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Suyong, looking quite somber, appeared shortly after.
He knelt on one knee beside the bed and bowed his head deep.
“I have returned, Your Highness.”
Haeryeong let out a small laugh at his reporting tone.
“I see. Did the Yeonseo delegation leave the capital safely?”
“Yes. Two units of the Imperial Guard will follow them to the border, so do not worry.”
“His Majesty had only the strongest men accompany them.”
“When did you return?”
“I returned after the Hour of the Dog.”
“Then you must have heard everything Head Court Lady Yang and I were saying.”
When he spoke indirectly about not wanting to hear of the Emperor, Su-yong furrowed his brow.
“The two of you were whispering so quietly that I could not hear you well.”
It was a retort like that of a sulky child.
Haeryeong shook his head and let out a sigh.
Indeed, there was something he had wanted to ask him anyway.
“Do you know the reason why His Imperial Majesty ordered you to escort the group from Yeonseo?”
Su-yong stared straight up at Haeryeong.
“Why do you look at me so?”
“Why do you think His Majesty sent me?”
This time, Haeryeong wore a sullen expression toward Su-yong, who had answered his question with another question.
“Your servant asked first.”
“I looked at you that way because I was dumbfounded.”
Having finished his answer to the previous question, Su-yong held his head up as if urging Haeryeong to answer.
“Does Your Highness truly not understand His Majesty’s heart?”
Ha.
Haeryeong let out a short laugh despite himself and asked as if to himself.
“His Majesty’s heart. How many people could possibly understand that?”
“How can any person boast of being able to understand the heart of another?”
“Could you even say you fully understand the heart of your own parents?”
“Even if you live together for years, you must not jump to conclusions about a person’s heart.”
“The primary reason for that is the moment a person boasts of knowing another’s heart, they become arrogant without even realizing it.”
“Is it not true that no one knows the inside of a person except the person themselves?”
“One must always keep in mind that an action taken under the assumption that someone wants something they do not might, in fact, be wounding them.”
“No one knows how long the words they have spoken will remain in the heart of another.”
“Therefore, when dealing with anyone, you must always be mindful of that and treat them with kindness…”
As Haeryeong began to press his point rapidly, Su-yong listened with a dazed expression before raising both palms.
“I have just experienced what it means to be drowned in words.”
“I feel as though I’ve seen the gates of the underworld open, so will you not stop? I have lost, Your Highness.”
Only then did Haeryeong shut his mouth and quietly smile.
Su-yong let out a deep sigh and gestured toward the bed with his eyes.
“You look weary. It is not an urgent story, so please rest more.”
“It is not weariness, but the pain in my shoulder. My fever seems to have dropped significantly, but my head is still ringing.”
His back was also aching from lying down since the afternoon.
As he lowered his legs from the bed to try and stand, Su-yong hurriedly half-rose.
“What are you doing, moving so suddenly? You must rest more.”
“Since you are not used to injury, the pain will be difficult to endure.”
Seeing his restless concern, Haeryeong frowned slightly.
However, Su-yong looked ready to firmly stop Haeryeong from getting up.
“I am not used to injury, but I possess a fair amount of patience. Do I look like someone who would be bedridden because I cannot endure even this much?”
“It is not that…”
Su-yong, who had started to speak as if to make an excuse, let out a long sigh and scratched his head vigorously.
“Please understand that my words are rough because I am uneducated, Your Highness. I do not know how to put this…”
“If my own younger brother had suffered such an injury, I would have made him lie still even if I had to give him a thumping on the head.”
Haeryeong blinked and looked at Su-yong.
Beneath his troubled, furrowed brows, his eyes drifted downward.
“Of course, I cannot treat Your Highness that way. But I am saying that I am worried, Your Highness.”
“Why do you not realize that the court ladies of the Empress’s Palace are not the only ones worried about you?”
Haeryeong, feeling awkward, rolled his eyes and asked quietly.
“May I not get up and walk for just a moment? My back aches because I have been lying down for too long.”
“Then only for a moment… it is.”
“Getting permission is harder than receiving a decree from His Imperial Majesty.”
Haeryeong finally stood up from the bed and walked slowly around the room.
Walking quietly in the dark room before sunrise, he asked after the group that had gone to Yeonseo.
Su-yong relayed everything he had seen without missing a detail.
While listening to him try to explain as meticulously as possible, the conversation shifted to the captured assassin.
At the news that the captured and tortured assassin had confessed to acting on the orders of the Minister of Rites, Haeryeong forgot his walking and stopped dead in his tracks.
“Are you saying the Minister of Rites plotted this?”
Does that mean it wasn’t the Noble Consort?
