The White Tiger Clan’s Baby Cotton Ball - Chapter 222

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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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Part 2, Chapter 14

“Do you like her?”

At Saeon’s direct question, Irim froze completely in place.

“What did you just say…?”

Seeing his utterly bewildered face, Saeon let out a small laugh inwardly.

Was it already eight years ago now?

This was the first human expression he’d seen since that day when the young prince had changed overnight as if he’d become a different person.

Baek Saeon had been the only adult who stayed by the prince’s side after his mother died and he was left alone.

Though Saeon in those days spent more days on the battlefield than not, he was still probably the person in this Taehwa Kingdom who remembered the Emperor’s childhood best.

After all, everyone else who had stayed long in the Imperial Palace had been purged by the young Emperor’s hand.

The young Irim had been a sensitive but delicate child, seemingly indifferent to everything yet kind-hearted by nature.

Though he had purged all his blood relatives and ascended to the throne, becoming so cold now…

‘Only in front of Cotton Ball does he hide his cold personality and show his old gentle side.’

Saeon thought of the attitudes Irim had shown toward Soya all this time.

Long ago, when he first visited White Tiger Palace after becoming Emperor, he had been gentle only to Soya, and three years ago when he rescued Soya from the Imperial Palace pond, he acted as if he could see only Soya.

And that wasn’t all. Just this afternoon, the way they exchanged glances, their eyes sparkling and faces flushing red, was quite suspicious…

Mulling over all those countless moments, there was only one conclusion at the end.

It seemed the Emperor liked our house’s Cotton Ball.

No, he definitely liked her.

This was a father’s intuition. There was no doubt about it.

“Do you cherish Soya, my daughter?”

Saeon asked with conviction.

But Irim froze with his lips parted wordlessly, like someone who had heard something completely unexpected.

“…With this incident confirming that Evil has awakened, the Imperial Palace will select those to send to the Northern Lands to prevent Evil’s revival.”

Only after a long while did he say something like this.

“…?”

At Irim’s behavior of suddenly changing the subject, Saeon stared at him in bewilderment.

“The Three Great Families will take the central role, so Family Head Baek Saeon should also prepare.”

However, Irim spoke in his usual calm voice and turned to leave without giving Saeon a chance to stop him.

‘What…?’

Saeon blinked as he watched Irim’s retreating figure, treating what he had just said as if he hadn’t heard it at all.

Soon a dumbfounded laugh appeared on his face.

Could it be that this young His Imperial Majesty had never once thought of his daughter in that way?

No wonder the Imperial Palace had remained quiet without any communication while countless marriage proposals poured into White Tiger Palace over the years.

‘How absurd.’

Yet he never forgot to send letters and gifts on Soya’s birthday.

Right after she completed her Second Growth Stage, he was so worried about Soya that he even came directly to White Tiger Palace.

Saeon knew he had come pretending to have business with him, then secretly met Soya before leaving.

Though it bothered him a little, he had pretended not to know because of Cheongha’s request to respect his daughter’s privacy.

Of course, he had stayed in the same spot staring in the same direction for a long time with his sharp aura bristling, ready to not let it slide if he so much as grabbed his precious daughter’s wrist…

And just now, Irim’s attitude of being unable to answer that he didn’t like Soya and changing the subject instead.

The Imperial Dragon cannot tell lies.

Therefore, seeing that behavior, Saeon became more certain.

So the Emperor did like Soya.

But he truly didn’t know it—his own feelings.

“If that’s the case… it’s a bit presumptuous.”

Saeon looked in the direction the Emperor had left and raised the corner of his mouth mischievously.

I can’t easily allow our precious Cotton Ball to an Emperor who doesn’t even know his own feelings. Of course not.

* * *

Meanwhile, Irim, who had hastily fled from his meeting with Saeon, walked with a confused expression.

It had been such an unexpected question that even he couldn’t think to compose the emotions that appeared on his face in that moment.

‘Soya… I, Soya…’

Irim couldn’t bring himself to complete those words and tensed his clenched jaw.

When he unexpectedly encountered Soya last night, at first he thought he was seeing an illusion.

The first thing that caught his eye was hair like white silk thread sparkling under the moonlight beneath the dark night sky.

Next he saw pink eyes, soft as spring flowers, that widened in surprise upon seeing him…

Thump…!

The moment their eyes met, his heart pounded with a dull sound.

Irim knew exactly one person with such beautiful and lovely eyes.

[Soya…?]

Even as he unconsciously called her name, he couldn’t believe the person before his eyes was Soya. Because the woman before his eyes was…

Yes, a woman.

