Since I’m a Time-Limited Princess Who Has No Tomorrow - Chapter 73

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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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Chapter 73
[The journey back to the Capital of Pyeong was uneventful. But then…]
Upon arrival, the atmosphere in the Imperial Palace was strangely unsettled. The Emperor had brought Seol Deung-hwa back, yet he never once sought her out.
[The human Emperor didn’t set foot in the Harem for several months.]
Seol Deung-hwa, who had been sharpening her resolve for revenge against the Emperor, fell into despair. Though called the Harem, it was essentially captivity—her status forbade her from venturing outside. Confined within the Imperial Palace, she spent her days growing visibly more melancholic and hollow.
[So I secretly took my lady out to breathe the fresh air.]
The large fox puffed out its chest proudly. Its expression seemed to say, ‘I did well, didn’t I? I’m a good fox deserving of merit points, aren’t I?’
I suppressed my laughter and spoke.
“Then you must have grown quite close to Seol Deung-hwa.”
[Yes! My lady turned out to be surprisingly curious and proactive. Spending time together brought me joy too. She gradually became more at ease, and her expression brightened! I rarely saw her smile, but it was so beautiful that I wanted to make her laugh more!]
Seok-juk grinned widely and poured out words in a rush. Seok-ran, observing from the side, made an enigmatic expression and sniffed the air.
“Something reeks. A foul stench.”
“What kind of smell?”
“A rotting odor the young princess can’t detect. It’s a scent I normally enjoy, but seeing my brother act like that is disgusting. Ugh.”
Seok-ran made a retching sound.
What? Why is she acting like that? Seok-juk frowned, equally bewildered by his sister’s behavior.
[Why is sister making vomiting sounds at a perfectly fine demon?]
“Do you not realize what you just did, little brother?”
[What did I do! The princess asked me about my lady, so I simply told her about her!]
“…If this were someone else’s business, it might be amusing. But this is my brother we’re talking about. How troubling…”
Seok-ran pressed her front paw to her forehead and shook her head.
I observed the two of them curiously, then asked Seok-juk.
“By the way, why do you call Seol Deung-hwa ‘my lady’? I don’t recall asking you to serve her.”
[We made a wager while out playing. If I won, my lady would call me master. If I lost, I would call her my lady… My lady was so wise that I ended up losing.]
He spoke of losing the wager, yet why did he look so pleased? He seemed absolutely delighted.
Seok-ran, witnessing Seok-juk’s expression, covered both her eyes with her front paws as if unable to bear the sight.
“I can’t watch this. Ugh.”
[What’s been bothering sister since earlier?]
“Do you realize what you and that human woman are doing right now?”
[Can’t you see? We’re escaping from the Imperial Palace!]
“You understand nothing. You said you’d become a Heavenly Official and buried yourself in the mountains to cultivate the Way. I should have known you’d end up like this. Hehehehe. Your future looks bleak—do your best.”
Seok-ran, unwilling to meddle further, flopped down on the floor. She rested only her front paws lazily on the fox orb.
What on earth was she talking about? I blinked blankly like the fox on the screen, then simply changed the subject.
“Anyway, did you manage to find out why the Imperial Palace atmosphere was like that?”
[The Imperial Palace is full of sorcery and there are an unusually large number of demons roaming about, so I couldn’t investigate thoroughly. I had to focus on not being discovered while pretending to be an ordinary pet fox.]
Seok-juk sighed deeply and added.
[From what I overheard, it seemed the Crown Prince of Pyeong was the problem.]
“The Crown Prince of Pyeong?”
When I gazed into Se-ru-hwa’s entire life through karma, I had seen the Crown Prince of Pyeong. Though Se-ru-hwa was treated so poorly she could barely get enough to eat, as an imperial princess she was still dragged to important ceremonies and frequently saw the faces of the imperial family.
‘The Crown Prince… a grown human who stumbled over the ritual prayers at a ceremony and suddenly collapsed.’
I recall wondering if there was something wrong with her, some innate affliction she carried.
Seok-juk tilted his fox ears uncertainly as he spoke.
[I’ve heard rumors that the Crown Prince has changed somehow, and that the Emperor fears him. I don’t know the details, but it’s certain the atmosphere has grown strange because of the Crown Prince.]
The Emperor fears his own son? That is peculiar, though upon reflection, it’s ultimately another kingdom’s affair. I chose to live as the Crown Princess of Yun, so I have no interest in the intimate secrets of the Pyeong Imperial Family. Unless it were a matter grave enough to affect Yun itself.
