He had finally gotten a day off.
It hadn’t come for free. Over the past two days, Luan had been buried under a mountain of documents and worked through them like a machine. He skimmed through approval papers, cut unnecessary budgets, and without mercy filled ambiguous wording with red-pen corrections.
Perhaps it was the overwork.
The detox expiration date is insultingly short!
It had been exactly two days since he’d purged the tainted blood at the temple and reset his body — and already his condition had reverted to its original garbage state.
Those two days had been nothing short of heaven. His body had been light as a feather, and his mind had run faster than its prime — faster, even. He had put that overflowing energy to full use, combing through every corner of the imperial finances and tidying up the corruption ledgers of rotten nobles.
And it only lasted two days?!
The problem was the difference in environment between the imperial palace and the temple.
This place was the heart of the empire, layered over with powerful magical barriers one after another. Those barriers blocked outside intrusion, but at the same time they also thoroughly cut off the flow of sacred power within. Because of that, the vast amount of sacred power being generated inside Luan’s body could not naturally discharge outward — instead it reversed course through his veins and began to pool.
Even so, this was supposed to be a detox given by God — and it only lasted two days. His stomach churned and his joints ached until he finally declared a strike. Perhaps thanks to working like a dog for the past two days, Kirian had at least said nothing and let him rest.
Having to read the room just to take a break. How revolting.
Luan lurched up from his seat and staggered out of the office. And behind him, Kirian’s eyes narrowed as he watched that retreating figure.
A little while later, by the office window. Kirian stood looking down at Luan as he walked through the garden toward the greenhouse.
The red eyes watching that retreating figure were sunken deep. It was not the gaze of affection or concern for a spouse — it was the eyes of a hunter, sizing up a beast of unknown nature.
“……Kael. What do you make of it?”
At Kirian’s low voice, Kael — the knight who kept watch behind him like a shadow — stepped forward.
“Suspicious. Very much so.”
Kael was resolute. His gaze too was fixed on Luan outside the window.
“As you’ll recall, the former Empress was…… someone so quiet you’d barely know he was there.”
He was someone who stayed shut in his room all day staring out the window, and even when he attended meetings, he never said a single word. His presence was so faint — as if he had deliberately erased himself — that sometimes even the attending servants would forget he was in the room.
“……”
As Kael’s measured explanation continued, Kirian’s brow furrowed. That was right. Luan had lived quietly, holding his breath, like wallpaper or furniture in the imperial palace — present but barely there. He had never shown emotion, never let desire show.
Kirian suddenly felt a strange sensation.
But…… what kind of expression did he used to make?
He searched his memory, but nothing surfaced. A faint, white silhouette. That was all. What books he usually read, what manner of speaking he used, what expressions crossed his face.
Nothing came to mind.
“I don’t know.”
Kirian murmured quietly.
“There’s no reference point. To say that person has changed, I’d need to know what he was like before…… and I can’t remember.”
Had he been that indifferent to him? Or had Luan lived with such thoroughness in erasing himself?
Kirian felt unsettled. With no past information to compare against, he couldn’t even determine whether the Empress standing before him now was strange — or whether he had always been like this and Kirian simply hadn’t known.
It was into that gap that Kael’s cool conjecture crept.
“But the degree of change is excessive. Look at the speed at which he processes documents. That is……”
Excessively capable, and boldly decisive to an unsettling degree. He slashed through the empire’s budget and even toward Kirian himself — the Emperor — he maintained only the bare minimum of courtesy while saying exactly what he wanted to say. On top of that, in matters of governance, he seemed to hold the empire’s entire system in the palm of his hand.
Kael lowered his voice and continued.
“It is the movement of a beast that has long hidden its claws and bided its time. The silence until now may not have been incompetence — it may have been a thorough disguise to invite complacency.”
“……A disguise.”
“Excessive competence can sometimes be a poison. The documents His Majesty the Empress is sorting through now may later become the blade that isolates Your Majesty.”
