun standing in the doorway, Tae-o suspended in mid-air.
For a moment, silence hung between them. Tae-o’s sharp gaze swept across Sun.
It was probing, laden with something almost crude, but it was different from yesterday’s look. Not that contemptuous dismissal, that casual disrespect that had found her pathetic for no reason at all.
Thud—
The door connecting to the outside clicked shut, and nothing remained between them but vast, layered quiet. Only the man still surveying her and the woman meeting his gaze directly existed in this space.
Even as she held her wide eyes steady on his, she felt a tremor of tension inside. She’d cast about so carelessly, telling him to choose, and now showing up after just one day felt almost foolish. A worry gnawed at her: had he already prepared his refusal?
But Sun schooled her expression well. Hiding her true feelings and revealing only the refined grace of the Imperial Family—that was something she’d been doing her entire life. Even here, tension was something she could always conceal.
Sun moved into the conference room. The click of her heels echoed against the floor.
She walked with affected leisure toward the seat she’d occupied yesterday, and her fingers traced the desk’s surface.
The smooth wood grain felt cool beneath her fingertips—a piece designed to mimic solid timber, though little actual timber had gone into it.
Sun spoke in a voice carefully modulated, neither too dim nor too bright.
“Have you had enough time to think?”
“Ha.”
Her question shattered Tae-o’s vigilance. His eyes, which had tracked her movements with almost frightening precision, finally drifted away.
Tae-o let out a dry laugh and crossed his arms.
“So you came to retrieve the ring.”
“Oh, that.”
She parted her lips slightly, feigning surprise at his words. Then she reached into her tweed jacket’s pocket and withdrew the ring, pinching it between two fingers. The ring that emerged intact from the pocket glinted in the light as if mocking Tae-o.
“Thank you for finding it.”
Tae-o’s eyebrow twitched ever so slightly. His gaze touched the ring, then slowly rose to Sun’s face.
“You’re saying I found it for you?”
Sun tilted her head with an expression of cool indifference.
“Didn’t you?”
In that instant, Tae-o moved. He sprang up, closed the distance in seconds, and seized her wrist gently, then caught the fingers holding the ring. At the sudden contact, Sun’s gaze dipped downward.
“I never got word that you’d lost the ring,”
Tae-o said, his voice low.
“So how could I possibly have found it?”
The distance between them had collapsed in an instant. A smile remained on Sun’s face, but her eyes were cold.
“You must have heard about the Crown Prince. We’ve added another subject for the autopsy.”
“Is this how you employ people, my lady?”
Tae-o’s gaze swept across her face—a look mingling displeasure with curiosity in equal measure.
“More direct and aggressive than I expected.”
Even at his reaction, Sun didn’t withdraw her hand. Instead, she met his stare with eyes clearer still.
A moment of silence passed. Neither spoke first.
It was Tae-o who finally raised his hand. He let out a dry laugh, then deliberately, almost spitefully slow, he slipped the ring onto her finger himself. His thick knuckles brushed against hers as he did.
“To be honest, I was surprised.”
The ring settled back into place. Tae-o’s mouth twisted into a crooked smile as he fingered the diamond. He released her hand a beat too late, and spoke.
“You really are different from the other members of the Royal Family. Quite… peculiar.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“No.”
Tae-o’s voice was sharp. There was no warmth in his tone. Yet the mere fact that his gaze had changed from yesterday was encouragement enough.
“Being compared to other members of the Royal Family is the last thing I want to hear. So I’ll take it as a compliment.”
At her response, Tae-o’s brow furrowed.
“There is a matter I need to press on.”
He spoke abruptly.
“Until now, there has not been a single case of an autopsy being performed on a member of the Imperial Family. I’ve combed through yesterday’s records thoroughly, but even in the case of Prince Uiyoung, who died in a similar traffic accident, no autopsy was ever conducted.”
At the mention of Prince Uiyoung’s name, she flinched without meaning to. His name always made her heart ache.
“Of course, there’s a record that some were of the opinion an autopsy should have been performed even then. But according to the Imperial Court’s wishes at the time, they only conducted a post-mortem examination and handed over the body to his family.”
“Uncle Uiyoung’s accident was…….”
She opened her mouth slowly. This was the first time she had spoken of Prince Uiyoung to someone outside the Royal Family.
“It was a tragic affair, and terribly painful for me as well. But to be coldly honest, this situation is somewhat different from that one.”
She made an effort not to let the sorrow and anguish of that day show on her face. She too had been a victim of Prince Uiyoung’s accident. Even mentioning his name often made her feel as though she were back inside that overturned car.
“The Crown Prince holds the National heir status.”
“That’s hardly convincing.”
Tae-o’s voice grew sharp again, cutting like a blade.
“From my perspective, the Crown Prince and Prince Uiyoung are equally victims of a traffic accident.”
Questions of Imperial succession order and the Crown Prince’s position—such arguments held no sway with ordinary citizens outside the Palace.
She had to choose words that Tae-o, as a detective, could accept and understand. Even if it meant exposing her own weakness.
“If you’ve seen the incident records, you know I was at the scene of Uncle Uiyoung’s accident too. I suffered serious injuries and had to spend a long time in the hospital.”
She spoke quietly, opening her heart. Even now, when she closed her eyes, she could still smell the disinfectant that had clung to her nostrils for months. She felt herself returning to that seven-year-old girl, lying helplessly in a hospital bed wrapped in bandages across her entire body.
“If only I had woken up a little sooner, perhaps an autopsy could have been conducted.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Uncovering the truth is a detective’s duty, isn’t it? I, as one of the people, simply harbor doubts.”
At her composed voice, Tae-o’s pupils shifted.
“Do you truly believe there is no possibility the Crown Prince was murdered?”
The words tumbled out with no inflection whatsoever, and his face visibly hardened. Tae-o held her gaze for a moment, then fell silent. After a long pause, he let out a short breath.
“Isn’t the probability of this simply being a traffic accident higher than the Crown Prince being murdered? We’re not even a nation at war.”
“You could think that. But the Royal Family lives in a different world altogether.”
At her composed answer, Tae-o’s eyes wavered.
“What is it that you want, ma’am?”
“What I want is the truth. And decisive evidence to walk that path.”
Tae-o’s lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but only sighs continued to pour from his mouth.
She clenched her fist gently. If she could not convince even this man, then before her grandfather who had trusted her with this task, and before her uncle who might have faced an unjust death, she would not be able to raise her head.
“An autopsy.”
At last, Tae-o’s mouth opened. She fixed her gaze upon him with intensity.
“A rather clever choice. There’s hardly more definitive evidence in this day and age.”
Whether it was praise or sarcasm, she could not tell. As her mind wavered, Tae-o continued.
“But as you said, now we have two bodies to autopsy. One of them is none other than the Crown Prince. If His Majesty opposes it, what is your plan then?”
Good. Having drawn things to this point meant she had already won.
She curved her lips into a smile.
“His Majesty will be waiting for me to bring you to him.”
“Pardon?”
At that very moment, as if by a cruel trick of fate, her mobile phone rang in her pocket. Her expression brightened as she checked the sender. Tae-o’s gaze touched the phone before moving to her face.
With Tae-o still sitting across from her, she composed and sent a reply, then lifted her head. At her question, suddenly thrown his way, Tae-o’s brows drew together.
“Do you happen to enjoy Miracle Morning?”

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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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