The White Tiger Clan’s Baby Cotton Ball - Chapter 263

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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 55

At some point, Irim’s heart had always felt empty.

An inexplicable hollow sensation pierced through him at every moment.

Three years ago, there was a time when he had awakened from a long slumber.

While some beastkin would enter lengthy hibernation during winter, the Imperial Dragon had never slept for such an extended period before, so the Imperial Palace had been thrown into complete chaos.

When he awakened, he was perfectly fine, and fortunately it passed as a minor incident, but…

[Who are you.]

[Ah…]

The day I opened my eyes. There was a young girl who had come running breathlessly toward my quarters, staring at me blankly through an open window between us.

[This is not a place where just anyone can set foot.]

[…]

[Are you the daughter of Family Head Baek?]

[…]

There was a young girl who suddenly began shedding tears silently at the few words I spoke to her.

The image of that young girl crying beneath the spring flower tree, her snow-white hair fluttering like snowflakes, remained as a vivid afterimage.

Why did she have such a sorrowful expression? I was curious.

However, the girl soon wiped her eyes bravely and left after a brief greeting.

Somehow, I felt regretful.

I had wanted to see her face a little more clearly…

She was a girl who didn’t exist in Irim’s memories.

But stories about her were easy to come across without having to investigate separately.

They said the daughter of Baek Saeon had awakened a Divine Beast and defeated evil.

Since they called her the daughter of the Baek family, I naturally thought she would be a White Tiger beastkin, but she was said to be an adopted daughter of Baek Saeon, a Suzaku beastkin from the Southern Lands.

She had quite an unusual background.

Since she was a woman whose bloodline and abilities had already been verified, everyone in the Imperial Palace seemed to naturally think she would become the Imperial Dragon’s bride.

But for Irim…

Throb—

There were memories that would cause his head to ache as if it would split whenever he tried to recall them, ultimately fading away.

Irim thought that the source of the hollow sensation piercing through him was likely those memories.

Throb, throb—

I am forgetting something very important.

But I have no idea what it could be.

Vague sensations that seemed like they would emerge if I closed my eyes and drew them out deeply.

Gently swaying red hair.

Cheerful laughter.

A touch brushing across skin, and…

Somehow muffled ears. Stifling, breathless hot warmth.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

A very unfamiliar and strange… heartbeat.

When I dwelled on those vague sensations, tender longing would wash over my hollow chest.

As time passed, the longing became clearer, but why couldn’t I remember anything?

I couldn’t recall anything beyond that, as if someone had deliberately locked away my memories, but even so, there was one fragment of a voice I could remember.

[When I return next time, I want to take you to the Imperial Palace. If you would allow it.]

That was my voice.

That was my promise.

It was a promise I could never forget, one I had carved and carved and carved again into my soul.

The promise with someone I couldn’t remember was the reason he had kept the seat beside him empty all this time.

Irim was certain that the other party to this promise was the same person as the red-haired girl in those vague sensations that brought him tender feelings.

If that weren’t the case, there would be no reason for my voice making such a promise to sound so tender and sorrowful.

Since he couldn’t recall the girl’s face, not even a faint afterimage remaining, the clues he had were few.

She had red hair like the flower blossoms that bloomed by my window, her cheerful laughter was very lovely, and also…

‘I must save her.’

For some unknown reason, aside from the fact that she was someone I absolutely had to save.

Holding onto those few clues, he had searched the entire continent to keep his promise.

However, three years had passed without finding her.

Though his longing had deepened, he could no longer delay the matter of succession.

As a final effort, Irim invited all the marriageable daughters from families across the continent to the Imperial Palace.

If she was someone I met outside the Imperial Palace during my time as a prince, she must surely belong to a high-ranking family.

She could be a young lady of a family, or perhaps in a position serving a family’s young lady.

Would I be able to meet her this time?

Would I be able to keep that promise carved and carved into my soul?

‘If I fail to find you again this time, what am I to do…’

Irim swallowed his agonizing emptiness as he drank the lukewarm tea.

* * *

Inside the palanquin heading to the Imperial Palace.

