CH 4

(Eve’s POV)

The Empress’s palace, which I arrived at only by walking for a long time, was much larger than the Princess’s palace.

The ornaments that adorned the corridors of the large palace, divided into three buildings were even more splendid than that of the Imperial Palace.

‘It’s like the palace that I saw in a movie.’

While I was walking I thought: “When I have time, I’ll come here and look around again.”, then I found myself in front of the drawing room. 

“Her Highness, Princess Ivenes has arrived.”

The door opened with the maid’s gentle voice.

The voices coming from behind the door disappeared in an instant.

As soon as I entered, I smiled brightly and bent my knees.

“Thank you for inviting me, Mother.”

A heavy silence settled in the bright drawing room.

No one answered me.

As I raised my head, I could see different faces that had the same baffled expression with their mouth open. 

They all look like they’ve seen a ghost.

Well I could understand why they have that kind of reaction.

Most of the encounters between Eve and the Empress in the original story always started with a mess and ended it up with a bigger mess.

Naturally, the cause of the problem has always been Eve.

Princess Eve, who has always been a short-tempered and stupid could not get along harmoniously with the Empress, even in a pretense.

In particular, I remember that Eve never called the Empress her Mother.

The bewildered guest as well as the Empress, quickly exchanged glances.

Everyone doesn’t seem to understand what was happening.

Please do not repost our translation. Read only at Pink Muffin Translations.

Same goes for the Empress who was sitting in the middle.

The Empress looked at me with a puzzled face and stuttered.

“Oh…. Yeah.”

I said with a soft smile.

“To repay the invitation that I’ve received, I brought tea leaves from the North. It’s not that much, but please accept it.”

At my gesture, the maid took out the tea leaves from the colorful box.

The Empress, who belatedly came to her senses, gave a compliment as a courtesy.

“Those are really good tea leaves. Thank you, Eve.”

The Empress gave a cautious smile as if observing my actions.

She seemed to have no idea on how the situation should be handled.

“I’m glad that you like it.”

Since I don’t have much time, I just picked out random tea leaves from the Imperial Palace.

Apparently, the Empress was too surprised to even look at the tea leaves properly.

‘Well…. The Empress was more of a simple and foolish person compared to the Emperor.’

The Emperor liked the Empress, but did not reveal secrets that are related to politics.

It was because he doesn’t fully trust the Empress, who sometimes acted thoughtlessly and emotionally.

And because of that, the Empress did not even know the truth about Eve’s death. Even now, the Emperor’s plans must not be known at all.

I sat down in an empty seat without saying a word.

As soon as I sat down, the maids brought in teacups and light desserts.

There was a moment of silence inside the drawing room.

Everyone seemed to be waiting for me to speak up first.

Of course, I had no intention of doing that in the first place.

While a heavy silence dominated the surrounding, I grabbed my teacup and drank the tea quietly.

Please do not repost our translation. Read only at Pink Muffin Translations.

Eventually, the ladies started chatting again, as they observed me secretly.

“It seems that this gathering brightens up even more with the presence of Princess Eve, which is a first in a long time.”

“It would have been nice if Princess Sorel was with you, Your Highness. But of course that would be impossible since she was helping at the war against the Rasken… “

I was startled by the name that came out of the woman’s mouth.

Sorel.

Eve’s half-sister and the heroine of this novel.

Sorel, the female protagonist, was also a Princess of this empire.

But Sorel did not grow up in the Imperial Palace.

Because she was the daughter of an illegitimate child of the Emperor to a commoner woman.

According to the original story, Sorel appears one day in the Great Hall with the sign that she is the Emperor’s daughter.

‘She said that it was like a fairy tale come true.’

Fortunately, most of the people of the Empire welcomed Sorel’s appearance.

That is because Sorel had a very strong divine power and possessed an innocent and good-looking appearance.

Unlike Eve, who had nothing but useless foresight, Sorel on the other hand had a strong healing power to benefit everyone. 

Many people liked Sorel because of her kind and pure personality.

‘…… Except for Eve.’

When Sorel appeared, people began to compare her and Eve as if they were rivals.

Once the only princess suddenly became two, it was natural for them to be comparable in every way.

However, Eve was rated to be inferior to Sorel.

First was their personality… followed by their appearance, behavior and of course their divine power.

Sorel was much better in everyone’s opinion.

It was only natural, since Sorel is the Female Protagonist of this novel.

Eventually, Eve, who was pushed to the side, builds up an inferiority complex, to harass Sorel that leads her to commit evil acts.

