God Did Not Forbid Divorce 15

“I told you not to put a scratch on what’s mine. Are you deaf?”

The single quiet word from Luan’s lips froze the air in an instant.

It was neither a shout nor a roar.

A voice stripped of all emotion — cold and dry as midwinter frost.

Yet the weight of authority contained within it landed far heavier than any physical blow.

Jo’s lips trembled uncontrollably. His mind went completely blank.

Why? Why on earth would His Imperial Majesty the Empress come to a back courtyard like this?

A thousand questions flashed through his head, but his instincts were already screaming a warning.

This was not the time for questions. This was the time to throw himself flat on the ground.

Jo dropped to his knees, shaking violently.

The two fellow trainees who had been standing behind him turned ashen and slammed their foreheads to the ground alongside him.

“W-we have committed a capital offense! We failed to recognize Your Majesty——!”

“W-we were only trying to uphold the rules of the temple——!”

“Rules?”

Jo desperately began pouring out excuses. Pure survival instinct.

“This — this person…… no, Aiden the apprentice priest was embezzling temple property, and we were in the middle of reprimanding him! We were only trying to guide our junior as his seniors!”

Lying to the very end.

Aiden bit down hard on his lip, burning with the injustice of it.

The collar that had been grabbed by the scruff was still crumpled, but he didn’t have the strength left to even defend himself.

He was simply so ashamed and so wronged that tears were already pricking at his eyes — that Luan had to witness such a pathetic scene at all.

Jo, utterly shameless, felt a flicker of relief when Aiden said nothing.

But Luan remained unmoved.

He swept his damp hair back with an air of mild irritation and slowly walked toward Jo.

The outer robe he’d thrown over his still-wet linen gown billowed in the wind.

The sight of him looked for all the world like an emissary of divine judgment.

“Reprimanding him, you said.”

Luan looked down at Jo and gave a faint, contemptuous smile.

“So in this temple, reprimanding someone means grabbing them by the collar and threatening them? That’s quite different from the doctrine I knew.”

“Th-that’s because our junior wouldn’t listen……”

“And embezzlement, you said?”

Luan’s gaze rested on Aiden for a moment, then snapped back to Jo.

“Where is your proof that Aiden stole anything?”

“Th-the ledger shows missing inventory! The Silver Leaf is gone! And Aiden was the one managing the key today!”

Jo desperately pressed his alibi.

On paper, it was airtight.

Aiden had held the key, so the responsibility for anything that went missing in that time fell on Aiden.

That was the foundation Jo was counting on.

Aiden felt completely sick looking at that shameless face.

“Hmm.”

Luan rubbed his chin and turned Jo’s words over in his mind.

Any ordinary noble, the moment they found themselves speechless, would have barked “How dare you make noise before me!” and driven everyone away with force.

But Luan was different.

The DNA of an audit team was etched into his very soul.

The instincts of a mad dog from the audit division flared to life.

“Interesting. When someone usually steals something, they falsify the ledger or erase the evidence. They don’t leave it conspicuously empty as if to say, come arrest me.“

Luan took one step closer.

“Besides — Silver Leaf, you said. The sap from that isn’t quite harmless, is it?”

“Pardon? Y-yes……”

“When you snap the stem, a blue liquid comes out. I’ve heard it doesn’t wash off skin for three days.”

Luan extended his hand toward Jo.

“Your hands.”

“……What?”

“Hold out your hands. Shall I have to say it twice?”

A cool, flat command.

Jo, without understanding why, held out both trembling hands.

Luan did not take them.

He merely swept his eyes over them as though looking at something unclean.

Then he pointed precisely at the space beneath the index finger and thumb nail of Jo’s right hand.

“That.”

Luan’s eyes narrowed.

“The blue stain under your fingernail. Are you going to claim that’s just dirt?”

“……!”

Jo scrambled to hide his hands, but it was already too late.

“Silver Leaf sap.”

Luan added, a beat later.

“Not even trying to hide it properly.”

Luan’s gaze turned this time to Aiden.

“Aiden, open your hands.”

Aiden hesitated, then spread his palms open.

They were covered in soil from a full day of work in the herb garden, and there were scrapes here and there — but there was not a single trace of blue staining anywhere.

“As you can see.”

Luan stated the truth to Jo, cold and clear.

“Aiden’s hands are nothing but dirt. Clean. You’re the one who handled the plant. You’re the one who stole it. And you’re the one who falsified the ledger.”

