Chapter 38: The Sovereign Incursion

“Why on earth…… should I do that?”

Anok shook his head slowly, his voice dropping into a low, completely hollow murmur.

Evidently, Court Lady Cho had never anticipated receiving this strand of flat rejection. Her features locked into a rigid, defensive mask, stunned by his clinical detachment.

“Answer me, Court Lady Cho. Give me a logical reason why I should grant you that mercy.”

“When executing a formal interrogation regarding a crime, is it not the baseline of justice to leave zero room for doubt, Your Highness? Your servant is facing a monstrous frame-up, so I beg of you, grant me the opportunity to vindicate myself.”

Anok offered another slow shake of his head. Over his pale, eerily vacant features, a mask of absolute, unyielding resolve slowly crystallized.

“No. There is not a single shred of doubt remaining in this matter. ……Eunuch Im, transit immediately and summon Physician Do back to the pavilion. Since this specific medicine pouch was recovered directly from her living quarters, having the physician verify its components before her eyes will settle the matter permanently.”

It was precisely the moment he displayed the seized pouch to Court Lady Cho and issued the command to Eunuch Im. The court lady, who had been desperately begging on her knees, abruptly surged to her feet, screaming to halt the eunuch. Yet, Eunuch Im had already slipped across the threshold, vanishing into the courtyard to fetch the doctor.

“Grand Consort!”

“How is it that you can actively commit a treasonous crime and yet display zero baseline of shame?”

Matching the sudden spike in Court Lady Cho’s cadence, Anok’s voice instantly rose in volume as well. Never imagining that his usually soft, melodic voice could project with such resounding, authoritative gravity, Court Lady Cho stood frozen, her mouth parted in absolute shock.

“……It was entirely for your own benefit, Your Highness!”

Always this exact phrase. Refusing to tolerate another syllable of her poisonous rhetoric, Anok turned his back completely to her. If he forced himself to look at her face for another second, he feared he might actually lose his composure and physically strike her.

“How mesmerizing do you think an Omega enduring their heat cycle appears in the eyes of a dominant Alpha? You are inherently rigid and completely naive, Your Highness! I was fiercely consumed by terror that you would be coldly neglected and discarded on your literal bridal night! I merely engineered the situation to ensure you would successfully capture Prince Yeo Jae-won’s eyes!”

Realizing her hysterical claims of innocence were falling on deaf ears, Court Lady Cho had seamlessly pivoted to a strategy of manipulation and justification. Listening to her desperately claim that she had poisoned him out of pure, loving devotion to his position, Anok didn’t even bother to hide his chilling scoff.

His internal system settled into a cold, bottomless quiet. As Anok smoothly locked his features back into an unbothered facade and spun around, Court Lady Cho frantically crawled forward on her knees. Her face was twisted into a bizarre, grotesque expression—neither a smile nor a grimace of physical pain, but a frantic mask of raw desperation.

“Continue,” Anok commanded, his tone dripping with absolute apathy.

Believing this was her golden window to sway her master, Court Lady Cho began to vomit a pathetic stream of explanations.

“Even the master of Damyeon Palace, who originally gifted me this formulation, articulated those exact words to me! I simply believed Her Highness Noble Consort Sa’s logic was flawless, and since I genuinely thought it was the solitary path to secure your future, I merely followed her instructions!”

Right then, the heavy doors slid open. Assumed it was merely Eunuch Im returning with the physician, Anok didn’t even bother to glance toward the threshold. He kept his cold, clinical glare pinned securely to Court Lady Cho as she mumbled her desperate pleas for belief.

“The master of Damyeon Palace dispatched medicine to my bride? What is the meaning of this?”

But the voice that echoed through the pavilion did not belong to Eunuch Im.

It was a low, terrifyingly resonant baritone—a cadence so thoroughly laced with an icy, lethal gravity that it sent a violent shiver straight down the spine.

