The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 23

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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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The Forsaken Crown Prince’s Ghost Bride — Episode 23

[That makes even less sense! If they’re twins, they were born on the same day at the same hour! Why is only Lucian treated like leftover rice!]
“Twins are a symbol of abundance and good fortune! How can humans be so cruel!”
The two grew quiet at the sound of whimpering drifting from the room.
They moved further away from the door.
[Why twins? Wouldn’t that be better? The Imperial Family said children are precious. Especially if two sons were born at the same time — wouldn’t that be even better?]
“I have no idea. Maybe humans have some kind of superstition against it?”
Hmm.
Lia and Kaizar crossed their arms, thinking hard. But they couldn’t find a clear answer.
One was a ghost who couldn’t leave the mansion, the other a hatchling with no interest in the human world.
Something hidden was clearly at work.
“I’ll look into it later.”
[Good. Let me know as soon as you find out. How long will you stay here?]
“I’d say about a month, maybe?”
For a dragon’s lifespan, it seemed absurdly short, but without even having undergone the Adult Dragon Ceremony yet, this was the maximum time he could spend alone without any guardians.
Any longer and his parents and the elders would throw a fit.
[Wait, didn’t you mention a Birth Celebration earlier?]
“Oh? Right, I did. It must be the Crown Prince’s Birth Celebration… wait?”]
The Crown Prince and Lucian were twins.
Which meant their birthdays were the same.
Realizing this new fact, Lia and Kaizar floundered.
[You, you…! When did you find that out!]
“Well… it was… ah! My parents and I left on the same day I came here! They told me the celebration is a week later and I need to go help prepare!”]
Kaizar said he’d arrived here yesterday evening, and it took two days to get here.
So by the time tonight passed, five days would already be gone.
[Exactly two days left then.]
“Don’t humans care much about birthdays?”
[…I don’t know either.]
I’d only know if I’d watched the humans who lived here celebrate their own.
They’d all ended their lives alone, so of course there was no one to celebrate their birthdays.
From the fairytales and novels though, birthdays always seemed to be important events, so it must be a significant day.
“That boy lit up just from going to the Village. Did you see him eating the Candy?”]
I saw it clearly.
He’d been so amazed that something this delicious existed, sharing a piece with Kaizar and wanting to give some to Lia too, his eyes shining the whole time.
Had such a child ever actually been celebrated for a birthday, or tasted Cake before?
[Whatever a birthday celebration is, I have to make sure it’s a day he won’t forget.]
“If you need anything, just say the word! I’ll help with whatever you need!”]
Lia watched as Kaizar clenched his fists and fluttered his wings excitedly.
[…Weren’t you saying humans were a nuisance?]
Kaizar’s wings froze mid-flap. His body gradually lowered until his feet touched the ground, and only then did his eyes tremble like aftershocks.
[Besides, you’ve only known Lucian for four days.]
Of course a lot had happened in those short days.
Kaizar had rescued Lucian, healed him. They’d hit it off so well they couldn’t stop talking, gone to the Village on errands.
And the great Kaizar had even fumbled through comforting a crying child.
Kaizar seemed to feel something odd in Lia’s words, his expression growing confused.
It was that subtle look of wanting to argue back but being unable to do so.
“Ugh…! Fine, whatever! If I want to do it, I’ll do it — what does it matter if he’s human or not!”]
[Sounds like you’ve been thinking about this a lot.]
“That’s not it! I just… ah, I’m just doing it because I feel sorry for him!”]
[Sure, I’ll believe that.]
“No, really! I’m only helping him for a little while! Even if he’s human, Lucian is still Lucian!”]
Did this little dragon even understand what he was saying?
Whether from pride or some other reason, he wouldn’t easily admit to feeling kindness toward a human. Yet he hadn’t said he wouldn’t do it either.
Either way, he’d clearly grown attached to Lucian.

