Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 232

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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 232

“Will you have no regrets?”
“What?”
“Your Majesty.”
Adrian surveyed the Imperial Palace grounds before him—a sight he’d glimpsed earlier that day.
In truth, it was half a hell.
People see only what they know, and the nobility knew nothing—so they simply stood upright, oblivious. It was easier that way.
Cleo seemed to believe she controlled all her own people, but that wasn’t the case. Illian, the High Priest, said he’d grown so sick he couldn’t bear to enter the Palace anymore—as for the rest, what more was there to say? But the Emperor’s own attendants hadn’t escaped unscathed. Only the Emperor himself remained clean.
If his attendants made mistakes they’d never made before, if their speech shifted even slightly—any person of conscience would notice, would care.
But the Emperor, when his attendants made unfamiliar errors, grew angry and replaced them. When their speech changed, he paid no attention.
Just as during his walks, he never questioned which blade of grass was cleaner, or which was a deeper green.
So he couldn’t possibly imagine his own life being trampled like that same lawn beneath someone’s feet.
“Will you regret it, Your Majesty, if I leave the Palace?”
“Who says anyone regrets anything!”
“I’m sure you won’t, Your Majesty.”
Adrian and Adrian’s enemy waited together for a countdown only the Emperor couldn’t hear.
Adrian studied Cleo. Familiar hatred burned in her eyes.
An ancient, bitter rage emanated from the baseless charges she’d hurled—charges no dog would deserve.
Ah, so that was it.
Cleo believed that Adrian was the reason she’d abandoned Brian—the real Brian.
The Emperor’s eldest, who loved women and wine, who struck his inferiors without restraint—the one Adrian had warned once, only to be denied. The fool of a brother who’d believed his own mother would never abandon him as she had Adrian.
Brian’s true expulsion from the Palace stemmed from his irreverence toward the late Crown Princess Valentina, but Cleo, enslaved by her own guilt, had chosen instead to transfer her sins to others. It was laughable.
“Your Majesty.”
So this was, in truth, a farewell.
“I don’t know if the day will ever come when Your Majesty might truly ‘forgive’ this unworthy son. So I take my leave now.”
Here, for just a moment, the Emperor felt something instinctively amiss.
When had Adrian ever worn such a cold expression? Dared he do so before the Emperor himself?
Had his shoulders ever stood so rigid?
Hair like sunlight spilling over wheat fields in autumn. Eyes dark as moss clinging to a cliff’s edge. A smile sharp as a blade.
This was not the bearing of a prince cast out and abandoned by his father.
The Emperor had expected Adrian to beg.
He’d expected him to bow, to plead forgiveness. But when he remained stiff and unbending to the end, the Emperor felt only anger.
Shouldn’t a son obey his father, obey his Emperor? One word from me and your head would roll! You cursed fool, who doesn’t even fear for your own neck. What good is your judgment?
No, I was right. I was never wrong.
“May you live ten thousand years, Your Majesty.”
And so the prince left the Palace alive.
It was noon on a day when the sun burned so bright that shadows, too, fell heavy and dark.

* * *

Lisianthus slowly lifted his head.

