The Baby Who Regressed Refuses Childcare - Chapter 9

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The butler’s expression hardened.

“Don’t you know who this person is? This person is the Crown Prince? The Imperial Crown Prince?”

The butler looked back and forth between me and Crown Prince Tian with a bewildered face.

I forcefully pulled the butler away from the Crown Prince and continued speaking.

“If you treat him carelessly, your head will be cut off at the guillotine!”

“…Wh, what.”

The butler’s mouth gaped open.

I turned back to Crown Prince Tian, leaving him behind.

“Right, Your Highness? This grandfather did something terribly wrong just now, didn’t he?”

When I tightly grasped his ice-cold hands, the Crown Prince, who had been pale as a corpse, stared at me blankly.

“Right? Isn’t that so?”

And only after I asked several more times did he nod.

Very slightly, he moved his head just a little.

But that was enough.

As soon as I saw that, I whipped around to look at the butler again.

“Grandfather, you’re really in big trouble!”

The butler froze in place with a start.

I could feel Tian looking at me too.

I shook my head back and forth and raised my eyebrows.

“Using physical violence against the Crown Prince is a terrible crime of treason.”

“What!”

At the word ‘treason,’ the butler shouted angrily.

He seemed quite flustered, as he didn’t even notice that I had used difficult words like ‘physical violence.’

“That’s not it! I came here on Empress Karin’s orders to escort His Highness! What do you know…!”

I looked at the butler with wide, innocent eyes.

“But grandfather, you’re still just a butler, right? No matter what happens, butlers don’t roughly grab the Crown Prince like that, right? That’s all called insulting the royal family.”

When I mentioned ‘insulting the royal family,’ I felt a little guilty inside.

Because I had also made the slip of calling him ‘deposed prince’ to the Crown Prince just moments ago.

But the butler’s face had already turned deathly pale.

“Th, that’s…!”

“And who told you that if the Empress orders it, you can just grab and drag Crown Prince His Highness around? Crown Prince His Highness ranks higher.”

I slyly turned my gaze away from the butler.

“Really strange, that butler grandfather doesn’t even know that… Even I know that and I’m only four years old.”

And after glancing at him, I muttered quietly.

“He seems kinda ignorant too…”

Butler Jack’s face turned red and blue as he huffed and puffed for a while.

However, he couldn’t say anything more and left the room.

Finally alone in the room with just the two of them.

A small voice reached Tian’s ears as he hunched his shoulders with tension.

“Your Highness. That grandfather was scary, wasn’t he.”

Tian turned his head with a stiff expression.

The silver-haired young girl he had just met for the first time was staring directly at him.

Soon he heard her hurriedly adding:

“Oh, um! But he was scary enough to be scared of! What kind of grandfather is so mean like that?”

Tian’s expression became even more gloomy.

There was nothing wrong with the little one’s words.

Tian was afraid of Jack.

Everything had started on the day his mother passed away.

Tian still clearly remembered what Empress Karin had said that day.

“His Majesty was very disappointed in Crown Prince Your Highness.”

He had never been particularly close to the Empress.

He was simply there as the Crown Prince, and Empress Karin as the Empress, staying together in the palace.

“His Majesty thinks that Your Highness is no different from having killed Her Majesty the Empress.”

But Empress Karin’s eyes that shone jet black that day.

Her white hands that gently stroked the sleeping Emperor’s back.

“You must know that Her Majesty the Empress’s health rapidly deteriorated after giving birth to Your Highness.”

Tian was born a prince and raised in the Imperial Palace.

There was no way he wouldn’t know the stories that circulated about him and his mother in the palace.

That his mother’s health had worsened since giving birth to him,

That because of this, his mother’s body could no longer conceive.

Even the trivial rumors that because of this, his father no longer visited his mother as before.

“His Majesty lost the woman he loved because of Your Highness. If I were His Majesty, I would have immediately banished Your Highness from the palace.”

Empress Karin said this while looking down at the Emperor with calm eyes.