“So how did the assassination succeed?”
[Four nights ago, the Emperor suddenly came in the dead of night.]
Seok-juk continued, his brow furrowing slightly with displeasure.
[I told her that if she wasn’t prepared, I would stop him myself. But she said the day she’d been waiting for had finally come, so I kept watch from outside.]
The day she’d been waiting for. I recall Seol Deung-hwa’s answer to my offer to do anything for her—those eyes burning with pale blue flames.
“Please kill the Emperor.”
“If you truly can do anything, please kill the Emperor.”
“The method doesn’t matter. I just hope he dies knowing that he’s being killed for what he did… that it’s the vengeance of Se-ru-hwa, of me, of the Xue Tribe.”
I cannot fathom what depths of feeling she harbored as she waited and prepared for the Emperor’s arrival—only that it must have been profound and fierce beyond my comprehension.
[Inside, that Emperor shouted, then pleaded, then screamed and made a terrible commotion. I cast a spell to contain the sound and waited.]
“You didn’t hear what the Emperor was saying?”
[It didn’t seem proper to listen in on her. When she feels relieved later, she can tell me herself if she wishes.]
As an aspirant to the Heavenly Official order, he clearly bore the marks of disciplined cultivation. I was nodding in approval when Seok-ran, clutching her fox orb as she lay sprawled out, let out such a heavy sigh that it made an audible sound.
“It’s over, it’s done. Her nose got completely pierced in the meantime.”
Seok-juk seemed to have decided to ignore Seok-ran’s grumbling and simply continued his account.
[After she said she was finished, I went in and arranged things so nothing would look suspicious. Then I watched her play dead before waiting outside the entire Imperial Palace.]
“There was no risk of the corpse being desecrated—through mutilation or cremation?”
This had been my greatest concern in the assassination plan. I feared that Seol Deung-hwa’s body, deliberately rendered in a death-like state, might be subjected to intentional desecration. If that happened, she would not awaken and would truly die.
‘The main reason I sent Seok-juk along as a guard was for this—to prevent any unforeseen calamity.’
[I kept watching the whole time, but fortunately no such crisis occurred.]
As anticipated, Seol Deung-hwa’s corpse received the punishment of being abandoned in a field. Seok-juk, who was waiting, managed to slip away with her body without incident.
The problem arose after Seol Deung-hwa safely awakened.
[It was my mistake, ahem.]
Seok-juk’s ears drooped as he continued dejectedly.
[There were precious items she asked me to bring when leaving the Imperial Palace, and I forgot one.]
“What did you forget?”
[It was the swaddling clothes that she had made with her own hands and dressed Se-ru-hwa in.]
….
I was momentarily at a loss for words.
Swaddling clothes—the first garment a newborn wears. Parents and grandparents make them by hand, tying long threads in place of ribbons to wish the child health and longevity. Once placed on the infant, they are believed to hold the child’s destiny and are never carelessly handled or discarded. They are treasured carefully, and when the child grows and faces important trials like the civil service examination, they are sometimes sewn into clothing as talismans.
‘Seol Deung-hwa… she didn’t want to look at Se-ru-hwa properly right after giving birth.’
A child born from violation by an enemy.
Seol Deung-hwa had given the child only a sorrowful name—Tear Flower—and tried never to look upon her again. She thought the cursed Pyeong royalty and palace attendants would raise her.
But despite being a princess, no one cared for the infant at all. Abandoned even by her mother, watching the baby cry with hunger until her voice grew hoarse, Seol Deung-hwa finally offered her breast.
And then she made swaddling clothes with her own hands for the naked child. As the cherished daughter of a clan leader, it was the first garment she had ever made.
“Because I dressed her in the swaddling clothes so late… and because I made them so clumsily and poorly… I sometimes wonder if that’s why Xiao-hua left us so soon.”
It was a story I had heard while visiting Seol Deung-hwa to teach her how to read the threads of fate. …To think she left behind such garments—this was indeed Seok-juk’s mistake.
[So I hid the lady away and snuck back into the Imperial Palace to search for the swaddling clothes… and on the way out, I ran straight into some kind of creature. What terrible luck.]
Seok-juk shuddered violently, as though he wished never to recall the memory again.
[On the surface, it looked like just a human with white hair, but the face was unnaturally youthful and pale… Those eyes, the gaze was truly terrifying.]
“What sort of creature was it?”

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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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