“By the way, did you all hear it? It was said that Princess Sorel healed all of the wounded soldiers at once. To be exact, dozens of people.”

“The high priest also praised the Princess for getting stronger than before.”

Please do not repost our translation. Read only at Pink Muffin Translations.

There was only one topic in the conversation.

Princess Sorel is active on the battlefield.

And then everyone stares at me as they speak.

‘Well It’s true that Eve hated Sorel.’

‘Well, Eve really hated Sorel.’

Eve might not have liked the sudden appearance of her half-sister, but even so, Eve was too mean to Sorel.

The first half of the book is full of anecdotes about Eve tormenting Sorel.

[On an ordinary day, I hurt Sorel, beat her, put rotten water or glass dust on Sorel’s food, and if she had anything good, I would take it all away…]

In any case, she continues tormenting her half-sister that it came to a point that she couldn’t understand as well as to why she was doing that.

When Sorel first came into the palace she brought a small star-shaped necklace that was made of glass.

It was the only thing that she had from her birth mother.

However, Eve threw that necklace into the pond, in front of Sorel just because she felt bad seeing Sorel’s face.

‘….. All those times when I was reading the novel, I wondered if there was something wrong with her mind.’

Eve hated Sorel that much that she would immediately be put in a bad mood when people talked about her in Eve’s presence.

‘All these people intended for me to get angry.’

After all, most of the ladies who came here are probably on the Empress side.

Everyone seemed to be trying to provoke me, just so that I would explode in front of the Empress.

Even in the original story, Eve was always angry, and the victim, which was the  Empress had always been in tears and sympathized.

Please do not repost our translation. Read only at Pink Muffin Translations.

It seemed that they wanted to recreate the same scene this time.

Of course, I had no intention of making their wishes come true.

Because my attention was focused on the Emperor’s actions that were being mentioned during the conversation.

‘That the Emperor was out on the battlefield with his two sons and Sorel.’

Originally, he was scheduled to return in time for Eve’s wedding day, but his return would be delayed because of some unfavorable conditions on the front line.

The Crown Prince  would return to the Imperial Palace for a while to run the Emperor’s state affairs but once everything was settled, he would be returning back to the front line again.

In the end, all four of them would not be able to attend Eve’s wedding.

‘The Emperor must have plotted to make an alibi for all of them.’

A Princess with a bad personality was murdered on the day of her wedding.

The Emperor had tried to attend the wedding of his beloved daughter, however, the war prevented him from returning back to the Imperial capital. 

On the other hand, her marriage partner, the Grand Duke, who publicly hated his fiancee, the Princess.

It was a situation where doubts were drawn to the Grand Duke, rather than the Emperor.

In fact, in the original story no one had ever doubted the Emperor.

‘That no matter how troublesome Eve is, it was common sense that the Emperor wouldn’t kill his own daughter.’

And the Emperor usually covered all of Eve’s evil doings.

And whenever Eve caused an accident, the Emperor would only nag at her and wouldn’t even scold her badly, after that he would allow her to spend as much money as she wanted.

That only proves that there is no way that the Emperor, her biological father, could harm his own daughter whom he loved that much.

That’s what all the people thought.

In the end, they only suspected the Grand Duke.

‘As I can see, the Emperor is a very meticulous person.’

On the outside, he would pretend to love and care for Eve, but in reality he didn’t really care about her at all.

It was proven in the story, when he killed Eve, who was his own daughter, without any hesitation in order to trap the Grand Duke.

Nevertheless, he always covered Eve’s evil deeds.

‘But why did he do that?’

‘Maybe it was his intention to raise Eve such as that, so that someday he would be able to take advantage of her.’

In the end, Eve was used to his advantage.

But even if he would not be able to use her, It was still in favor for the Emperor that Eve grew up to be stupid and wicked.

Because the Emperor wanted to have his second son, Prince Philos, to be the next heir.

However, the current Crown Prince, Prince Arentine, son of the former Empress.

In other words, he is Eve’s older brother.

If Eve grew up smart and wise, she would have worked with the Crown Prince to keep the Second Prince side in check.

Or she can also marry a powerful nobleman  who can help the Crown Prince and empower him to become the next Emperor.

Therefore, Eve’s death was completely satisfactory for the Emperor.

With Eve’s death, one of the imperial grandchildren, who was a threat to the second prince, disappeared, and at the same time, the thorn-like Grand Duke has also fallen into a trap.

It was meticulous and well planned by the emperor.

‘But I can’t die according to that person’s plan.’

‘I can’t just throw away the life that I have just regained only for a month.’

I have to find a way to live.