The Stand-In Empress’S Wedding Night [EN]: Chapter 71

71. The Best Taste Comes from Seizing Opportunities and Hair (71/347)

The Resilia Princess was quite excited as she recounted what had happened, her eyes sparkling.

“That day, you and I were looking for a place to hide and went into the laboratory of the court magician, Logan. Don’t you remember?”

How could I not remember? It was the day she accidentally spilled the red potion labeled ‘Handle with Care’ all over my right cheek.

“What are you trying to say? Are you suddenly apologizing for what happened back then?”

The Resilia Princess blinked her long eyelashes as if asking, ‘What apology now?’

“No~ What I’m trying to say is…”

The Princess lowered her voice conspiratorially.

“My brother cleaned up something I did on purpose so perfectly. Seeing this, it’s clear he cherishes you, isn’t it?”

“On purpose?”

I felt my composure cracking.

“Ah, I’m thirsty. Some water, please. My voice isn’t coming out properly.”

The Resilia Princess patted her neck, feigning innocence.

“Please wait a moment.”

I obediently turned and walked out of the bedroom door. I was planning to step outside for a bit anyway, so it worked out well. Sharon, who was waiting in front of the bedroom door, looked at my face and asked with a worried expression.

“Your Majesty, is something wrong? You don’t look well.”

“Sharon, dismiss all the servants from the bedroom. I have something important to discuss with the Princess.”

I approached her and said quietly.

“And a glass of water, please.”

“Yes? Ah, yes!”

Sharon quickly poured water into a glass from the beverage cart in the waiting room outside the bedroom and placed it on a tray.

“Give it to me. I’ll take it.”

“But, Your Majesty…”

“It’s okay. Just send the servants out into the hallway.”

I whispered again.

“Yes, I will.”

Sharon seemed to sense that something had happened between the Princess and me in the bedroom. I took the tray myself and went back into the bedroom. I handed the glass of water to the Princess, who took only a sip before handing it back to me.

“That day… you’re saying you poured the potion on my face on purpose?”

I asked casually, placing the tray on the table.

“Yes, but why do you keep denying that my brother really cares about you?”

The Resilia Princess didn’t seem to grasp the gravity of the situation. She was making it seem like my not acknowledging her brother’s affection was a bigger deal than the fact that she had potentially scarred my face.

“Not a mistake, but on purpose… you did that on purpose?”

“Oh my, mistake! Bringing up that word was a real mistake.”

The Resilia Princess covered her mouth with both hands and wrinkled her nose.

‘Zelda, be patient. You have to be patient for now.’

My inner deity [a guiding voice or conscience] calmed me down. Shut up. Be quiet. This was the most important thing in my life. Even the string of reason that had snapped within me was now burned away by the boiling anger.

“Just one more time, I’ll ask again. Was it really intentional?”

I squeezed my teeth together and barely managed to ask.

“About that time… yes, I did it on purpose. I was jealous because my brother seemed to care more about you than me.”

Surprisingly, she acted as if it was something she couldn’t help.

“How could you do that!”

I bit my lower lip, tasting blood in my mouth.

“My brother still doesn’t know that I did it on purpose. You know what that means, right? This is a secret just between you and me.”

The Resilia Princess put a hand to her mouth and whispered.

“Aren’t you even sorry? How can you be so calm, with a face that shows no guilt! So brazen!”

The more I spoke, the louder my voice became, and a heat rushed through my body. It felt like flames would burst out of me at any moment.

“Just because you were jealous? You burned someone’s face, a woman’s face, for such a reason? How could you do that!”

The Resilia Princess, seeing me so angry for the first time, flinched for a moment, then tilted her head to the side again and said viciously.

“That’s how revenge is done.”

“…What?”

“Revenge is when no one is around, disguised as a mistake. That’s the opportunity.”

“How can you say that now…!”

“Since it was just the two of us there, my brother had no choice but to believe my words that it was a mistake. So don’t even think about telling my brother what I just said. He won’t believe you.”

“That’s true. It’s just the two of us now, too.”

I chuckled and agreed with the Princess.

“Right? Besides, the words of someone in a high position who is lying are more powerful than the words of someone in a low position.”

The Resilia Princess, who had been speaking in a prim tone, paused for a moment, then raised her eyebrows and advised me.

“……Ha.”

The Princess looked at me, curious about how I would react, but when I didn’t say anything, she waved her hand with a bored expression and said goodbye.

“I’m leaving now. I’m hungry. Is it because I woke up from a deep sleep?”

She turned towards the bedroom door. I slowly turned my body to follow her movement. But the speed of my arm extending was fast. I grabbed the Resilia Princess’s hair.

“Aah!!”

The Princess’s head was thrown back.

“You have no conscience, no sense, so many things missing that you must be hungry.”

I had no regrets about my actions. I was right to grab you, and you deserved to be grabbed.

“Kyaa! You, what are you doing!”

She screamed and struggled.

“Taking revenge.”

“What?!”

“Oh my, it’s just the two of us, isn’t it? This must be the opportunity you were talking about?”

I mimicked her tone from a moment ago and whispered the same words.

“You think you’ll be safe after doing this?! You crazy, you’re a crazy bitch!”

“Yes. I’m crazy, and you’re out of your mind. Like this.”

I grabbed the Resilia Princess’s hair and spun her around once. She grabbed my arm with both hands and tried to pull it off, but it was not enough.

“Hey, let go of this! I’m going to tell everything, what you’re doing now, everything! Aah!”

“Oh my, will people believe you? Come to think of it, my position is higher than yours now? You’re a princess, I’m an empress. Right?”

“Wh, what are you talking about!”

The Resilia Princess’s voice trembled. It was a tremor that came not from fear but from being humiliated by me.

“I learned a thing or two about revenge from your goldfish-sized brain.”

