Royal Coup d'État - Chapter 33

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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 33
“You. Where have you been?”
The Prince of Uijeong pressed for answers, his voice trembling like aspen leaves. Who on earth had he been listening to, to come interrogate her like this?
The Prince of Uijeong and his wife were terribly fearful people.
She understood well enough why they’d grown progressively passive. Even knowing that the Prince of Uigu might have been the one to malign their third uncle, she’d had to swallow her resentment and say nothing.
But things were different now. There was the circumstance that the Prince of Uigu had reached for her uncle’s life itself, and the Emperor’s decisive resolve not to overlook it any longer.
She’d been given the chance to stop hiding the truth of the accident she’d witnessed in childhood. A miraculous stroke of fortune had finally arrived—one that could overturn the entire board, avenge the Prince of Uiyeong, and fulfill the Crown Prince’s long-harbored resentment.
She had no intention of letting this windfall slip away.
If both the Crown Prince and the Prince of Uiyeong had truly fallen into the Prince of Uigu’s trap, then she had to prevent him from inheriting the Imperial Throne by any means necessary.
If the only way to do that was to become the heir the Emperor desired, then she was prepared to do so.
But sharing this thought with her parents would be terribly difficult. Neither her father nor her mother had the constitution to bear such a thing.
“What are you doing all this time? Hmm?”
The Prince of Uijeong strode toward her, his trembling hand coming to rest on her shoulder. His agitation was so violent that her entire body shook, and she swallowed hard.
‘Ah. I’m tired already.’
She could anticipate well enough what would come next from his lips. This was precisely why she hadn’t told her parents.
“The Crown Princess has sent word.”
The Lady of the Prince of Uijeong, who had been sitting alone on the sofa weeping, finally managed to speak.
“She says you went to the hospital. And with some man, no less.”
Ah. So the Crown Princess was the source of this commotion.
She wanted nothing more than to close her eyes tight. The Crown Princess had found an excellent tool for coercion.
Without revealing what she’d done at the hospital, the Crown Princess had sown suspicion and anxiety in her parents’ hearts. To think she’d managed to land a blow against her uncle’s wife, who seemed never to have spoken a harsh word to anyone in her life.
“I know you wouldn’t be idling about with romance at such a critical time.”
The Prince of Uijeong spoke while still gripping her shoulder tightly. Her father’s flaw lay here: his instincts were sharp enough, but his fear was so much greater that he preferred to close his eyes and pretend ignorance. And when circumstances turned against him, he weaponized that same advantage.
“When you saw the Emperor, did he speak to you of something else?”
He seemed half-convinced already. Just from his reddened eyes and pallid complexion, she could guess how far his imagination had stretched.
She turned her head slowly. Had her father’s reasoning been shared with her mother as well?
The moment her gaze reached her mother, she felt her father’s body flinch visibly—an irritating, involuntary twitch.
She could not have misread the meaning of that response.
The moment the Emperor’s preference became public knowledge, not only this household, but every relationship surrounding her would inevitably shake.
She knew her father well. The Prince of Uijeong was a man who feared breaking the boundaries and balance he had set for himself, especially in matters like this.
That was likely why he hadn’t ventured to raise the subject even with his wife. He wanted no further discord.
“Are you planning to keep Mother here as well?”
She regarded her father calmly, without a flicker of emotion. Unlike her steadiness, his eyes trembled visibly.
Yet his thoughts were not fundamentally different from hers. He exhaled deeply and slowly retreated. Then, turning toward his wife, he managed to offer a barely gentle smile.
“I’ll speak with her. Wife, please go to the Main Residence and rest.”
“What do you mean? I’m her mother.”
For the first time, the Lady of the Prince of Uijeong spoke with firmness in her voice. Shaking her head, she raised her voice, insisting she would stay—as though stepping away from this place itself would become a threat to her daughter.
“You’ve cried so much already. You’ll exhaust yourself if you stay like this. Go, drink some water, and rest a while.”
“My dear!”
The Prince of Uijeong did not relent in the face of his wife’s protest. He picked up the telephone and summoned Gu Chanwi, his aide who had been waiting at the Main Residence. The Prince of Uijeong’s flustered aide hastily arrived and was tasked with escorting the Lady of the Prince of Uijeong out.
“Take her to the Bedroom.”
Even amid the turmoil, the Prince of Uijeong’s command was precise. He was, after all, a man born as the Emperor’s son, raised to command the imperial family. His eyes followed his wife with concern as she continued to resist until the door closed and her voice faded, then slowly he shifted his gaze.
“Sun.”
