The Villainous Princess Wants to Live in a Gingerbread House - Chapter 91

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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 Villainess Imperial Heir Wants to Live in a Pastry Shop
Chapter 91

“Is that so? Your Majesty believes that? Because she is the daughter of Prince Yuriye, you think her nature must be thus? That she has inherited the temperament of His Highness?”
General Ekaterina seemed to be humoring the Emperor’s jest. It would require impossibly naive optimism to credit that someone born to the Imperial Family harbored no interest in the throne. And in this very moment, the Emperor leaned back deeply into his chair wearing the most serene expression of the entire day.
“I know that Yuriye’s claim of disinterest in the throne was also false.”
With such exceptional talent, he could do anything at all—Yuriye knew this about himself well enough. And a person who knows himself intimately also knows what he desires.
Yet Yuriye had made his choice deliberately, against his own desire: he would not ascend to the seat his brother’s death had vacated. He would give his brother’s share to his brother’s son. Because it was the right thing to do.
But that decision was as agonizing as breaking free from an addiction.
“Yuriye wanted this seat so desperately that he could not remain in Jedo.”
That was why he had fled Jedo, fleeing far away.
“But that child is different. If she resembles either of her parents, it would be her mother. I speak of that nature of hers—knowing clearly what she desires and charging forward toward it alone.”
The Emperor spoke thus and placed a small crescent moon cookie into his mouth. The white, sweet powder dusted across its surface melted upon his tongue, and the cookie crumbled into soft particles the moment he bit down, coating his mouth with delicate texture.
“Then what does that Imperial Heir desire?”
General Ekaterina asked with furrowed brows. The Emperor gestured toward the cookie with his chin.
“Baking pastries.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“She enjoys baking pastries, I’m told. She wishes only to bake them, and takes no interest in anything else. That she cares not even who she is—what more need be said?”
The Emperor indicated the cookie with his chin. General Ekaterina glanced at the pastries—those which the Imperial Heir Anastasia had baked—from which the subtle, sweet fragrance had been rising all this while.
The Emperor’s words ought surely to have been nothing but ridiculous jest, yet they sounded like earnest truth. General Ekaterina slowly placed a crescent moon cookie into her mouth.
In that same moment, Ekaterina recalled a Chasseling Wine she had shared with her grandson not long ago. He had happened upon some fine wine and brought it, whereupon she’d taken a glass and marveled at its taste. For some reason, the moment she tasted this pastry, that pleasant sensation returned to her. And the sky-blue silk ribbon that had hung in the Imperial Heir’s hair.
‘Where had I seen it before….’
It was the ribbon her grandson had commissioned the Butler to procure directly. Ekaterina savored this realization leisurely and placed another cookie in her mouth. The pastry the Imperial Heir had baked was sweet yet carried a warmth all its own.

* * *

The moment Ekaterina returned to the estate, Kalno felt a chill upon seeing her portentous smile.
“I saw her face.”
“Whose, ma’am?”
They had finished their simple, understated dinner and were taking tea together lightly. Kalno was struck by such an intense premonition of impending trouble that he hastily set down his cup.
“The Imperial Heir Anastasia.”
Just as he’d feared.
Kalno thought that had Ekaterina begun with the Imperial Heir Anastasia’s name, he might well have choked on his tea.
“Is that so? I understood you were going to pay your respects to His Majesty….”
“While I was there, she had baked some pastries as a gift for His Majesty.”
“I see.”
Kalno gave brief replies, hoping to let the subject drop, but General Ekaterina would not relent.
“Well, the moment she saw me, she asked: ‘Are you Kalno’s grandmother?’ I was quite startled, I must say.”
“…She does have a sharp eye.”
Kalno conceded. That girl, after all—she could read his mood even with her eyes closed. That she would see this elderly woman for the first time and divine their kinship no longer surprised him.
“In all my years, I never dreamed I would hear someone I was meeting for the first time say I resembled you.”
By General Ekaterina’s own account, the two of them bore little resemblance to one another. The only connection they shared was the violet eyes passed down through the Noishuetter Family line, but even that was scarcely remarkable. There must surely be others in the world with violet eyes besides them.
“Among all of His Majesty’s descendants, I thought none would please me save the Imperial Heir-Designate. Yet this one alone has won my favor.”
“Grandmother.”
Kalno’s brow furrowed. General Ekaterina laughed softly and sipped her tea.
“At His Majesty’s birthday celebration coming soon, we are to compete in the Kerum Game. The condition is that the loser will write a letter to the winner.”
“A letter? What sort of letter?”
“The Imperial Heir asked that the loser write their impressions of the pastries. But when His Majesty asked what would happen if the Imperial Heir lost, they agreed the letter could contain whatever content one wished. Does it not sound amusing?”
Kalno could hazard a guess at how matters had unfolded, and he clicked his tongue inwardly.
“I suspect the two of you will end up writing pastry reviews for one another.”
“Do you think so? But if we play well enough, won’t we have the chance to receive a letter from the Imperial Heir?”
“Why would Grandmother want a letter from the young Imperial Heir?”
“Well. His Majesty seemed to want it very much. But there may be someone else who wants it even more.”
Ekaterina’s eyes narrowed with an enigmatic smile. Kalno’s expression became openly uncomfortable, but Ekaterina’s expression did not change.