“Aaaah! It hurts! If even a few strands of my hair fall out! I’ll never let you get away with this!”

“You’re getting so angry over just a few strands of hair falling out, but you didn’t feel any guilt at all while doing what you did to my face?”

“I didn’t, so what!”

The Resilia Princess struggled. I tightened my grip on the Princess’s hair.

“You didn’t even regret it?”

“Haa, regret? Yes, I did regret it. I should have done the same to the other side of your face, but I regret not being able to do that!”

I’m the same as you. If I let you go like this, I’ll regret it as much as you will. I slowly released the hand that was holding the Princess’s hair. She glared at me fiercely, tidying up her disheveled long pink hair.

“Yes. You never change. So I’ll tell you in advance, thanks to you, I won’t feel any guilt either.”

“Wh, what are you talking about? What guilt?”

She flinched and took a step back. Not the face. I shouldn’t leave any marks. I took two more steps towards her and punched her hard in the side of the head with my fist. The Resilia Princess couldn’t even make a sound and fainted to the ground. If I left her to faint to the side like that, she would seriously injure her head on the marble floor. Before her head touched the floor, I put one of my feet on the side of her head that was falling on the marble floor. Then, I kicked that foot up and caught the Resilia Princess’s body as she fainted. I picked her up and laid her on my bed. After a while, as expected, I heard a knock from outside the bedroom. Knock knock knock-.

“Come in.”

Sharon carefully entered the bedroom.

“Your Majesty…”

“You heard everything outside, right?”

I asked calmly.

“Yes… but don’t worry. The other servants had already been sent out into the hallway before that, so the sound didn’t leak out to that place.”

Sharon glanced at the fainted Princess but didn’t ask what had happened.

“Thank you, Sharon. I’ll explain later.”

When I said this with a bitter tone, she seemed to have something she wanted to say, but she just nodded.

“Your Majesty. Is there anything you need?”

“Anything I need? I don’t think there’s anything except for the time when the Princess wakes up from her nap.”

“Then shall I bring up a glass of cold grapefruit juice that will refresh you to the core? It would be good to drink before the Princess wakes up.”

Sharon said with a look as if she was holding back a laugh.

“Shall we?”

The grapefruit juice that Sharon brought a little later was really refreshing to the core. I sat on the sofa, cooling off with the cool juice, and waited for the Resilia Princess to wake up. After about 30 minutes, the Resilia Princess opened her eyes.

“Ah… my head.”

She raised her hand to the side of her head that I had hit and tried to get up, but her eyes met mine, who was sitting across from the bed. The Resilia Princess glared at me, pulling the pillow in front of her like a shield. I put the juice glass on the table and walked to the bed. The Princess, seeing me approaching, hesitated whether to get off the bed or stay sitting on the bed, then got up from the bed with the pillow in her arms.

“Sit down.”

I put my hands on the Princess’s shoulders and made her sit back down on the bed.

“You, you… if my brother finds out what you did to me, he won’t let you get away with it!”

“His Majesty will feel the same way.”

“What did I do to you? I didn’t even touch your body!”

“What do I know? It was just the two of us.”

“Wh, what…?”

The Resilia Princess looked up at me with shocked eyes.

“What if I say I was hit by Princess Chatou Neil? And quite a few servants saw the fact that I entered the Empress’s bedroom without permission, so whose words will people believe?”

“You’re mean, you’re really mean. Sniff…”

The Resilia Princess said with tears in her eyes. It was absurd. Anyone would think I was bullying the Princess.

“People don’t know how truly awful you are.”

Hearing the words ‘bastard of the count’s family’ expressed as ‘truly awful’ was quite refreshing. The Princess glared at me and fiddled with the side of her head that was starting to swell.

“If you know, will you get out of here now? Before I take proper revenge.”

I said, stepping aside.

“Zelda, I will definitely repay you for what happened today! If I become the Empress, be prepared. I won’t let you go!”

“That’s good. We each have something we must repay each other for.”

When I lightly touched the Resilia Princess’s pink hair, she opened the bedroom door and ran away.

‘Will it be okay?’

My inner deity asked.

“I won’t tell Prince Tesler what happened today. It won’t be good for him in many ways. Even if I tell him, as long as I’m in this position, the Prince can’t do anything to me.”

I don’t know what will happen when I come down from the Empress’s position… I replied to the deity and finished drinking the remaining grapefruit juice.

‘But is the Resilia Princess really stupid? Or is she pretending to be stupid? She’s quite cunning somewhere to be called stupid. Her evil energy is quite strong too.’

“I know. I’m confused too.”

***

The next day.

‘It’s about time he came in.’

I glanced at the door of the banquet hall while having lunch with Linelle at the main palace. Shouldn’t the report on the corpse of the servant who was murdered in the Empress’s Palace garden be delivered around today?

“Do you have no appetite?”

Linelle looked at my plate, which was not easily emptied, and asked with a worried look.

“No, I’m eating.”

I was lost in thought, then at his words, I stabbed anything with a fork and put it in my mouth. Ugh, what is this? There are so many delicious things, but why did I pick a lump of raw broccoli? Linelle stared at my face, which was crunching on broccoli, with a surprised expression. It was a look that asked why I picked up the ornamental one and ate it. I smiled brightly, chewing it more thoroughly as if it were delicious.

“The forest is lush [a playful comment on the green broccoli].”

He pointed to my mouth and laughed. At that time, Secretary Raphael hurriedly ran into the banquet hall.

“What’s going on?”

“Your Majesty, I apologize for interrupting your meal. An urgent message has arrived…”

It seems they finally found the servant’s body. I prepared myself inwardly.

“Speak.”

Linelle commanded in a dignified voice. Contrary to my expectations, what Raphael conveyed was completely different news.