Since I’m a Time-Limited Princess Who Has No Tomorrow - Chapter 18

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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 18
“…My lady, what are you doing here?”
“There were so many spider webs on the eaves… I was cleaning them.”
“Why would you be doing that yourself…?”
The Crown Prince trailed off, his gaze sweeping over me from head to toe—my skirts hiked up to their fullest extent, perched on An-si’s shoulders like a thoughtless child.
“Put me down!”
I tapped An-si’s arm urgently. She lowered me gently and smoothed out my disheveled hem.
I cleared my throat and changed the subject.
“And what are you doing here, Your Highness?”
“This is my chambers.”
“Oh, right.”
As I stood there gaping at him, the Crown Prince covered his mouth and turned away. His shoulders trembled visibly.
“…Don’t laugh.”
“My apologies.”
The Crown Prince quickly stifled his laughter and bowed to me.
His apology only made it worse….
‘I fell asleep eating in front of him on the wedding night too.’
At this rate, I deserved to be treated like a child. I buried my flushed face in my hands and sighed. Then the Crown Prince called to me, his voice still tinged with suppressed laughter.
“My lady.”
“Yes?”
“I was actually looking for you.”
“You were?”
I lifted my head, and the Crown Prince, leaning out from the window, gestured for me to come closer. As I approached, he asked in a low voice.
“That blonde attendant in the back—she’s your personal attendant, isn’t she? Can you trust her?”
“Yes, she’s someone I trust more than anyone. Her name is An-si.”
“Good. I’ve arranged a way for you to escape. Flee with that attendant tonight.”
“…What?”
Why would I need to escape?
Staring at him in bewilderment, the Crown Prince reached out his hand, then withdrew it just before touching me. It seemed he’d started to pat my head absently before catching himself in alarm.
“…You’re in danger if you remain in the Palace. Leave tonight, immediately.”
The Crown Prince’s expression was utterly grave. I looked up at him, puzzled, and asked.
“Is this because of the attack?”
“An attack?”
The young man’s eyes widened.
What? Kim Sang-gung knew about it, but he didn’t? It was about his own wife? The Uigeum Bureau had already mobilized?
‘No one told him, apparently. He really is helpless.’
Then he wouldn’t have heard that I’d agreed to treat the Queen either.
‘But he’s arranged an escape route in just half a day?’
Something felt off.
I rose on my toes and whispered in the Crown Prince’s ear.
“Your Highness, what do you mean by a way for me to escape the Palace?”
“My eunuch has bribed a soldier who will guide you. You need only exit through the side gate. I’ve also arranged for someone to guide you to the Harbor beyond the Palace walls, so you need only follow them….”
An eunuch. Through Yup-gyeong’s eyes, I recalled the image of an eunuch commanding assassins. Of course, there were countless eunuchs within the Palace, but to receive word quickly enough to prepare and dispatch assassins the moment I finished my courtesy visit and left….
“Is that eunuch the person Your Highness trusts most?”
“Yes. He is the one who has not abandoned me despite my condition.”
“Does he always stay by Your Highness’s side?”
“He does. Due to my constitution, he cannot remain close, but if I pull the signal cord, he comes at once.”
“To prepare all of that in half a day while guarding Your Highness’s side—he must be quite remarkable.”
“He is resourceful. His connections run deep as well.”
“Then he surely must have heard about my attack this morning…. It seems he deliberately didn’t inform Your Highness. Perhaps he didn’t want you to worry?”
As I tilted my head with feigned innocence, the Crown Prince’s complexion shifted. Though he was still young and easily deceived by adults, he appeared clever enough to grasp my meaning immediately.
The Crown Prince asked me with a face drained of all color.
“You were attacked, my lady?”
“Ah, yes. But it’s fine—I wasn’t injured.”
“That’s hardly the point!”
The boy raised his voice. His anxious eyes swept across the surroundings before he continued with agitation.
“You should leave the Palace as soon as the sun sets. Until then, stay in Unyeon Hall—no, Jamnyong Hall. My adjacent chamber would be best. If I’m watching over you, no one will be able to approach you…”
I cut off the Crown Prince’s increasingly frantic words and asked as if frightened.
“Your Highness, could you call that eunuch now? I’d like to meet him and ask some detailed questions.”
“Since you’ll be leaving together, it would be wise to see his face beforehand. I’ll pull the signal cord—wait for him on the Main Veranda.”
“Yes.”
Not that I intended to memorize his face or had any thought of leaving, but I nodded and headed toward the Main Veranda. An-si and I sat on the veranda for a moment before an eunuch entered the inner courtyard of Jamnyong Hall.
“Your Highness, you called for me… Ah, the Crown Princess is here as well.”
Upon spotting me, the eunuch bowed respectfully. I smiled faintly.
‘How easily I found him.’
I had already seen his face through Yup-gyeong’s eyes. Yes, only someone constantly attached to the Crown Prince’s side would immediately know I hadn’t died, would hear of my courtesy visit right away, and would dispatch assassins without delay.
‘Perhaps he had prepared assassins to send to me if the Crown Prince refused to enter the Bridal Chamber?’
The Crown Prince had peacefully entered the Bridal Chamber and felt reassured, but when I didn’t die and emerged alive, did he panic and send the assassins?
‘Let me verify this.’
[An-si, block the sound here with wind so nothing escapes.]
[Yes, Your Highness.]
When I stared at him without even acknowledging his greeting, the eunuch laughed awkwardly.
“Crown Princess, is there something you wish to ask me?”
