The Male Lead Is Trying To Tame Me With Money - Chapter 161

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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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161.

Bang-!

At the same time as Casian’s words, the Emperor struck the armrest forcefully.

With his face turning red and blue, he spoke loudly.

“Don’t speak such nonsense, Casian! You know very well that you have other duties, don’t you!”

“Of course I know, which is why I’m telling you this, Your Majesty.”

But Casian spoke quietly without the slightest waver.

“Have I ever failed to faithfully carry out the orders Your Majesty has given me?”

He recited only the truth without any embellishment.

“I willingly went to battlefields where I had to risk my life, and I took on all the difficult inspections that were too troublesome to entrust to others.”

At those words, the Emperor fell silent for a moment.

No, not just the Emperor, but also the nobles who had opened their mouths as if to dissuade Casian from his bombshell declaration.

Almost everyone knew that the reason Casian could be in this position was because he had persistently survived.

Especially those who had sided with the Zamoti Concubine and argued that Casian should be sent to the battlefield to serve God and receive forgiveness.

Originally, most of this Imperial Court hadn’t thought until just a few years ago that Casian would ascend to the crown prince position.

No, there probably weren’t any people who thought he would survive to adulthood.

They had predicted he would either die on the battlefield or be eliminated by the former Zamoti Concubine.

So whether they suffered without us or not, there was no reason for me to be considerate.

Hadn’t they comfortably postponed the work they should have done originally while we were here?

Recently it had become even more ridiculous.

Important tasks they had held off on, claiming the workload would be too burdensome if started, were being brought out one by one over the past few months as Casian became a candidate for crown prince.

It was a situation where they could naturally dump it on the Winter Palace if they just did a little initial work.

‘Let them try entering the grave they dug themselves.’

So we could be even more confident in front of them.

Casian ignored the gazes of nobles who were signaling him to please withdraw, and spoke to the Emperor again.

“I truly don’t understand what duty I’m neglecting that makes Your Majesty so angry. Since you granted me the Liarden Duchy, I’m merely trying to fulfill my responsibilities. Also, now I too.”

Casian’s violet eyes looked clearly at the Emperor.

It seemed as if the red light that Maribel had passed down was rippling in those pupils.

“Isn’t it time for me to fulfill my duty as my mother’s son?”

“Casian!”

At those words, the Emperor’s face, which had been rippling with various colors, turned pale white.

“Are you blaming me now!”

Reacting like that was tantamount to admitting guilt with his own mouth.

“I don’t understand how fulfilling my duty as my mother’s son becomes blaming Your Majesty.”

At Casian’s words, the other nobles also showed puzzled expressions.

Of course, they quickly managed their expressions due to the Emperor’s discomfort.

The Emperor quickly sat down heavily with an ‘oh no’ expression and showed a dark face.

Holding his forehead, he let out a deep sigh.

“Casian, you… I don’t know what you heard in Riedern, but do you really think your mother, Bel, would be happy about this?”

Then, completely withdrawing the angry voice from moments before, he showed eyes filled with regret.

The gaze looking into empty space conveyed tenderness and sorrow, enough to make innocent people tear up just from that sight.

No, even me from about a year ago might have felt somewhat sorry for him.

‘He really is remarkable.’

But now I felt not the slightest emotion.

Because I had seen that face, seemingly filled with sincerity, countless times in the past shown by the scroll.

The Emperor had recited love to Maribel with such an expression, sworn protection, and shaken her heart.

Thanks to those scenes, I could understand everything.

All of that was the Emperor’s most earnest acting, learned to survive in the Imperial Court that was more complex than ever.

Indeed, several nobles were somewhat over-immersed and focusing on the Emperor’s story.

“I also have no intention of leaving Riedern, which Bel loved, as it is. I understand completely that admirable heart of yours, wanting to protect the land of she who closed her eyes, as her only son. But Casian…”

The Emperor looked at Casian with eyes that seemed to suppress all emotion.

“Thinking of her whom I loved most and who sacrificed for this Imperial Court, why don’t you understand my heart wanting to give what’s natural to you, her only remaining son, to you who has the greatest legitimacy?”

At the heartfelt words, some of the soft-hearted nobles actually reddened their eyes.

“So withdraw even now. If you become crown prince and become someone who honors Bel’s sacrifice and takes care of Riedern, wouldn’t the estate’s people be even happier!”

Honoring sacrifice – what ridiculous words.