* * *

The next morning, Lia and Kaizar threw themselves into preparing Lucian’s birthday party.
Judging from how normal Lucian seemed, he’d apparently forgotten his own birthday.
It was convenient for them, but at the same time, it felt heartbreaking that he couldn’t even remember his own birthday—something that came only once a year.
Lia and Kaizar took turns watching over Lucian while searching for what people normally did on birthdays.
Their only option was to flip through the library books.
[Parties, parties, fireworks, masquerades…?]
No matter how many books they searched, everything seemed useless.
[Still, we could at least do Cake and gifts.]
Just then, Kaizar had brought back a new cookbook. There was definitely a recipe for a two-tier Cake in it, wasn’t there?
Beyond the Cake, they’d need to make other delicious things too, but with Lucian around, it was nearly impossible to hide food preparations from his eyes.
[We have most of the ingredients anyway.]
But how could they prepare the birthday party while keeping it hidden from Lucian?
“Please… help me….”
“I am the Emperor!”]
Along with Kaizar’s agonized cry, an excited Lucian appeared. The two had dressed themselves head to toe with various items found in the storage room.
From the way he was swinging a Wooden Sword while declaring himself Emperor, it seemed they were roleplaying.
The plot hardly needed explaining.
“Ah! There’s my beloved Witch!”]
He must have been recreating the fairytale “The King, the Dragon, and the Witch.”
Seeing Lucian’s bright eyes gazing at her, Lia chuckled. She scooped him up and rescued the nearly collapsing Kaizar.
[Lucian, that’s hard on Kaizar.]
“But you said dragons are super strong.”]
Kaizar seemed to choke up at that, sprawled on the ground and gasping. But he couldn’t bring himself to argue.
The way his jade-green eyes wavered aimlessly suggested he feared that if he said the wrong thing, Lucian would torment him again.
“Ugh, I don’t know! I’m tired! You try carrying someone your own size around for an hour!”]
To be fair, Kaizar letting Lucian ride on his back and play for nearly an hour was nothing short of miraculous.
“I’m not playing with you anymore!”]
…Which seemed to be ending right now.
At Kaizar’s outburst, Lucian’s face fell. But Kaizar, thoroughly annoyed, turned away with a huff.
Lucian watched Kaizar carefully and whispered to Lia.
“Did I do something wrong?”]
[Well, I’d say so, though maybe not entirely? Not everyone has stamina like you.]
“But I’m the weakest here.”]
A ghost who could lift everything with Magic, and Kaizar, who despite his small size was still a dragon. Compared to them, Lucian was frail beyond measure.
Of course, there was a subtle difference between the stamina Lia was referring to and the strength Lucian meant.
Rather than explain further, Lia simply brushed it off and offered him a new game. He seemed delighted and immediately ran over to Kaizar.
“Let’s play a sleeping game next.”]
“You want to play again?!”]
“This time, whoever falls asleep fastest wins! It’s super easy, right?”]
Kaizar, about to protest, sensed something odd and tilted his head. When he looked at Lia, she made a gesture telling him to just go along with it.
Understanding her signal, Kaizar reluctantly headed upstairs with him.
About ten minutes later, a deflated Kaizar stumbled back down.
[Is Lucian asleep?]
“He wouldn’t stop chattering, so I made him sleep.”
[…You didn’t use physical force, did you?]
“What do you mean. Of course I used Magic to put him to sleep.”
For a moment Lia thought he’d knocked Lucian unconscious out of anger.
“After all this work, you better have some kind of plan.”
[Of course. I’ve been planning this whole thing.]
Lia shared her surprise party plan for tomorrow.
First, they’d set up a table in the Backyard, drape it with a tablecloth, and decorate with various flowers before arranging all sorts of dishes.
Since birthdays were meant to be celebrated by many people, they’d animate statues and suits of armor to fill out the numbers and make it less empty.
With gifts prepared on top of that, they’d have a proper birthday party.
[There’s one problem though.]
“What’s that?”]
[How do we distract Lucian while we’re preparing?]
“Hmm….”
[If we’re cooking and setting up tables in the garden, it’ll be too obvious. Is there any way to do it secretly?]
“Do it at dawn.”
[Didn’t you just forget the party is in the evening?]
“Oh, right.”
Hmm.
Both Lia and Kaizar wracked their brains in thought.
“What about sending Lucian on an errand to the Village?”]
[Ooh?]
“We need to pick up his Shoes anyway, which were being fitted.”
The timing worked perfectly. Not only that, but if they sent him on various other errands too, it would serve as practice for him before his trip to the Village — exactly ideal.
“Have you thought about what gift to give him?”]
[Hmm… still deciding. What about you?]
“I’ll give him one of the treasures from my Subspace.”
Since when did this one become so generous? He never let anyone touch his things.
And a dragon’s Subspace, even for a hatchling, would contain all manner of gold and jewels.
If a dragon was giving such a grand gift, she couldn’t give something shabby as his bride.
Lia pondered carefully what would make a good gift.