He had been so enraged at the Emperor, and now suddenly it was the Minister of Rites.
To the bewildered Haeryeong, Su-yong nodded.
“The Minister of Rites was arrested on charges of treason and taken to the Jeonokseo. I heard the interrogation is scheduled to proceed starting this morning… Your Highness, what is the matter?”
“I was thinking of the conversation I shared with His Majesty. So, what do you think will happen to the Minister of Rites?”
“Since there are already witnesses and physical evidence, it will be difficult for him to escape. His close relatives will all be executed, and relatives beyond the second cousin will be made government slaves and sentenced to forced labor. If anyone among them participated, they will be treated exactly like the Minister.”
It meant the punishment would expand from the immediate family to the extended clan.
Since it was the punishment for a traitor, it was inevitable.
But it was strange.
That the Minister of Rites would specifically target him.
The Emperor claimed he thought the assassin would target him, but Haeryeong did not believe those words.
Had the assassin’s arrow not been aimed at him from the very start?
Recalling the arrow that had whizzed past unknowingly, Haeryeong shivered as he held his injured shoulder.
He hadn’t seen the arrow that passed before his eyes clearly, but he vividly remembered the cold wind he felt as it passed.
If Nureongi hadn’t suddenly been restless, that arrow would have pierced his chest, not his shoulder.
Even if an akisal was a difficult bow to shoot, could it really be a coincidence that it flew toward him, while he was quite a distance from the Emperor?
Not just once, but twice.
“Do you know for whom the Minister of Rites committed such an act?”
Su-yong fell silent for a moment.
His tightly shut jaw moved slowly from side to side as if he were in a bind.
He stole a glance up at Haeryeong.
“I have a general idea, but it is difficult to say yet. Please understand, Your Highness.”
At Su-yong’s answer—that he would tell him after the investigation with the Emperor’s permission—Haeryeong vaguely guessed the truth he was hiding.
“I see. That was it.”
He felt he finally understood now.
That the Minister of Rites had harmed him for the sake of the Noble Consort.
And he understood what the Emperor’s attitude indicated when he prattled on about various things to the Minister at the last banquet.
“His Majesty has caught a big fish.”
With Lee Haeryeong as the bait.
Haeryeong didn’t even have the energy left to feel drained, so he simply laughed it off lightly.
Was that why he sent those flowers, because he felt sorry?
The gaze with which Haeryeong looked at the irises the Emperor had sent turned cold.
After soothing him with something like this, what did he intend to use him as a shield for next?
Standing still and lost in thought, Haeryeong suddenly realized something else and was struck with silent horror.
Could the Emperor actually be planning to implicate and cast out the Noble Consort as well this time?
But why?
Even if he had developed a slight feeling for Haeryeong, it was strange.
If he were trying to cast out the Consort for his sake, was it not also strange to use him as bait?
Furthermore, from the very beginning until the moment Haeryeong died by his sword, the Consort had been the favorite who monopolized his love.
It meant it would be difficult for him to fall out of the Emperor’s favor over an ordinary matter.
So what on earth was happening now?
Haeryeong could not even begin to guess what the current state of affairs was.
What was the Emperor thinking?
And what were the Consort and the Minister of Rites thinking?
Thinking too deeply so suddenly made his head throb.
As Haeryeong furrowed his brow and placed a hand on his temple, Su-yong stood up and approached.
“Does your head ache? Please wait a moment, Your Highness. I shall fetch the Imperial Physician.”
Haeryeong quietly called back Su-yong, who was about to rush out.
“It is no use even if the physician comes. My head aches because I have too much on my mind.”
Su-yong repeatedly reached out toward Haeryeong and then pulled back, acting restless.
“I will be in for a severe beating if His Majesty finds out about this. I should have just kept my mouth shut and pretended not to know…”
“How would His Majesty know if you do not tell him? Can we not just act as though our conversation never happened?”
At Haeryeong’s words, Su-yong flared up in irritation.
“Do not say such nonsensical things. As if Your Highness could hide it well. You were caught in your act of pretending to lose your memory; what on earth are you saying?”
Haeryeong puffed out his cheeks at Suyong.
There was no need to point it out so specifically.
He was already disheartened by the fact that even the court ladies had noticed.
The adventure continues! If you loved this chapter, Transmigrated Into a World With a Wife is a must-read. Click here to start!
Read : Transmigrated Into a World With a Wife
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Lmfao I love Su-yong so much
Man, I low-key wish that would end up together
Also, mc remains so dumb! Like can’t he even consider that the consort fell out of favor because of a bigger reason? Just because the guy was loved in the previous life doesn’t mean things can’t change, hell, look at how the emperor is treating mc, the very definition that history can change.