There was not a trace of the tenderness in her father’s voice from moments before. Could his demeanor change so completely? The Prince of Uijeong fixed her with a cold, piercing stare.
“I need to know of your grand plan.”
“What plan could I possibly have, Father?”
She evaded, feigning ignorance. She wanted to see how far her father was willing to reach, and whether he had the courage to come this far.
The Prince of Uijeong could not possibly have failed to read his daughter’s mind. He let out a bitter laugh, shaking his head.
“Don’t try to deceive me. I’ve lived as a member of the imperial family my whole life. Do I look so foolish that I wouldn’t notice something strange about the way things are turning out?”
“If you do nothing, Father, nothing will seem strange.”
She replied with a pleasant smile.
For a moment, the Prince of Uijeong faltered. Though her daughter was not usually docile, she had never before openly defied her parents’ wishes. He too had noticed that the girl before him was not the same as before.
“Isn’t everything a matter of your choice, Father? As you have always done, if you simply close your eyes and turn away, nothing will happen to you.”
She had never had a poor relationship with her parents. Sometimes she felt suffocated watching them retreat, but that frustration had never been reason enough to dislike them.
But she loved her parents as much as she genuinely cared for the Prince of Uiyeong. And more than that—the Lord of Cheongsong and the Crown Prince too. They were all people she held dear.
The moment she committed their deaths to memory, it became inevitable that she would walk a different path from her parents, who had always wished to live quietly, unnoticed.
“… You are my daughter. What parent in this world could simply turn away when their child might be in danger?”
In that instant, the Prince of Uijeong’s voice wavered thinly.
“Whether I remain still or take action in this situation, the danger doesn’t change.”
The fact that the Crown Prince had intended to formally adopt her as his heir had already been leaked before his death—likely by the Prince of Uigu himself. A girl with such potential danger, whom the Prince of Uigu already despised, would hardly be left unmolested.
If he wanted to control her, he could find some suitable marriage match and dispose of her easily enough. If he wanted to erase her from sight altogether, he had more than enough power to keep her from ever setting foot in the Imperial Palace. The Prince of Uigu already possessed that much strength and authority.
Once he obtained the legitimate position of Heir to the Throne, his cruelty and baseness would only deepen.
“The day my uncle the Prince of Uiyeong passed away, my uncle the Prince of Uigu will spend the rest of his life regretting that he failed to dispose of me as well, Father.”
“What did you just say?”
“The Dowager Empress told me to become Emperor.”
The words that had just left her lips seemed to carry more force than a nuclear bomb.
The Prince of Uijeong stood frozen, as though he’d been dealt a heavy blow. She watched him struggle to interpret what he’d heard, and taking pity on his confusion, she repeated herself kindly.
“When I had an audience with His Majesty, you asked what we discussed. It was exactly as I said. The Dowager Empress wishes to make me Emperor.”
She placed weight on the word Emperor. Slowly, the Prince of Uijeong’s mouth began to fall open. At last, it seemed, he grasped the meaning of what his daughter had said.
His expression wavered subtly. Relief flooded his eyes for an instant, and then his jaw clenched tight as something else gripped him with fear.
“That’s… that’s impossible.”
He seized his own head and shook it wildly back and forth. She grew concerned he might become dizzy and collapse.
“Absolutely not!”
The Prince of Uijeong finally gathered his thoughts and cried out desperately.
She had never expected parental support. They were hardly the sort to give it. Besides, she herself hadn’t drawn up any concrete plan to become Emperor. Here she was, not even having begun, and already she was hearing refusals.
Yet as her own family moved to obstruct her this way, she found herself laughing instead. It was then that the reality struck her—she had truly thrown herself into this absurd struggle for the Imperial Throne.
“What can you do about it, Father? It is the will of the Dowager Empress, and I have long since come of age.”
“I don’t know what the Dowager Empress is thinking, but there is no way for you to become Emperor.”
The Prince of Uijeong spoke through gritted teeth.
“The Crown Prince has passed away, and the Prince of Uigu stands watching us with both eyes wide open. Even if you were to surpass the order of succession, you cannot ignore Patrilineal Law. As long as I do not become Emperor, you cannot skip an entire generation and ascend to the Imperial Throne directly!”
She who already knew every detail of Imperial law and precedent could hardly be ignorant of this. The very man who was raising the matter was her grandfather, and he knew it better than anyone.
“I will never become Emperor.”
The Prince of Uijeong ended his words with resolute conviction. His gaze fixed upon her carried an unmistakable clarity of will.
It was an unwavering stance that seemed out of place in so loathsome a situation as a struggle for the Imperial Throne.

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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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