“There is.”
“Please ask. I will answer anything.”
“Never mind.”
From now on, I’ll be asking your life directly.
“…Gasp….”
I opened the Thousand-Year Eye.
The eunuch’s face went deathly pale in an instant, and cold sweat poured from him like rain. Though terror-stricken and trembling, he could neither flee nor avert his gaze from me.
“Ugh… ugh….”
As time dragged on, the eunuch’s mouth began to foam.
‘Perhaps the weight of his sins runs deep—he’s far weaker than that maid from yesterday.’
I withdrew the Heavenly Eye just before his eyes rolled back into his skull.
“Retch! Retch!”
The eunuch collapsed forward, retching violently. Humans truly endured the Heavenly Eye far worse than immortals, and the more stained with sin, the swifter their breaking point. I gazed down at the senseless eunuch with cold indifference.
‘He’s lived such a filthy existence.’
This man had deliberately remained at the Crown Prince’s side at the behest of whoever paid him from the shadows. He whispered honeyed words to the young Crown Prince, claiming he alone remained loyal, earning his trust—yet never once did he act in the Crown Prince’s true interest.
He severed all communication between the King and the Crown Prince, ensuring no one could reach the Crown Prince without passing through him. He spread rumors that the Crown Prince was a deranged monster, even fabricating tales of cannibalism.
The Crown Prince, fearing he might harm others, refused to leave his chambers, avoided keeping anyone nearby, endured his meals growing sparse and his residence crumbling into ruin—all while bearing his suffering in guilty silence.
‘He watched the boy struggle so desperately not to hurt anyone, all while reporting every detail of the Crown Prince’s nature to his masters as if cataloging a beast.’
The Crown Prince only discovered that his darkness fed upon human fear and grew from it because this eunuch had conducted countless experiments trying to understand the “monster’s” nature.
‘And then he’d bring people to the Crown Prince, only to later torment him with guilt, claiming he’d harmed them again.’
Knowing the boy was virtuous and bound by duty, he exploited that nobility mercilessly.
‘He drove every other eunuch to madness or exile, dismissed the wet nurses long ago, and with no one to stop him, he embezzled the entire East Palace budget and even stole the boy’s food allowance.’
No wonder the East Palace had fallen into such a deplorable state.
My suspicions about the assassins proved correct as well. The one who prepared and sent the assassins was the eunuch’s backer. The eunuch’s role was to confirm whether the Crown Prince entered the Bridal Chamber and report it to the assassins.
Since the Crown Prince did enter that night, there was no need for the assassins to strike then, but they remained on standby until morning just in case.
‘Because I became Se-ru-hwa, that one-in-a-million possibility actually occurred.’
Faced with this unexpected turn of events, the eunuch immediately sent the assassins, but I’d already paid my morning respects and foiled their plan. As they prepared to withdraw, the eunuch told them to wait and strike when I emerged from the Central Palace Hall—and well, you know what happened after that.
‘So he’s been receiving his punishment until just now.’
The attack in the Bamboo Grove was the eunuch’s independent decision. His backer was furious.
The goal wasn’t simply to kill me—it was to kill me and frame the Crown Prince for it. What good was attacking me in a place where the Crown Prince wasn’t even present?
‘Now that I think about it, the attack was far too brazen.’
So this matter had a different backer than the assassination of Se-ru-hwa the night before the wedding.
“Do you think it’s easy to cover up an investigation by the Uigeum Bureau?!”
“I have committed a grave error, Left Prime Minister….”
The eunuch’s desperate plea to his furious master.
The backer behind this morning’s attack was the Left Prime Minister of this realm.
‘The Left Prime Minister—that means Wan-eon’s faction.’
Thousand-Year Fox, or rather Seok-ran, had explained it to me. Wan-eon was the Crown Prince’s cousin and the current Left Prime Minister’s grandson—the one with the highest likelihood of becoming the next Crown Prince. The man paying this eunuch was the faction leader himself, the Left Prime Minister. He stood to gain only if the Crown Prince were executed for murdering the princess.
‘If I’m to give the Crown Prince a proper life, I’ll need to eliminate that faction anyway. This works out well.’
‘But then, who truly orchestrated Se-ru-hwa’s death?’
At first, I’d assumed it was someone willing to sacrifice Se-ru-hwa to save the Crown Prince, but tracing through this eunuch’s entire history, I found no such person.
‘Was it truly a conspiracy targeting the King?’
I’d need to summon Seok-ran and adjust my investigation’s direction.
“Your Majesty, the wretch has lost consciousness. What shall we do?”
“Wake him.”
“As you command.”
An-si approached the collapsed eunuch, saw the vomit, and wrinkled her nose in disgust. Unwilling to touch him directly, she seized him with a gust of wind and lifted him into the air, shaking him violently. At this rate, he’d vomit again.
“Ugh…!”
As expected, the Eunuch retched violently the moment his eyes opened. His complexion had turned a sickly gray—he looked like death itself.
Regardless, An-si turned to me with a bright, cheerful smile.
“I’ve awakened him, Your Majesty!”
“…Yes, well done. Cover that mess with some sand or something and clean it up.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
An-si summoned a breeze to scatter sand over the Eunuch’s vomit and dried his soaked clothes with a gust of wind. In moments, he looked presentable again.
Now I needed to reveal this man’s true identity to the Crown Prince.
‘To discover that the trusted adult he’s relied upon is such a creature… it’s a harsh truth to inflict upon a child.’
But I couldn’t keep him in the dark forever.

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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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