“Cotton Ball. What if the Emperor takes you as the Imperial Dragon’s bride?”

Gayul, who had come along as Soya’s guardian, spoke with an increasingly anxious voice as they drew closer to the Imperial Palace.

“What do you mean what? Then it would be an honor for the family.”

When Soya answered with a smile, Gayul flared up in anger.

“Honor, my foot! Then you’d have to leave White Tiger Palace!”

“Then I’ll pray earnestly not to be chosen as the Imperial Dragon’s bride.”

“…Th-that’s upsetting in its own way too!”

Gayul spoke with a somehow choked voice.

“Alright, Elder Brother. Then I’ll try my best to catch His Majesty’s eye.”

“N-no, don’t!”

When Soya deliberately clenched both fists as she spoke, Gayul let out a scream.

Watching Gayul suffer as he could neither do this nor that, clutching his head, Soya laughed out loud.

“What, Cotton Ball. You were teasing me just now, weren’t you?”

Only then realizing that Soya had been teasing him, Gayul looked at her with narrowed eyes.

“Oh my, teasing? I was only answering Elder Brother’s words with complete sincerity.”

Soya’s tone as she said this was exactly like Saeon’s tone when he was caught teasing Gayul.

“I’m not playing with you anymore!”

Gayul turned his head away with a huff.

“Yul Elder Brother, are you sulking?”

“…”

Gayul just stared out the window with his mouth firmly shut.

Somehow it seemed like his invisible tiger tail was sulking behind him, swishing left and right and striking the floor.

When Gayul was little and sulked, he would express his feelings by slapping the floor with his tail…

“Don’t be like that, Elder Brother. Shall we go see the festival together this evening? Just you and me?”

Though she knew he would soften his sulking mood and come around before long anyway, Soya gently tugged at his sleeve as she asked.

“Just the two of us?”

Gayul’s ears perked up at those words.

‘Yul is truly consistently adorable.’

Soya let out a gentle laugh at Gayul’s reaction and glanced outside.

It was the capital she was visiting for the first time in three years.

The streets were bustling with activity in anticipation of the festival.

Before long, the palanquin carrying Gayul and Soya passed through the gates of the Imperial Palace.

Soya recalled her last encounter with Irim from three years ago.

[Who are you.]

[Are you the daughter of the Baek Family Head.]

It was a voice filled with languid yet subtle intimidation.

Soya had no idea that Irim’s voice could be so cold.

Because he had always treated her warmly.

His eyes, which seemed gentle at first glance but were emotionless, felt piercingly cold.

Since that day, Soya had not been able to meet Irim.

All their connections were severed when he lost his memories of her.

There was no reason for Soya at White Tiger Palace to go to the Imperial Palace, nor for Irim at the Imperial Palace to come see her at White Tiger Palace.

Naturally, there was no exchanging messages through Chirpy either.

As if they had been strangers from the beginning…

Though this fact was deeply saddening, Soya had endured these past three years without crying, staying strong.

Following Mother around the Northern Lands helping people kept her days so busy that she gradually became numb to the sadness.

On days when she missed him terribly, she would recall Father’s words.

[Even if he cannot remember, traces surely remain in his heart.]

Father had always shown her the right path.

So following Father’s words, Soya believed that clear traces must remain in His Majesty’s heart as well.

Even if no traces remained in his heart, it would be alright.

Because she treasured both the memories and feelings in her own heart.

Having arrived at the Imperial Palace, Soya slipped away to the rear garden while unpacking in her assigned quarters.

Her steps stopped before the large zelkova tree.

It was the tree where she had encountered Irim a couple of times.

Somehow curious about what was above, Soya transformed into a bird and flew up into the tree.

In the past times shown by the Sacred Tree.

In her first life, she had spent time here with Irim every day.

‘Even when we met up here in this life, His Majesty must have been alone in remembering our first life.’

Thinking of his loneliness in remembering all those times alone, Soya felt no resentment toward him for not remembering her.

Rather, she felt grateful that she could understand, even just a little, the loneliness he must have felt alone.

In the warm spring sunlight, Soya dozed off, blinking sleepily.

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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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