“Th-that’s…… I got it on me by accident……!”

“You got it on you by accident, yet you tried to pin it on Aiden? Is that what you call senior guidance?”

There was no escape from the logical rebuttal. There was no hole to crawl through.

Jo’s face turned the color of ash.

Embezzlement, false accusation, and the crime of deceiving the imperial family.

This was not something that would end with a simple disciplinary measure — these were grave offenses.

“Y-Your Majesty……! I-I was wrong! Please, just this once, forgive me!”

Jo slammed his forehead against the ground, wailing.

The two trainees beside him threw themselves down and began begging as well.

“We must have lost our minds for a moment! Please spare us!”

Loud. Luan’s brow furrowed.

Those who embezzle are not to be let off lightly. A leopard cannot change its spots.

The cancer cells of an organization must be excised early.

“Benya.”

The moment Luan called out in a low voice, the sound of someone sprinting came clattering down the end of the alley.

“Your Majesty! You were here!”

It was Benya.

He had spent the entire day combing through every corner of the temple, searching for Luan who refused to stay in one place.

It was the sound of commotion that had drawn him near enough to finally spot him.

“Good heavens, what is all this?”

Benya looked back and forth between the apprentice priests prostrated on the ground trembling, and Aiden standing dazedly with his collar still crumpled, trying to piece together the situation.

“Your Majesty, did these impudent individuals cause you harm?”

“The harm wasn’t directed at me. It was directed at him.”

Luan tilted his chin toward Aiden.

A timely entrance.

“These individuals pilfered temple property and framed an innocent junior for it. They also resorted to physical force and threats. I witnessed it myself, so there should be no need for further witnesses.”

“Wh-what!?”

Benya’s face cycled through red and blue.

In the sacred temple — and of all days, the very day that Luan, whom he respected most, had come to visit — this kind of despicable behavior.

And to have been caught at the scene, no less. There could be no greater disgrace than this.

“These…… these rotten scoundrels!”

At Benya’s thundering reprimand, the heads of Jo and his cohort dropped even lower.

Luan had brought up the situation precisely to make good use of Benya’s well-timed arrival, but his read of the man had been accurate.

How could a freshly graduated novice priest come to handle consultations for both the Emperor and Empress?

He was the scion of an influential family, and within the temple hierarchy — which was considerably closer to the secular world than to the divine — he held considerable standing.

He may have shown more than a few ridiculous sides of himself, but within the great temple, there were few priests with as much influence as Benya.

“How dare you steal in the name of the gods? And as if that weren’t enough, you sell out your own colleague? Do you even deserve to wear those priest’s robes!?”

“B-Benya! This is a misunderstanding! We were——!”

“Silence! Drag these fools away this instant! Convene the disciplinary committee! No — I’ll personally recommend their dismissal on the spot!”

At Benya’s thunderous order, the temple guards came running.

They seized Jo and his accomplices by the arms, twisting them into submission.

“Your Majesty! We’re sorry! Aaaaagh!”

Screams of being dragged away echoed through the back courtyard.

To be dismissed from the temple was tantamount to being buried alive in society.

Just deserts.

The courtyard was cleared in an instant.

Benya bowed ninety degrees before Luan once more.

A few more degrees and he would have been folding completely in half.

“Your Majesty, I am deeply sorry. My lax management of those beneath me has offended your precious eyes.”

“Never mind. The sooner rotten branches are pruned, the better.”

Luan replied briefly and turned his gaze to Aiden, who was leaning against the wall.

I’ve been found out as the Empress. I was hoping to work my way in quietly, but that’s completely blown now.

Though of course, Aiden had already known Luan was the Empress, so it had been a ruined plan from the start.

The reason he hadn’t recovered from the shock was something else entirely.

With that body……

Aiden’s gaze lingered on Luan’s pale face and wet shoulders.

A truth only he knew.

That person had been coughing up blood until just moments ago.

A person who had been wracked with agony as though his very organs were being torn out, dying before his eyes.

And yet…… and yet he came to save me.

He could barely stand. And yet he had swallowed that pain, come all this way, and wielded his authority without faltering.

What am I, that he would do this for someone like me.

That was precisely why Aiden felt as though his chest was being torn apart.

It wasn’t merely power being used to crush someone beneath it.

That had been mercy paid for with his very life.

Just then, Luan took a step forward and swayed slightly — his soaked shoes had slipped.

To Aiden’s eyes, it looked like someone who had reached his limit finally collapsing.