It was a voice Anok recognized instantly. Had he been the foolish boy of his past life, his shoulders would have violently convulsed in sheer terror, but clamping his jaw shut, he forced his body to remain perfectly still. He balled his hands into tight fists, his neatly trimmed fingernails digging so deeply into his palms that they nearly drew blood.

Lifting his gaze with meticulous slowness, Anok found Yeo Jae-won standing framed in the doorway. He was dressed in deep violet robes of daily wear, a color that lent an even more frigid, lethal quality to his pale, impeccably sculpted features.

Beneath his sharply contoured, blade-like brows, his dark, ruthlessly indifferent eyes—eyes that usually forbade anyone from daring to read their depths—stared down at the blubbering Court Lady Cho before slowly shifting to anchor onto Anok.

The exact second their eyes locked, Anok was hit by a wave of intense, unexpected bewilderment. He couldn’t decipher the tactical variable of why Yeo Jae-won had materialized inside his quarters at such an hour.

In his past life, unless a massive administrative emergency unfolded, Yeo Jae-won almost never crossed the threshold of the inner chambers. If an issue required coordination, he would invariably command Anok to transit to his primary study. Yet, in this lifecycle, the Prince had visited him while he was tucked away in the separate villa, and now he had marched directly into his personal pavilion.

This marked his second visit today alone. While his initial appearance could be rationalized as a routine check since his bride had newly woken from a two-day coma, there was absolutely no logical metric to explain his presence right now.

For Anok, who had meticulously engineered this trap to conclude cleanly as the independent crime of Court Lady Cho, this intervention was incredibly problematic. Of all the variables to miscalculate, Yeo Jae-won had explicitly overheard Court Lady Cho confessing that the architect anchoring her back was Damyeon Palace.

Knowing the Prince’s calculating nature, the moment he verified that Noble Consort Sa was actively meddling inside his estate, he would absolutely refuse to let the matter slide quietly.

“……What brings you to the inner pavilion at such an hour, Your Highness?”

Anok kept his voice as perfectly flat and unbothered as humanly possible, tossing out a standard, everyday greeting that simultaneously masked his deepest curiosity regarding the Prince’s sudden arrival.

Taking massive, measured strides across the room, Yeo Jae-won closed the distance until he stood directly inside Anok’s personal space. Tilting his jaw slightly upward, he surveyed his new bride with his signature arrogant, clinical gaze before slowly parting his lips.

“Before I address that…… propriety dictates my bride answers me first. What is the meaning of this chaos?”

Predictably, he refused to be easily deflected. Yeo Jae-won was far too dangerous an adversary to be swayed by a casual pivot. In truth, out of all the volatile factions Anok would be forced to navigate in the capital, this man standing before him would undoubtedly remain the most complex and exhausting puzzle to manage.

Should I hand him the unvarnished truth? If I do, how will he calculate his response?

Though the timeline had mutated to a point where nothing could be guaranteed, one absolute fact remained crystal clear: Yeo Jae-won would seamlessly weaponize this incident. The reality that Damyeon Palace had successfully infiltrated his estate via a chief court lady handpicked by the Empress Dowager, explicitly using her to smuggle chemical stimulants into his bride’s quarters, was the ultimate political ammunition. There was no better justification to launch a devastating offensive against Noble Consort Sa.

Considering that the relationship between Yeo Jae-won and Noble Consort Sa could only be described as a blood feud born of absolute, mutual hatred, it would be politically absurd for him to let this card slip through his fingers.

In the end, I am merely a convenient pawn to be utilized for his agenda. Anok firmly believed that the fierce aura of anger currently radiating from the Prince’s skin had absolutely nothing to do with genuine concern for his well-being.

Yeo Jae-won was simply violently offended that Sa Eun-hyeon had possessed the audacity to stretch her venomous fingers toward a person registered under his personal jurisdiction and protection.

……Yes, that must be it. The concept of Yeo Jae-won harboring genuine concern for his safety was an absolute, laughable absurdity.

The moment he anchored his mind to that cold reality, Anok felt his internal panic settle into a calm, rhythmic baseline. Casting his gaze slightly downward, the long shadow of his eyelashes cloaking his expression, he delivered a concise, clinical summary of the entire conspiracy.