* * *

Pavel spoke with utmost gravity.
“Your Highness, I must confess—this burden feels immense. Is there no possibility of skipping dessert at the banquet?”
Asha burst into laughter at Pavel’s words. He’d told her he’d been assigned to assist the Head Chef and oversee desserts at the Emperor’s upcoming birthday celebration banquet.
The fact that Anastasia, the Imperial Heir, had a hobby of making desserts had become an open secret throughout the Imperial Palace—so much so that everyone else had been eager to avoid the dessert position.
Beyond that, Pavel had achieved results when the peace envoys visited last time, hadn’t he? Though admittedly it was thanks to the cake Asha had made. That’s why Pavel had been unanimously appointed as the dessert supervisor for this birthday celebration.
“That’s nonsense. I’m just the Head Chef here, and you’re the one who makes sweets for fun. If you’re this worried, what am I supposed to do?”
……
Pavel fell silent at Asha’s words. Others might feel only vague unease about areas the Imperial Heir took interest in, but Pavel was someone who had directly tasted both Asha’s talent and the pastries she created.
Since there was at least some rapport between them, Pavel could afford to make such jokes—but how could a head chef tell the Imperial Heir to eat or not eat dessert? Asha smiled and suddenly thrust out something she’d been hiding behind her back.
“Make the desserts for me, and I’ll give you this.”
“……What is this?”
“A whisk.”
“This…… this one?”
Pavel’s eyes widened as he stared at the device Asha was holding.
The wooden handle was still light in color, suggesting it had been made recently. Above it, elastically flexible wood had been curved to its limit to form wires, layered like a hot air balloon.
She’d originally considered making it from iron, but wood proved more convenient for a prototype. Asha, fully aware of how strange it must look to Pavel’s eyes, puffed up with pride as she had him fetch egg whites.
“There’s a reason I’ve been calling it a bundle of twigs all this time.”
“Hmm.”
“Watch closely now.”
With that, Asha began whisking the egg whites vigorously.
“Hmm.”
Pavel placed his hands on his hips, watching the bowl of egg whites and Asha in turn with a skeptical expression. But his gaze soon changed.
“What? Already?”
“Ah, this is getting tiring. You keep going for me.”
As beer-like foam began bubbling up from the egg whites, Asha handed the whisk and bowl to Pavel. He accepted them eagerly with an expression of wonder and began whisking.
“Wow! Oh! Wow!”
“Better, isn’t it? Right?”
“Wow wow!”
Once people begin to see results, they grow more absorbed. Pavel, forgetting to hear Asha’s questions, lost himself in whipping the meringue. Asha watched him with quiet contentment. In less than five minutes, Pavel lifted high a pristine white meringue with peaks standing stiffly erect.
“Your Highness! Look at this!”
His voice was gleeful and artless, like a child proudly showing off a sand castle he’d made. Asha suppressed her laughter and asked.
“Do you like it?”
“This! This is a revolution! A revolution in whisks! A whole new world has opened in the kitchen!”
“With that, you’ll be even better prepared for the birthday celebration, won’t you?”
……!
Pavel took a deep breath and nodded firmly. After several moments of steeling himself to work hard, he suddenly looked at the whisk with a worried expression.
“But what if the others copy this? You made it, Your Highness……”
“If everyone can become better at cooking, that’s all the better, isn’t it?”
Asha couldn’t admit she’d invented the whisk, so she spoke casually—but Pavel seemed to interpret it differently. He gazed at her with deeply moved eyes for a long moment, then swore in a choked voice that he would certainly do his best preparing for this banquet.
“You don’t need to swear an oath or anything……”
Asha laughed awkwardly, but Pavel didn’t hear her.

* * *

As the Emperor’s birthday drew near, the weather grew steadily hotter.
“Your Highness, are you very warm?”
“Not terribly—just a little……”
Having finished the final alterations to the dress she would wear at the birthday celebration, Asha draped herself limply across the sofa. Lis brought ice and fanned her diligently.
<How can you lie about like this?>
‘It’s summer, so of course it’s hot. Why can’t Shamal handle this? He’s been constantly calling down breezes to cool the heat that Fafnir creates, he said.’
At Asha’s whimpering, Pibi moved her beak violently and chirped indignantly.
<Fool. That wind is to control that stupid Fafnir rampaging about, not to cool summer’s heat.>
‘You’re the fool. What’s wrong with blowing a little more? It’s so hot……’
<This is all because your stamina is lacking! You loaf about making pastries every day, and look how weak and soft you’ve become!>
“Pibi seems quite worried too.”
<The girl finally speaks sense.>
Asha glanced back and forth between these two beings who didn’t understand each other at all yet somehow did, then draped herself across the sofa again.
“What will the banquet be like? It must be terribly hot? So many people, and chandeliers too……”
“It’s the Emperor’s birthday celebration—surely not. They’ll have ice set up throughout the venue, so the banquet hall should be quite cool.”
Lis spoke in a soothing tone, as though to comfort Asha. Asha stared at the pillar of ice with clouded eyes.

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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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