Royal Coup d'État - Chapter 62

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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 62
Whoosh—
The sound of wind carried through the receiver. Sun felt the consideration hidden beneath his silence and placed a hand over her heart.
Whenever he called like this, whenever their conversation unfolded in this manner, there had never been good news. This time would likely be no different.
Still, she mustn’t panic. Whatever it was, she would accept it calmly first.
Sun’s resolve circled through her mind.
—Hyun-ju.
Tae-o called her name again. Worry seeped from his unusually lowered voice—an emotion so thick she could feel it without seeing him.
“What is it?”
Sun asked in a measured tone. Yet her jaw was growing rigid, and she couldn’t stop it.
At her prodding, Tae-o finally spoke. She could hear him suppressing his voice, as if deliberately keeping it unhurried.
—Uijeong Daegun has been attacked.
“Hah.”
Sun exhaled sharply.
It was far worse than she had anticipated. Her grip loosened, and her hand holding the mobile phone dropped below her chin.
Breathe.
Sun took a deep breath.
Even if Father had been attacked, if it had been a grave accident threatening his life, she would have learned of it first through the Royal Household Administration, not from Tae-o.
So it wasn’t the worst possible situation. That terrible fate—losing Father—had not yet come to pass.
Having steadied herself, Sun gripped the mobile phone tighter. Her pale knuckles stood out sharply against the back of her hand.
Bringing the phone back to her ear, Sun asked calmly.
“What happened?”
—Just before he boarded the vehicle, someone wielding a weapon rushed at him. He was arrested on the spot, and fortunately, Uijeong Daegun received only minor cuts to his hands while blocking the weapon.
Tae-o explained the situation with composure.
Fortunately, the Security Forces had quickly noticed the man with the weapon, and by the time Uijeong Daegun shielded his face, the arrest was successful—major harm had been averted.
There had been witnesses among the citizens, but no journalists had been shadowing Uijeong Daegun, so the media could be controlled to some degree, and the good news was that he was being transported to Suhakwon Hospital.
Yet a dark shadow fell across Sun’s face.
“My Uncle orchestrated this.”
—However, the damage this time was not severe. It’s being said the perpetrator was an anti-monarchy activist.
“No. I’m certain my Uncle engineered this to pressure me.”
Sun pressed her lips together firmly. Even Seok Cheol, sitting across from her, showed signs of unease.
Uiggu Daegun hadn’t killed Uijeong Daegun this time not because he couldn’t, but because he judged it wasn’t worth it. Showing me Father under attack would be threat enough without having to go that far.
But she couldn’t afford to be fooled again. She couldn’t let things unfold according to Uiggu Daegun’s design. She needed to act decisively, to prevent him from touching the people around her again.
“Will a separate task force be formed for this incident?”
—Even though the injuries aren’t severe, since it involved an attack on a member of the Imperial family, they likely will.
“Then could we possibly bring Father’s case to our investigation team?”
—Do you already have a method in mind?
At Tae-o’s question, Sun exhaled lightly.
“The bigger this becomes, the better for us. As soon as the attack story breaks, we release our own statement. Say it’s believed to be the work of the same perpetrator.”
—Pardon?
Tae-o repeated the words in disbelief.
—But the evidence…….
“The supporting evidence will emerge. It always does.”
Sun spoke with certainty.
This time, Uiggu Daegun had been careless—uncharacteristically so. The pressure tactics were familiar to him, but he’d struck with too much haste. It meant he was furious, unable to endure—and it also meant that if dug into properly, gaps would inevitably appear.
“There are already quite a few people online suspecting Uiggu Daegun. I’ve lived in the Imperial institution long enough to know how a small suspicion can ignite a raging fire.”
—…….
“At a time when people already suspect him of murdering the Crown Prince, if rumors spread that he also orchestrated attacks on his younger brother, even Uiggu Daegun won’t be able to clean up the mess so easily.”
That image—Uiggu Daegun drowning in public condemnation—was something Sun had to witness before she died.
* * *
Splash!
Uiggu Daegun’s expression darkened as he flipped rapidly through the tablet in the bathtub.
Before long, the tablet in his hands flew toward the bathroom floor at high speed. The crashing sound of the screen shattering against marble echoed, yet his expression showed no sign of easing.
The Junior Advisor reporting the situation went deathly pale. What lay scattered on the floor now was merely a tablet, but soon it could be him.
“Ahem.”
The Chief Aide standing beside him with hands clasped behind his back gave a signal to the junior. It was a gesture to leave.
The Junior Advisor, scarcely breathing, scrambled backward out of the room in panic. Uiggu Daegun, indifferent to whether he left or not, merely exhaled in fury.
“That infuriating wretch.”
With eyes burning hot with rage, he looked out the window. That woman installed so prettily in Changdeokgung Palace infuriated and enraged him.