“Your Majesty!”

Aiden cried out as though it had been torn from him and lunged forward.

He instinctively grabbed Luan’s arm to support him.

No — he clutched him so tightly it was almost reverent.

The body that leaned into him was far too light.

Tears surged up without warning.

“……?”

Luan looked at Aiden with puzzled eyes.

Thanks to the detox, my body feels like it could float away — so why is he acting like this?

Aiden’s hands were trembling violently, and his eyes were swimming with tears.

“Your Majesty, are you alright? You mustn’t push yourself. Please……”

His voice was soaked with the effort of holding back sobs.

I won’t say anything. His Majesty wants to keep the pain hidden.

The moment the fact that he had been coughing up blood left his lips, it could become a weakness for his enemies to exploit.

Aiden swore to himself he would carry the terrible sight he had witnessed straight to his grave.

He had to be the one to hold this precarious person up, to keep him from falling.

That was the least he owed the one who had saved his life.

Why is he acting like this?

Well — perhaps he was moved because Luan had come to his rescue. Or perhaps he was shaken by the title of Empress.

Luan regarded him with indifferent eyes, not taking it particularly seriously.

“Aiden.”

“Y-yes! Your Majesty.”

“Benya. You mentioned this child doesn’t have an assigned role yet?”

Luan looked at Benya and asked.

“That’s right, he’s still in training, so he’s been helping out here and there……”

“Then from today, he’ll be exclusively assigned to me.”

At Luan’s bombshell announcement, both Benya’s and Aiden’s eyes went wide at the same time.

“Exclusively assigned?”

“I’ll be coming for the purification ritual every week from now on. And as you know, I dislike noise.”

Dislike is putting it mildly — it was nearly enough to make me keel over. Benya recalled Luan’s attitude during their consultation sessions.

“This child is quiet, and his touch is delicate.”

“Ah……”

“When I come, I’ll have him handle every small errand without exception. Don’t assign him any other duties. He’ll be busy enough attending to me.”

Benya and Aiden’s mouths fell open.

This was no simple work assignment.

This was the position of the Empress’s exclusive attending priest.

The moment that title was attached to his name, no one within the temple would be able to lay a hand on Aiden carelessly.

Even fully ordained priests would treat him with wariness.

Luan had just fitted Aiden with a perfect armband of authority.

It was also a strategy to keep Aiden by his side and manage their connection safely.

Benya, with no way of knowing what was going on in that head, simply looked on at the Empress who was benevolent even toward a mere apprentice priest, overcome with admiration.

“Understood! If that is what Your Majesty wishes!”

Luan found himself just a little curious about how far Benya’s authority actually reached.

It seemed his appointed counselor was a bigger player than he had anticipated.

“You heard, didn’t you, Aiden? From now on, you are exclusively assigned to His Imperial Majesty the Empress. Know that it is an honor!”

“……!”

Aiden looked up at Luan with trembling eyes.

This wasn’t simply a matter of his work becoming easier.

This was salvation.

He’s trying to…… protect me.

He was nothing but an apprentice priest Luan had encountered for the very first time today.

And yet Luan had dragged his ailing body here to shield him, and was now saying he would protect him going forward.

Something hot surged violently in Aiden’s chest.

“Thank you…… Your Majesty!”

Aiden bowed his head deeply.

Tears dripped, one by one, onto the ground.

“If you’re grateful, then just call me something easier. We agreed you’d call me hyung.”

“H-how could I possibly……”

“Then at least call me Luan.”

Your Majesty is too much of a burden. The distance in a form of address was the distance of the heart as well.

Hyung was probably still too much of a stretch, so at the very least, he should let him use his name.

At Luan’s words, Aiden’s eyes brimmed with tears again.

“Yes — Luan!”

“Repay your gratitude through your work. I’m quite particular, after all.”

Luan said this with deliberate coolness and turned away.

But Aiden saw it.

Through the wet strands of hair — the tips of Luanisiel’s ears, just barely flushed red.

(From the cold water getting in them. From the cold.)

I swear it.

Aiden clenched his fist as he watched Luan’s retreating figure.

I will protect Your Majesty — Luan — even if it costs me my life. His secrets and his safety alike.

He was the first person who had ever given Aiden warmth.

There was nothing he could offer that would be enough.

If I could take away even a little of the pain he carries……

It was the moment the shou of the cursed-with-misfortune couple from the original work awakened as Luan’s most devoted follower.