Tian felt his mind go completely blank for the first time in his life.

“Those who earn His Majesty’s hatred don’t survive long in the palace. In this Karin’s view, Your Highness will likely meet the same fate soon.”

Those who were hanged for failing to serve his father properly, those who were banished from the palace for earning his father’s hatred.

Countless people came to mind and disappeared.

Tian’s body trembled.

Now that his mother had passed away and his father hated him.

Tian thought he had become like a beast caught in a trap.

“If you want to live, just stay quiet. In this palace, do absolutely nothing. Only I can turn His Majesty’s heart that hates Your Highness.”

The Emperor sleeping on Empress Karin’s lap looked truly peaceful.

He didn’t look like someone who had just lost the Empress, his wife.

So how could he not nod his head.

Tian was too young and too afraid.

From the moment his mother began to fall ill, Empress Karin had already taken control of the palace.

The Emperor visited the Empress every day, and with the Emperor’s favor behind her, she had nothing to fear.

During this time, many people around Tian had died.

The page boy his own age who brought him food.

The nanny who had cared for him since childhood.

Now that he had lost even his mother, Tian realized he was completely alone in the palace.

His surroundings were already filled entirely with people Karin had placed there.

Butler Jack was one of them.

The books he read, the food he ate.

Even the hours he slept reached Karin’s ears through his mouth.

Tian had once thought it would be nice if he could at least get angry sometime.

However, emotions controlled since childhood knew only fear.

Especially in front of Karin Empress and her minions.

That was why.

When this little kid he’d never seen before blocked his path, it felt like the whole world had stopped.

“Grandpa! What are you doing right now?”

“Don’t you know who this person is? This person is the Crown Prince!”

“Right, Your Highness? This grandpa did something really wrong, didn’t he?”

At those words, his violently beating heart calmed down.

When the young girl turned her head to look at him, his breath caught.

Her sparkling ivory eyes were filled with determination.

Not determination to harm him, but determination to protect him.

It had been so long since he’d experienced that, Tian couldn’t say anything.

“It’s okay now. I told him, didn’t I? That he can’t treat Your Highness rudely.”

Whether she knew his complicated feelings or not, the young girl beside him kept chattering away.

But would that really be the case?

Tian swallowed a sigh.

Butler Jack had always acted similarly to today.

Whenever Tian made a mistake, he would sometimes even raise his hand against him.

Until now, he had never once thought of rebelling against such treatment from Jack.

As Karin Empress had said, he believed that quietly holding his breath was the only way to survive in the palace.

His fear of Jack was the only thing he had learned in his past helplessness.

“Come here.”

Just then, the young girl who had gone to the nightstand beside the bed brought back some white cloth.

And suddenly pressed it against his forehead.

“Wh-what… what are you doing?”

Tian jumped up with a frown.

But the young girl lightly ignored him and frowned herself.

While continuously pressing the cloth firmly against his forehead.

“I’m doing this because you might catch a cold from the cold sweat! Your Highness is really…”

“…”

“…Never mind.”

At the strange pause, Tian immediately protested.

“What? What am I?”

But the young girl just stared at him blankly.

Tian felt somewhat stubborn and pushed away the young girl’s hand.

“Tell me quickly. What did I do…”

Then he stopped speaking.

Because the young girl’s face was much closer than he had expected.

Every time she blinked, her ivory eyes sparkled like glass marbles.

“What did I do…”

His gaze naturally fell to her rosy cheeks below and her small, plump lips.

The young girl had an expression as if she found him hopelessly pathetic.

So it should have been an expression that made him feel somewhat bad…

Tian eventually closed his mouth completely.

Up close, the young girl was incredibly pretty.

It was the first time in his life he’d seen such a beautiful child.

As he rolled his eyes around, the young girl suddenly crossed her arms.

Then she made a serious expression.

“Phew, I won’t hold back, Your Highness.”

Then she gestured toward his upper clothing and said.

“Wait, please take off your shirt for a moment.”

“Wh-what?”

Tian’s face turned bright red.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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