Soya was no longer a child, but had the complete bearing of a woman.

[…Your Majesty.]

When her voice calling his name flowed from her lips, and he could no longer deny that she was Soya.

A silent gasp escaped through his teeth.

Was “breathtaking” the phrase to use at times like this?

In truth, he had experienced his breath stopping at the end of countless lifetimes whenever time ended, yet it was such an intense moment that he had that thought.

He quickly came to his senses and greeted her as usual, but his heart kept stirring restlessly.

It was a strange sensation he had never experienced before.

Until recently when Soya had sent a letter saying she had turned seventeen, Irim couldn’t imagine at all that she had grown enough to become an adult.

Even when he heard the story of some young master who had fallen for her and suffered from lovesickness, it just felt like cute child’s play.

But she, whom he met again after three years, was no longer that young girl he had to protect unconditionally.

Her round face had lost its baby fat and formed graceful curves, and her grown height and newly matured atmosphere made his mood strange.

Irim realized anew that this was the first time seeing Soya grown up.

Their lives had always ended before this point.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump…

Unlike his calm face as they conversed, his heart was beating wildly.

However, Irim attributed that day’s trembling to joy and emotion at finally facing her, who had survived and grown safely.

The strange feeling that stirred whenever their eyes met, the unfamiliar symptom of his heart seeming to clench whenever she smiled… all of it was because he was so happy.

Because he was so joyful and moved to see her finally survive and become an adult like this.

Preventing her death had been his long-cherished wish, after all.

Yes. He had definitely thought that way, but…

[Do you like her?]

Saeon’s question from earlier cast small ripples in his heart.

[Do you cherish Soya, my daughter?]

He tried to answer that it wasn’t particularly that kind of feeling, but strangely his mouth wouldn’t move.

Rough bewilderment instantly bloomed across his face.

Separate from his will, he couldn’t answer no.

The Imperial Dragon cannot tell lies.

The fact that suddenly came to mind made him even more bewildered.

‘But that can’t be, I am….’

Irim suddenly stopped in his tracks.

It was the Imperial Palace Garden where lush green trees towered high.

A large 300-year-old zelkova tree blocked his path.

This place he would visit whenever he needed to organize his thoughts was where he first met Soya.

Up in that tree, in memories now old and distant, a young prince and a red-feathered baby bird had been together.

“Like….”

Irim looked up at the tree and quietly murmured to himself.

That ordinary word sounded extremely foreign to him.

Do I like Soya?

When Soya smiled, his heart would be dyed warm like spring sunlight, and when Soya cried, his heart would rustle and sink. Also, in moments when Soya was hurt and in danger….

“….”

Suddenly his eyes hardened.

Irim recalled that intense emotion he had felt just moments ago at the thought that Soya might be in danger.

I almost turned the world upside down.

Soya was that kind of existence.

The only one in this world who made him feel such diverse emotions.

If so, was this love?

Through the long years of repetition, he had made countless promises to protect her.

But he had never once told her he liked her.

And the same was true for Soya….

He wasn’t sure.

His feelings for her were clearly affection, but Irim thought of it as closer to a sense of responsibility than romantic feelings.

In the countless lifetimes she couldn’t remember, he had taken her as his concubine.

However, this too was not born from romantic love between a man and woman, but a path chosen because it was the easiest and most powerful way to protect her within the Imperial Palace.

Above all, to put such romantic feelings first… they had been too young at the time, and the situation before them had been terribly desperate.

They had been desperate lives where they fought fiercely solely for her survival.

Therefore, it was an emotion he had never considered even once throughout all those many lives.

‘No, have I really never once felt that I liked her?’

As he asked himself this and unconsciously raised his head, an old memory suddenly came to mind.

[Do you know what it means when a woman gives a silver hairpin to a man as a gift?]

[What does it mean?]

Heat kept rising to his face like an angry person at her innocent expression.

[Don’t be angry, Your Majesty. I’ll put the hairpin in for you.]

[No need. You don’t have to….]

The moment her fingertips finally brushed against him, his ears became muffled and his mind seemed to grow distant, making him unconsciously hold his breath—a memory from long, long ago.

Though it had become a time too old and distant for him through repeating thousands of lives, it was also simultaneously the most brilliant time—a memory from a summer day.

Scenes from old times flashed before his eyes, when their lives weren’t yet threatened, when both he and Soya had met as ordinary, normal children.

‘No, perhaps I already back then….’

At the moment of realization, his ears turned bright red and his heart began to flutter just like last night.

Thump, thump, thump….

Irim covered his mouth with one hand, swallowing the exclamation that was about to spill out.

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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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