Raymond was dressed, as always, with impeccable tidiness. Yet his eyes held an oddly frigid temperature as they rested on Titania and Lisianthus.
At the sight of such a Raymond, Lisianthus let out a throaty laugh.
“That’s only because the leash hasn’t been put on yet.”
“…….”
Titania’s anxious green eyes flicked toward both men. Lisianthus, making a show of it, took hold of Titania’s finger and placed it back atop his head.
“Badly behaved beasts need proper discipline. It’s the owner’s responsibility if they don’t get it.”
He addressed the words to Titania, but his gaze remained fixed on Raymond. The meaning behind those blood-red eyes was not lost on him.
What will you do about it?
Provocation? Perhaps.
Titania didn’t know it, but every word Lisianthus had thrown her way was sincere.
He would wear a noose if she asked. He would heel. He would bark. If she locked him in some cramped kennel and told him to look at nothing but her for the rest of his life, he would laugh and welcome it.
But the moment Titania heard anything remotely similar, she would tremble and cry out: ‘Why would you voluntarily surrender your rights?! You have two hands and two feet—why act as though you only have legs?! No, wait, our good dog friends would never accept such unreasonable treatment either, so this metaphor doesn’t even make sense!’
Raymond knew the abyss that pooled deep within his own chest.
Which is why he was curious.
What would he do if Lisianthus coveted Titania? Would he snap at him, demanding how he dared? Would he break his arm? Or—
“Jemina will be jealous, I suppose. You should establish a clear hierarchy among your pets.”
—would he treat Lisianthus as nothing more than a common dog, with perfect composure and certainty?
When Raymond delivered those words with a calm face, Titania’s expression hardened. Lisianthus’s face twisted oddly.
“……I’m sorry?”
To Titania’s repeated question, Raymond answered as if the matter were of no consequence.
“Since Jemina is small, if you’ve housed them together carelessly, she’ll be attacked. You’ll need to ensure Jemina is established as higher in rank and cannot be harmed. Shall I help with that?”
Since you claim to be a dog, I’ll treat you like one.
That was what his demeanor suggested.
The ruby-red eyes that had burned with various hues went blank for a moment. If Lisianthus answered ‘You’d really do that for me?’, he would have done exactly that.
“…….”
“Keep separate sleeping areas. To prevent accidents. If you need a leash that can’t be broken or a muzzle, I’ll have one made.”
“I don’t have any weird hobbies like that! You two are actually insane!”
Titania snapped back to herself and bolted upright. The force sent Lisianthus tumbling halfway off the sofa—thud—and onto the floor.
Under normal circumstances, Titania would have apologized, asked if he was all right. Instead, her cheeks burned crimson as she huffed with indignation. More than that, she kicked him.
With a sharp sound, Lisianthus let out an ‘Ow!’ so obviously theatrical that Titania seemed only angrier. So she kicked him again.
This time he didn’t even cry out, just twisted his limbs like a squid sizzling on hot coals.
Titania jabbed a finger at him, her voice rough with fury.
“If you want to be a dog so badly, go ask someone else to treat you like one!”
Then she turned to Raymond and unleashed all her pent-up stress in a thunderous shout.
“No! I’m not adopting dogs or people or any of this nonsense! Stop with all the dog business!”
With that, she stormed out of the room. She was in such a hurry that her foot nearly tangled as she stumbled, but she managed to catch her balance and vanished.
Lisianthus, still sprawled where he’d fallen, rubbed at his ribs where Titania had planted her kicks. He watched her go with the expression of a hunter lamenting prey that had escaped his trap.
“Ugh, she ran off, didn’t she, brother? What are we supposed to do now?”
“If you were truly a dog, you’d never let her go.”
“……What?”
The smile that had flickered across Lisianthus’s face—a mixture of provocation and competitive hunger—faded instantly.
Raymond, looking down at him, resembled a marble statue long left to gather mud, grime coating every pristine surface.
“Bite her ankle. Never let go.”
“……Hey, brother. Are you serious?”
Lisianthus slowly pushed himself up. He ran a rough hand through his own hair. The face revealed was saturated with unease.
“Now you’re saying you’ll concede? With that face? Those eyes?”
“Concede?”
Raymond’s lips twisted strangely.
“Does this sound like something so convenient to you?”
Lisianthus opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it.
For just an instant, Raymond seemed like something demonic. Like a wolf that loved sheep.
A wolf whose hunger had gnawed away at its insides until they were soft and rotting, yet who bit down on its own fangs to prevent even a drop of saliva from falling on those soft fleeces. A wolf watching its white flock disappear among the white, clawing at dirt with its own nails, enduring. Like a fox beside it lifting its head slightly and asking, ‘Why didn’t you eat that sheep?’ Like wanting to bite that fox’s throat instead.
Like how, after a wolf devours a lamb, the fox comes to eat the scraps—how a wolf longs to gnaw on that fox’s neck instead.
“Whether it’s god or death or the Imperial Family itself—as long as you’re certain nothing will take her from you, nothing else matters. At least you’re good at one thing: clamping down on one thing and never letting go, no matter how senseless it gets.”
“Wow, my brother. You really do see me as a proper dog.”
“And?”
Raymond lowered his gaze to look down at Lisianthus. In the shadow he cast, his eyes gleamed like a crescent moon blade of gold.
“At least a dog protects its master.”
“…….”
“Isn’t that right?”
There was no answer.
Yet they both already knew the answer.

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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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