* * *

“Move faster!”]
“I said move it to the other side, not that one!”]
“Not even a hair’s breadth of error. If you mess up, it’s wages docked!”]
At the same time, the Imperial Palace was bustling with activity. Among the servants was James.
“How many times do I have to do this?!”]
“This is nothing. Since it’s not just the Crown Prince’s Birth Celebration but the Emperor’s, we have to fix up not just here but Ruby Hall and the Imperial Palace gardens too.”
At his colleague’s words, James reeled back in shock.
After about an hour of running around without a break, the frantic work was finally finished. Now the senior servants just needed to add the finishing touches.
“Phew, exhausting!”]
“Good work. Is this your first big event like this?”]
“Ah, senior. Thank you so much.”]
Completely worn out, James drank the water his senior handed him.
“Really, Imperial Bloodline birthdays are incredible. Do you do this every year?”]
“More or less. Though since the Crown Prince is still young, the scale is smaller than it could be.”
“…He hasn’t even entered society yet and it’s already like this.”]
“It can’t be helped. The Imperial Family is desperate for heirs. When is a son born to the Imperial Bloodline, anyway? That’s why the Emperor granted the Crown Prince his title immediately upon birth, wouldn’t you say?”]
As the senior said, the Imperial Family desperately needed children. It wasn’t easy to have them regardless of gender, and since only males could inherit Imperial power, at least one son was absolutely necessary.
Previous emperors had brought in not just empresses but multiple imperial consorts specifically to secure heirs.
In their desperation to secure Imperial Bloodline children, sometimes too many were born, leading to horrific succession struggles.
According to history, such conflicts occurred almost every other generation.
James’s mouth suddenly went dry. He was thinking of Lucian, who looked identical to the Crown Prince.
At first he’d accepted Lucian as merely an orphan who happened to resemble the Crown Prince, but when he visited recently, he felt something subtly amiss.
It was the unalterable marks of Imperial Bloodline.
The marks of Imperial Bloodline were white hair and gold eyes. Among them, the most unchangeable was the vivid gold of the eyes.
There was no way to mistake ordinary yellow eyes for true gold eyes. And an orphan from the street couldn’t possibly have eyes like that.
When he quietly asked around, he learned that using Transformation Magic to take on Imperial Bloodline traits was illegal and punishable by extreme sentence. Besides, even if someone tried, it couldn’t be maintained for more than a week.
As someone who handled supplies, he’d never once seen any drugs or magical artifacts a child might consume or use. Which meant…
‘Those are Lucian’s real features.’
When he’d asked before, Lucian said he was eight years old. And the Crown Prince was also having his eighth Birth Celebration.
Lucian looked suspiciously identical to the Crown Prince. It wasn’t hard to deduce they were twins.
‘There was a reason the chamberlain was being evasive.’
He could understand now why, despite sharing Imperial Bloodline, they’d grown up in such different circumstances and why one had been cast aside.
Twins were a symbol of misfortune and ill omen.
There was a superstition that the only way to prevent that misfortune was for them to consume each other — so typically, the younger twin was killed immediately after birth. Failure to do so would bring demons or witches to destroy the entire family line.
But after encountering Lucian a few times and watching this gentle, kind child, James found it hard to believe in such superstitions.
‘If the Crown Prince’s birthday is tomorrow, then Lucian’s is too.’
Would anyone be there to celebrate Lucian’s birthday, left alone in the Ghost Mansion?
“Um, senior.”]
“Yeah?”]
“Will there be enough hands tomorrow, or will it be very busy?”]
“Very busy. Why do you ask?”]
“I was wondering if I could possibly take a break in the middle of the day.”]
“You cheeky brat, already trying to slip away… hmm…”]
The senior stroked his chin pensively, arms crossed.
“Well, you won’t be needed tomorrow anyway. The servants and maids in the hall will be the busiest. You’re just a junior among juniors, so you won’t have much to do. Take the day off.”
“Th-thank you so much!”]
“But understand you won’t get the bonus pay they’re giving tomorrow.”
“Of course! Absolutely!”]
James beamed widely and bowed repeatedly to his senior.
James! If you’ve got nothing to do, help over here!]
“Yes! Senior, I’ll be going now.”]
James hurried over to whoever had called. His senior, watching him dash off so eagerly, tilted his head.
“The bonus is pretty good too. Why give it up?”]
Maybe he’s got a date with his sweetheart?
The senior indulged in idle speculation before heading off to help with the work himself.

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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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