Royal Coup d'État - Chapter 4

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 4
Autumn had scarcely arrived when the flowers in the gardens of Byeolgung bloomed in full splendor. Yi Yeol, the Grand Prince of Uijeong, wandered through the Huwon with each blossom imprinting itself upon his eyes.
It was early morning, before the world stirred awake—a habit he’d cherished since childhood, walking the gardens in solitude.
Now more than ever, as he stood before the tempest of the Crown Prince’s death, he could not forgo this ritual.
Born the youngest son of Emperor Yi Yun, wanting for nothing in his upbringing, the Grand Prince had always loved to walk alone—peacefully, quietly.
A sparrow startled at his approach, fluttering up to the rooftop with a whir of wings. In that flutter, a memory he’d nearly buried resurfaced.
That terrible day of the accident. The day he’d had to part with a cherished brother and nephew. The day he’d nearly lost his only daughter as well. His skin still crawled whenever those moments returned to him.
“Father?”
His silence broke at the small voice. A smile touched his lips.
“When did you arrive? I didn’t hear you come up.”
“After midnight. The hour was late, so I came in quietly. But what brings you out at such an hour yourself?”
At the appearance of his only child—his daughter without a son—the lingering ghosts in his mind dissolved like mist. She stood beside him with a soft smile.
“My thoughts wouldn’t settle. Sleep came and went quickly.”
“That would be understandable.”
A bitter edge touched his mouth. He, too, had lost family. Only two days had passed since his elder brother’s accident—that pillar of strength. For a lifetime lived as nobility, pretense came easily enough; yet the decay festering in his heart beneath could not be concealed.
“Grandmother has entrusted me with a task.”
The moment his daughter spoke, dismay flickered across his face—a change so visible that even she noticed.
“Father, it’s all right. I’m hardly a child anymore.”
Yi Yeol could not bear to lose her. She was his only child. Just as he had lost his brother, he could not lose her. And so, even now at seven-and-twenty, he kept her treasured in his arms. The encroaching dread made him unsteady.
“Much will change.”
“Yes, it will.”
She answered without emotion. His gaze fell upon her, then withdrew.
“Do not add to your mother’s worries.”
“Mother worries so much regardless.”
She spoke as her smile grew fainter and fainter.
No matter how the Imperial Household had narrowed its distance from the people, limits remained. Marriage, for instance.
They no longer issued Selection Edicts as they once had, selecting companions with fanfare. Instead, they chose from houses already proven—from among the nouveau aristocracy, those of sufficient social standing and birth, if not of the Imperial blood itself.
Yet Song, her mother, had been different. She came from the same family as a former Empress, though she was no close relation, and her house was in modest circumstances. And before marriage, she had been—
“I still can’t believe Mother was an actress. They say that world is just as cutthroat as the palace.”
A former actress who had worked in the entertainment industry—called a star of her generation, or so they said. Yet watching her mother, tears so easily pooling at her eyes, it was difficult to imagine she had ever belonged to such a world.
“Strength isn’t the only way to endure.”
Yi Yeol’s voice softened slightly.
Their love marriage—defying the protocols of the Imperial Household—remained a topic of conversation even now, thirty years later. As with all eras, dramatic romance draws the eye.
“Be considerate toward your mother. She lived a life far different from ours.”
“I understand that, Father. But can one defy an Imperial Decree?”
Yi Yeol’s sigh stretched long.
His daughter, eerily like himself, weighed on his heart.
Had he been younger, he would have spoken the same words.
That as nobility, he must obey the Emperor’s will. But the naive youth who had never tasted the pain of loss seemed to overlap with her now.
Yet there was one crucial difference between his daughter and himself.
At seven-and-twenty, Yi Yeol had never known the bitter ache of losing what mattered most. At seven-and-twenty, his daughter had tasted that ache since childhood. And that was an eternal regret—that he could not stop her.
“Then, what task did Grandmother entrust to you?”
Yi Yeol asked, swallowing his dread. He had managed to compose his face, though his lips still twitched with barely suppressed worry. His daughter glanced at him, then looked away as though she had seen nothing.