“How dare she. Call me a murderer?”
Uiggu Daegun still saw the internet post from moments ago so vividly before his eyes that he ground his teeth with an ugly, snarling sound. It was rare for him to lose control of his emotions like this. The fact that Tae-o was his nephew kept pushing him toward the brink.
Infuriatingly, the adoption registration had already been completed without his knowledge, and as the Crown Prince’s adopted heir, Tae-o had even been granted Inwon Hall—the very palace the Emperor cherished most. And there he was, with blood already on his hands, all to prevent the boy from becoming an adopted heir!
Unable to believe they’d been beaten by a single step, he’d struck his brother in haste. It wasn’t that he’d meant to kill him. Death would have been fine. Uijeong Daegun had become a useless pawn by then, and all that mattered was that Gyeong-an Gun would be frightened enough to back down.
But he hadn’t been badly injured, and the perpetrator was arrested almost immediately.
The person the Junior Advisor had saved—his name wouldn’t be called out directly, but a sudden dread washed over Uiggu Daegun.
“I acted for the Imperial institution! I am the Imperial institution! To create a better Imperial institution!”
Uiggu Daegun shrieked with pathological desperation.
News of the attack on Uijeong Daegun spread, and not long after, an announcement came that the Crown Prince Incident Investigation Task Force would also be handling this case. He’d tried to intervene through people he’d planted in the National Police Agency, but once a rumor had spread that far, it was beyond his power to bury it.
The internet. That cursed thing was the problem.
The rumors that spread with frightening speed while Uiggu Daegun was still scrambling soon swelled into claims that he was both the true culprit in the Crown Prince’s murder and the mastermind behind the attack on Uijeong Daegun.
There would be no way to connect him to it immediately. This attack had been hastily prepared, but the Crown Prince incident—that had been meticulously covered up, hadn’t it?
And yet Uiggu Daegun felt the creeping urgency. Anxiety flooded through him like water breaching a dam, a paralysis as complete as being trapped in a bathtub full of cooling, foam-laden water.
“That girl is growing faster than I expected.”
Uiggu Daegun ground his teeth and muttered.
He hadn’t underestimated Gyeong-an Gun from the start.
When the Crown Prince delayed naming his adopted heir, he’d even anticipated that his choice lay not with Gyeong-an Gun but with Gyeong-an Gun—then decided she wasn’t worth the trouble. Because at the time, he’d judged there was no value in touching her.
Gyeong-an Gun was the daughter of the cowardly Uijeong Daegun.
Even if she was quick to read the room and had a stubborn streak, she seemed to have no particular ambitions. And whenever she encountered him, she always avoided confrontation, backing down quietly whenever there was friction—he’d simply thought she was like her father.
But the problem was the Emperor. That old man had stirred something in Gyeong-an Gun.
He never could have imagined seeing such a light in that girl’s eyes. A gaze burning hot with determination. It reminded him of Uiyoung Daegun in his younger days.
It was unsettling and uncomfortable. He should have acted before that feeling surfaced, before the adoption was ever made public.
To make matters worse, Mirae Motors had also started dragging its feet on the marriage arrangements recently. It seemed they’d caught the scent of something ominous—when rumors spread that Gyeong-an Gun had her hands in the vehicle investigation, they’d grown wary with uncanny precision.
‘Nothing’s going right!’
Endless regret enveloped Uiggu Daegun.
“How is Father’s health these days?”
The Chief Aide finally answered, as if he’d been waiting for the question directed at him.
“According to the Royal Medical Office, he has at most ten years left.”
“Tsk. The old man certainly knows how to endure.”
Uiggu Daegun clicked his tongue with displeasure.
His plan was simple: before the Emperor passed, he would keep the Crown Prince incident appropriately buried, then succeed to his father’s throne as the Imperial family member first in the line of succession.
Until then, he would carefully manage public opinion while taking complete control of the Imperial family’s internal affairs, ensuring no one defected.
If he could just manage that, the rest wouldn’t be difficult. Even with succession rights currently suspended, if the Emperor passed away at an opportune moment, everything would be resolved easily.
“You can’t overturn a table already set.”
Uiggu Daegun’s eyes grew dark and sinister.
Perhaps because he’d thought it was a matter requiring no attention at all, he’d let his guard down and suffered the consequences.
While Uiggu Daegun had been at ease, Gyeong-an Gun had become the Crown Prince’s adopted heir—no longer the daughter of a cowardly younger brother. She was now a rival threatening the very position he’d coveted for decades.
Uiggu Daegun’s fingers, which had been tapping the edge of the bathtub, went still.
“I’ll have to break her before her ambitions grow any larger. By whatever means necessary.”
His voice, low and hollow, echoed through the bathroom. It was the cold resolve of a hunter who had lived to devour the Imperial institution for so long.

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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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