We looked at the Emperor without hiding our growing coldness inside.

At our reaction, the Emperor’s eyes wavered.

His expression seemed to ask why we weren’t readily accepting when he had said this much and even given justification.

“Casian…! Will you really persist like this? Even when I’m giving you this opportunity! After how hard I worked to give you the crown prince position completely, will you act like such a child?”

The Emperor stamped his foot with a bang, speaking to Casian as if his insides were burning.

At that voice, Casian took a deep breath and opened his tightly closed mouth again.

“Was that really my position?”

“…What?”

“Do you really want to say that it was a position meant for me, Your Majesty?”

“If not then-“

Casian’s hand trembled.

I gripped that hand tightly so he wouldn’t be lonely.

So that his tender heart wouldn’t waver before the Emperor.

So that he would no longer be deceived by the Emperor’s words with sleepless eyes.

Casian briefly met my eyes, then soon raised his head toward the Emperor again with firm resolve.

“It wasn’t like that for me. Didn’t Your Majesty say so directly? That you would spare my life, so I should not forget my place and live quietly. Surely you haven’t forgotten.”

At Casian’s words, the Emperor’s mouth fell open, unable to make any sound.

No, the entire hall had lost their words.

*

‘Live quietly. Then I can keep you breathing. Though your mother left me with great wounds…’

‘…Do you really think mother did wrong, Your Majesty?’

The words from the Emperor, who had summoned Casian after he survived several poisoning attempts, were very heartless.

Without even properly looking at Casian’s face, he spoke in a voice devoid of emotion.

‘That’s not an important fact for us now. I will still let you live, and sparing the bloodline of Riedern was the best mercy.’

‘The wet nurse said mother loved only Your Majesty.’

‘…I know. But Casian, I am Emperor before being your father and your mother’s husband. So you too should live quietly. If you survive, someday there will come a day when you can be at peace.’

While planning revenge against the Emperor, Casian and I had many conversations.

He said if he had heard those words before I made the promise of a thousand nights, he would have shut himself away in the Winter Palace.

Even if Empress Trisha offered a helping hand, he would have refused and chosen to go to his mother’s side.

‘So don’t cry, Rose. I was trying to say I’m alive thanks to Rose, and also… I only said it because I’m willing to expose our shame if His Majesty tries to hold us back. It will definitely help.’

‘You say painful things too casually. It makes me so sad that such things have become nothing to you.’

And it was too bitter that Casian said he would use that wound, which must have left painful scars, to eliminate uncertainty before us.

Since Casian treated it as nothing, I thought I should embrace him all the more.

The Emperor’s emotional attacks seemed all the more pathetic.

How annoying.

Casian Artez had buried even the fact that it hurt somewhere in order to survive.

Yet the Emperor pretended to be bitter and sad?

That was truly turning the tables.

Casian opened his mouth again quietly in the hall filled with silence.

“So I want to go to Riedern and live quietly as Your Majesty commanded. According to my station, taking care of the land my mother loved.”

At Casian’s voice, the other nobles’ faces turned ashen.

“Surely you won’t say that even wanting the land my mother wished to leave me doesn’t suit my station.”

At the following words, not one person could even move their lips to dissuade him.

The feeling that the future looked bleak was palpable.

Because anyone could see there was no one other than Casian who could handle state affairs well in the future.

No, even the matters I had brought up expecting the Winter Palace to handle immediately, not in some distant future, were the same.

The advisors of the Sun Palace could only stare at each other helplessly at this thunderbolt from the blue.

“Then, our work is….”

“If the Winter Palace won’t do it for us, we’ll practically be stepping into hell.”

However, the Emperor did not give up easily.

He too was well aware of how mountainous the workload would be once we left.

“Salice Advisor, are you satisfied with this? If you leave for Riedern County like this, you’ll never be able to reach the highest position.”

The Emperor spoke as if he were giving me an opportunity.

Moreover, for some reason, the gaze he sent me was suggestive.

How could he send me a signal like ‘you know what I mean’ as if trying to break through this situation.

For the first time in a while, I thought the Emperor had done something good.

Giving me a proper chance to speak.

“Of course I’m not satisfied.”

Naturally, I should eagerly accept and make the most of it.

At my confident answer, Casian clicked his tongue briefly as if predicting the Emperor’s future, while the person who had misjudged my character superficially.

“That’s right, I knew you would say that.”

He welcomed it like someone who had found a way to survive.

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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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