Since I’m a Time-Limited Princess Who Has No Tomorrow - Chapter 24

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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 24
I thrust the prescription and gold ingot into Choi Ja-myeong’s arms as she stood before me, then pointed toward the door.
“Now go.”
“…Crown Princess, I…”
“That’s enough. I’m going to read, so don’t bother me and leave at once.”
As I waved my hand dismissively, Choi Ja-myeong looked down at the prescription, her eyes glistening with tears.
“Crown Princess, this kindness… I will never forget it.”
“It’s not my kindness—it’s your good fortune. Now will you leave, or must I ask again?”
“No, of course not.”
At my stern expression, Choi Ja-myeong scrambled to her feet and hurried toward the door. She paused at the threshold, turned back, and bowed deeply before leaving the room.
At last, I could read in peace.
I opened the book, but the characters wouldn’t focus. The image of Choi Ja-myeong’s tear-stained face as she thanked me lingered in my mind. Then came the memory of Xiao-hua’s farewell smile, the Crown Prince’s dazed expression when I suggested we practice together, and Seol Deung-hwa’s reaction when I promised her vengeance.
‘My heart is racing. This is such a strange feeling…’
It was unfamiliar, yet not unpleasant. What would I call this? Joy? Satisfaction? Delight?
Was this feeling born because I was helping someone with my own strength for the first time? It was as though a small, glimmering star were ripening within my chest.
‘…I should look into whether the other palace attendants are facing hardships as well. I need to adapt quickly to my role as Crown Princess and help the Crown Prince properly too.’
With that resolve, the words finally came into focus. I carefully reviewed the roster of palace attendants, then reached for the law codes and ceremonial records that Kim Sang-gung and the attendants had left stacked nearby.
* * *
“Your Highness?”
Lost in my reading, I only noticed An-si’s voice when she returned from her errand.
“Oh, you’re back?”
I looked up as An-si entered through the window, folding her wings with a bewildered expression.
“Didn’t Your Highness come down to the Mortal Realm to do everything you wanted while your body was healthy?”
“That’s right. Why?”
“Then why are you studying…?”
“Because I wanted to.”
“Pardon? Studying? Didn’t you mean to enjoy yourself?”
“I’ve already tried lying around and relaxing—it got boring. I want to do things I haven’t tried yet.”
“So what you wanted to do in the Mortal Realm was study?”
“No, I want to try other things too. There’s so much I want to learn.”
“But learning is just studying, isn’t it?”
“Hmm? I suppose you’re right. Then let’s say I want to do all sorts of different kinds of studying.”
“If An-si had to live like Your Highness, my head would explode.”
“That’s only because you force yourself when studying. If you did it because you wanted to, you’d see how fun studying can be.”
“Yes, yes…? Your Highness is always right, but… you’re right, you’re right, but… that’s just…”
An-si made a face of utter distaste. I laughed and checked the time.
“Oh no!”
“Your Highness? What’s wrong?”
“I’m late!”
I’ve been meeting the Crown Prince every day lately in the rear garden of Jamnyong Hall to help him practice controlling darkness, and I’ve completely missed our appointed time!
I tossed the book aside and leaped to my feet with urgency. Without hesitation, I dashed across the corridor between Unyeon Hall and Jamnyong Hall toward Jamnyong Hall.
“Huff, huff, wheeze…”
The moment I reached the back courtyard, gasping for breath, An-si—whose breathing remained perfectly composed—scrutinized me with a grumble.
“Please do not exert yourself over a mere human. I am deeply concerned.”
“This body is not strained by such exertion. But where has he gone?”
Did he grow tired of waiting and retreat to his chambers?
As I surveyed the empty back courtyard and peered through the window, An-si’s eyes narrowed, and she pointed toward the main gate of Jamnyong Hall.
“I hear human voices from that direction—more than one.”
“Hmm? What’s happening? Let’s go see.”