“Grandmother says there were suspicious circumstances surrounding Uncle’s accident.”
“What did you say?”
Before his daughter finished speaking, Yi Yeol stepped backward—as though he’d glimpsed a ghost clawing from the grave. His eyes shook with terror.
“That… that cannot be.”
His daughter watched his denial in silence, then continued.
“I’m afraid too, Father.”
A thin, barely perceptible smile hung at her lips.
“I couldn’t help but understand why Grandmother entrusted this to me.”
In that moment, the same face passed through both their minds—a man with ready laughter and playful jest, one who brought joy to those around him.
“Sun. I will speak to Grandmother about this.”
A foreboding seized Yi Yeol, and he spoke hurriedly. Urgency showed in his features.
“It’s too dangerous.”
“Father, you feel the same way.”
Her smile twisted. An ugly smile spread across her face—as though a long-rotting, warped, contorted heart had found expression.
“Perhaps I should have died that day, Father.”
“Sun!”
“Yet only I remain alive, and I’m here. That must mean I’m meant to uncover the truth.”
Yi Yeol reached out and fingered the petals, letting them brush against her fingertips as they swayed in the breeze. Yes—that day, trapped in the overturned car, beyond the shattered window, past the heels of those black shoes, there had been flowers. Cosmos. The symbol of autumn.
“I was a dreamer until I was seven years old. You remember, don’t you? Some days I wanted to be a nurse, other days an astronaut. And there were days I said I’d become an actress, just like Mother.”
Her voice carried no tremor as she spoke, as if recounting someone else’s story with perfect composure.
“But after that day, when I was seven, I couldn’t dream anymore. I had to carry the weight of two lives on my shoulders.”
“You didn’t have to do that—”
“I had no choice. I was the only one who lived.”
Yi Yeol kept her hand among the petals a moment longer before withdrawing her arm. Her fingertips felt empty without their caress.
“From that day on, my dream became revenge. To kill the Third Uncle, to find the man who killed Cheongsung Hyeonju—that was my only dream.”
“Yi Yeol, Yi Yeol.”
“And if that man really was involved in Father’s accident too—”
“No, no!”
Yi Yun erupted, his voice sharp with alarm. His eyes darted nervously around them, afraid someone might hear.
Byeolgung was merely a space under the Royal Household Administration—nowhere he could truly feel safe.
He was terrified someone might be hiding nearby, eavesdropping, stealing the fragile peace he’d barely found.
“It was an accident. An accident!”
Unlike her father, who trembled with fear, Yi Yeol remained composed.
“I’m different, Father. I won’t end up like the Third Uncle.”
There was steel in her voice as she spoke.
She was terrifyingly like him in so many ways, yet in moments like this, utterly foreign. Even in his blood-hot youth, Yi Yun had known fear, had learned to bow to the direction power flowed. But Yi Yeol did not. She did not surrender truth even when afraid. She had carried her burning desire for years without letting it dim for a single moment. And if this was her last chance, she would not let it slip away.
That tile his grandfather had forced into his hand might well become the poison that destroyed his daughter’s life. Knowing all of this, she showed no sign of backing down.
“I won’t pretend not to know what I already know.”
“Yi Yeol.”
Yi Yun called to his daughter, his eyes drowning in despair.
“The reason I’ve endured and held back against the Second Uncle all this time is because we have no proof, and I didn’t want to turn against him hastily. After all, he outranks me and is far my elder.”
When that name—the one he’d dreaded hearing—finally came, Yi Yun’s face drained of all color. As he trembled visibly, Yi Yeol watched him quietly, then let a thin smile settle into her features.
“But Father. If the Second Uncle orchestrated this too—”
“Yi Yeol!”
“I won’t stand idle.”
She made her declaration standing before her father, who called her name as if screaming.
Her eyes shone brighter than ever before. Yi Yun found himself stripped of all resistance, his mouth simply closing shut.
He understood it well. A person with eyes like those could never be stopped.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————