“……Since I have already summoned Physician Do to verify the evidence and Court Lady Cho is fiercely protesting her innocence, I believe it would be highly beneficial for Your Highness to audit the verification process personally.”

The moment the explanation concluded, Eunuch Im—who had been anxiously hovering just outside the threshold, desperately scanning for a safe window to enter—hurriedly pushed Physician Do across the threshold.

Suddenly thrust squarely into the freezing eye of a violent imperial storm, Physician Do bitterly regretted the brief, luxurious comfort he had enjoyed over the past forty-eight hours. Though his clinical conduct was entirely flawless, for a man harboring a fragile, cautious disposition, being pinned between these two terrifying monarchs was an agonizing ordeal.

“This is the medicine pouch recovered directly from Court Lady Cho’s private wardrobe. Meticulously inspect it once more,” Anok commanded, passing the paper packet over.

Though the dried herbs were already intimately familiar to his eyes, the doctor received the pouch and executed a grueling, hyper-focused re-examination as if analyzing it for the very first time.

“Are there any anomalous components present within the mixture?”

Rather than waiting in quiet, patient silence, Yeo Jae-won crossed his arms, his eyes narrowing into razor-sharp slits as he looked down at the physician, ruthlessly pressuring him to accelerate his analysis. At the spine-chilling cadence of that low baritone, Physician Do reflexively dropped his head, his voice trembling as he delivered his report.

“Yes, Your Highness. According to my definitive clinical analysis, mixed directly into this formulation is a potent stimulant engineered to artificially accelerate an Omega’s heat cycle.”

At that explicit confirmation, Yeo Jae-won’s features subtly locked into a rigid, terrifying mask.

In the current political climate, the Prince firmly suspected that Noble Consort Sa and Prince Hye were the covert masterminds behind the brutal assassination of the late Crown Prince. Hearing that the Consort had actively targeted Anok with an illicit substance, his mind had instantly calculated that a lethal toxin had been introduced into his household.

“Then the violent manifestation of the Grand Consort’s heat cycle two nights ago…… was triggered entirely by the active intervention of these specific herbs?”

“From a clinical standpoint, that is my absolute deduction, Your Highness.”

“Ha……!”

Making zero effort to suppress the dark, mocking scoff that tore from his throat, Yeo Jae-won’s expression instantly twisted into a mask of pure, unbridled ferocity. Turning his face sharply away from where Anok stood as if to conceal the sheer violence of his expression, he remained completely silent for a long, suffocating interlude.

“Grand Consort! Your servant was merely executing an explicit command issued directly by the master of Damyeon Palace! Did I not state it clearly? Everything I engineered was entirely for your own benefit, Your Highness……”

“Cease this pathetic display.”

Taking a deliberate step forward, Anok closed the distance between himself and Court Lady Cho. He reached down, calmly placing his hand flat against her trembling shoulder as he offered a slow, definitive shake of his head.

“Do you truly believe screaming that excuse alters the reality of your situation?”

“…….”

“You actively deceived and utterly humiliated your sovereign master. I believe I lack any logical requirement to explain to an imperial veteran exactly how severe the penal code is for such a treasonous transgression within the palace walls.”

“Grand Consort……!”

“Remain perfectly silent until your final sentencing is formally calculated.”

Offering a subtle jerk of his chin toward Eunuch Im standing at the threshold, two robust estate attendants instantly marched into the room. They clamped their hands onto Court Lady Cho’s thrashing frame, locking her arms in an iron grip.

“Grand Consort, spare my life! I beg of you, grant your servant a solitary measure of your legendary tolerance! Are you not a master possessing an extraordinarily benevolent and merciful heart? Spare me!”

Using every ounce of her physical strength to dig her toes into the floorboards to resist being dragged across the threshold, Court Lady Cho thrashed so violently that one of her silk slippers slipped from her foot, tumbling across the stone tiles in a pathetic, undignified heap.

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