There was no one who should be visiting the Crown Prince. At present, he had no eunuchs or guards attending him, and his education as Crown Prince had ceased entirely.
‘The East Palace roster was completely empty. Not a single instructor from the Crown Prince’s Educational Institute remained.’
In name alone, he was Crown Prince—in reality, treated as nothing more than a confined criminal. Of course, no one came or went.
As I hurried toward the main gate, an absurd scene unfolded before me.
“Oh my, my apologies, Your Highness.”
“…”
“I had no idea that such scraps scattered about the street were Your Highness’s meal, so I, your elder, made a careless mistake.”
A tall boy with a still-youthful face turned to his followers with a grin, gesturing toward himself.
“I thought it was dog food. Wasn’t it?”
“Since it lay so carelessly upon the dirt ground, it is understandable that Lord Wan-eon might mistake it for dog food.”
“You see? You heard that, didn’t you, Your Highness? You mustn’t resent me for doing this intentionally, yes?”
The one spouting such nonsense was—
‘So that’s Wan-eon.’
A boy as contemptible in appearance as he was in speech looked down at the Crown Prince with his head bowed. Between them lay an overturned wooden tray. It must have originally been placed before the main gate, but whether kicked by a foot or not, dishes lay scattered everywhere, and rice, side dishes, and soup were strewn across the ground in utter disarray.
‘So the Crown Prince’s meals are left like this on the ground before the main gate?’
Does he retrieve it himself at the appointed time? And why are the side dishes so meager? The soup appears to have no ingredients at all?
The treatment is absolutely abhorrent. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been deposed.
‘Confined to the East Palace, his education halted, his meals served in such a manner… If they intend to treat him this way, they might as well depose him outright.’
In any case, Wan-eon had deliberately kicked over the tray and was now making a spectacle of himself. My blood boiled watching it, yet the Crown Prince showed little reaction—whether from restraint or habit, I could not tell.
The Crown Prince, who had been staring silently at the overturned tray, lifted his head. Wan-eon exaggerated a step backward, flailing his arms dramatically.
“Oh, how frightening.”
“…”
“Your Highness, surely you don’t intend to drive me mad with rage over a small mistake? As though I were some monster, not human?”
“…”
“I do enjoy sleeping, but I have no wish to sleep for two years straight like the Queen.”
“…!”
“Do not look at me that way—it frightens me. Unlike Your Highness, I do not possess the audacity to commit such depravity and walk about with my head held high.”
The Crown Prince, who seemed about to protest, fell silent at these words. The clenched fists of the young boy trembled visibly.
Wan-eon shrugged toward his companions and continued his tirade.
“Were I in your position, I would feel such shame that I would hang myself. Yet Your Highness…”
I could not bear to watch this any longer.
I approached the Main Gate with measured steps. Those who heard my footfalls turned to look at me. The Crown Prince appeared flustered, while Wan-eon began to whistle.
“My lady.”
“Silver-haired child, no less—surely you’re the Crown Princess? Even lovelier than I’d heard. If you continue to grow as you are, you’ll become quite the beauty to my taste.”
The Crown Prince, who had remained silent until now, responded sharply to Wan-eon’s snickering remarks.
“Brother, she is the Crown Princess. Please conduct yourself with propriety.”
“What have I done wrong? Ah, is it the form of address? As my younger brother’s wife, wouldn’t it be proper for me to call her sister-in-law?”
“My lady, please go inside.”
“That’s too much, Your Highness. We’ve only just met—surely you can spare a moment for a greeting? We’re family now, after all. And there’s something I wished to discuss.”
“What could you possibly have to discuss with the Crown Princess’s Palace?”
“Well, the Uigeum Bureau suspects my maternal grandfather of orchestrating the assassins who attacked my sister-in-law. That man of such integrity and virtue.”
“….”
“My grandfather is beside himself with indignation. Truly, they believe the baseless words of some lowly eunuch and make such wild accusations. So I thought, should my sister-in-law harbor any misunderstanding, perhaps I could clear it up myself.”
How is every word that falls from his mouth so perfectly polished? There’s nothing to fault in it.
[My lady, how dare he speak so carelessly of the Princess! I’ll tear his mouth right off—]
[No, An-si, please. Just bear with it a moment. He’s human, after all. You must endure.]
Emotionally, I agree with An-si, but solving things that way won’t do.
As I tried to step forward to soothe the agitated An-si, the Crown Prince took a step and extended his arm, drawing me behind him.
Is he trying to protect me right now? This tiny thing? Goodness.
“That’s not something for you to do, Brother. Please leave.”
“My, it seems you’re newlyweds? To see the young Crown Prince already grown, shielding his wife—it warms this older brother’s heart. Wouldn’t your parents be pleased to see such devotion?”
I had remained still for a moment, touched by the boy’s protective gesture, but I truly cannot endure any more. I slipped out from beneath the Crown Prince’s arm and looked up at Wan-eon, opening my mouth.
“If Lord Wan-eon cannot even distinguish between dog food and human food, how do you manage to discern whether His Highness respects his parents or not?”
Wan-eon’s words caught in his throat for a moment before he let out a bitter laugh.
“…What? A child who cannot tell heaven from earth, flapping her mouth about—”
“I wonder which of us truly cannot tell heaven from earth right now. A member of the royal family who hasn’t even entered the Palace nor received proper investiture, yet carries himself so brazenly before His Highness the Crown Prince.”
The current King and Queen had only one child together: the Crown Prince, Cheon Gyeol-u, and there had never been a concubine. Yet Wan-eon, who was older than the Crown Prince, existed and was considered a likely candidate for the next Crown Prince—the circumstances were quite complex.
‘Seok-ran explained it to me.’
When the current King was still a prince, the Crown Prince was not the present King but his older brother, Crown Prince Kangon. This Crown Prince Kangon was no ordinary ruffian—there were even discussions of his deposition. Yet even as such discussions circulated, he could not cease his debauchery, and he leaped a wall to assault a noble maiden, who happened to be the Left Prime Minister’s illegitimate daughter.
The Left Prime Minister, rather than expose Crown Prince Kangon’s assault, sought to make his illegitimate daughter the Crown Princess, thus becoming the Crown Prince’s father-in-law. Though she was born of a concubine, she was the Left Prime Minister’s child and had even conceived the Crown Prince’s offspring, so there was possibility.
But before the deposition discussions or the Crown Princess discussions could conclude, Crown Prince Kangon went boating and drowned. Thus the current King naturally became Crown Prince, and the Left Prime Minister’s illegitimate daughter never entered the Palace. The child she bore outside the Palace walls was Wan-eon.
‘In summary, he’s the illegitimate and posthumous child of Crown Prince Kangon, the current King’s older brother.’
His name was Cheon Jin-u, and at fifteen, he was four years older than the Crown Prince. Because he was the child of the deceased Crown Prince—around whom deposition discussions had swirled—born outside the Palace, Wan-eon had never properly entered the Palace nor received legitimate investiture. Yet his status as Crown Prince Kangon’s only son was acknowledged, and through the Left Prime Minister’s influence, he was registered in the Royal Genealogy Registry under the title Wan-eon (完彥君).
‘Before the Crown Prince became regent, he couldn’t even come and go from the Palace.’
My words struck a nerve, and Wan-eon’s complexion flushed crimson in an instant.
“Who says I didn’t receive proper investiture? I am Wan-eon, the legitimate and eldest son of Crown Prince Kangon! I am properly registered in the Royal Genealogy Registry!”
“I understood that the title of Grand Prince is reserved for legitimate royal sons. Since you are neither legitimate nor a royal son, Lord Wan-eon, you cannot be called a Grand Prince, can you?”
“You impudent little wretch!”
Wan-eon raised his palm with furious intent.

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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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