The corner of Kirian’s mouth twisted. Yes, it was possible. Pretending to know nothing, pretending to want nothing, holding his breath — and then at the decisive moment, swallowing the imperial throne whole. It could be part of some grand scheme by the Requies family. Had he not already experienced that firsthand?
“I’ll need to verify it.”
Kirian’s eyes gleamed cold. Perhaps the divorce was a lure thrown out to conceal something far larger.
“After all, the true nature that reveals itself when no one is watching — that is the truth.”
Kirian murmured quietly.
***
The imperial greenhouse, drenched in the afternoon sun.
This place, filled with the fragrance of rare flowers, was unusually still and silent today. Luan was seated on a white bench tucked away in a spot that rarely saw foot traffic.
His wretched body had deteriorated to the point where sitting in the office was simply impossible. No — if anything, it seemed to have gotten worse. With every breath he took, a scorching pain like swallowing molten metal scraped at his throat.
It felt like…… he might vomit.
Just a moment…… five minutes. Let me catch my breath.
Thinking the lack of movement might be to blame, he had attempted a walk outside — but his feeble body drained out almost immediately, even over that short a distance. Luan sank deep into the backrest of the bench and tilted his head back. His pale throat was exposed, and his tightly pressed lips were completely bloodless, white as chalk.
If it was going to be like this, why let me taste the upgraded version at all — just to make things harder. Resentment toward God welled up on its own.
Just then, the faintest hint of a presence stirred near the greenhouse entrance.
It was Kirian and Kael. The moment Luan had entered the greenhouse and disappeared from sight, the two had followed after him. They were here to catch whatever true nature he might reveal when no eyes were on him.
The two men concealed themselves behind a large leafy plant and, like predators stalking prey, held their breath and watched Luan.
Look at that, Your Majesty.
Kael signaled with a glance.
He looks like he’s waiting for someone. Could he be meeting with a secret envoy?
Kirian watched Luan in silence. One of Luan’s hands was gripping tightly at his chest. Hard enough to crumple the fabric of his clothes. To Kirian’s eyes, that gesture looked like someone checking a crucial secret letter hidden inside his breast — or perhaps confirming a poison meant to harm someone.
Tension hung in the air. The plan was to close in the moment Luan pulled something from inside his clothes and confront him on the spot. What scheme are you plotting? What on earth is driving you to push this far?
He’s reaching for it.
Luan’s hand moved. Kael placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, and Kirian was just about to step forward.
“……Ugh.”
Breaking the silence, a suppressed groan tore from Luan’s lips.
It was not the sound of calling out to someone, nor of chanting an incantation. It was something far closer to a scream, wrung out by pure, unfiltered pain.
Cough —!
It happened in an instant. A surge of dark red blood spilled from between Luan’s lips.
“……!”
Kirian and Kael, watching from hiding, both froze like stone at the same moment.
Luan hurriedly pressed a white handkerchief to his mouth. But far too much had already come out. Red blood seeping between his fingers ran down his chin and soaked into the neatly fastened collar of his shirt. Against the white marble floor, drops of red blood fell — drip, drip — like petals.
A scheme? A secret envoy? Treason?
There was none of that. There was only the pain of a man who was dying.
Ah, damn. It finally burst.
Separate from the shock of the two men, Luan was filled with nothing but irritation. He had thought he might vomit — he just hadn’t known it would be blood. Wasn’t the detox supposed to be a one-time thing? And it had to erupt now, in the middle of the imperial palace, when he had nothing but a single handkerchief on him. He had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to clean this up.
This is marble — once blood soaks in, it doesn’t come out easily. And there won’t be anything like wet wipes around. Damn.
Luan looked down at the handkerchief, now soaked red with blood, in his trembling hands.
He was completely done with this. It felt like being scammed by a trial version. He’d thought God had given him a healthy body as a VIP package gift — and that gift had only lasted two days.
Resentment and hollowness crashed over him in waves. This cursed body of his was the worst possible return on investment.
“……Haa.”
A deep, dry sigh escaped Luan’s lips.
“And this is…… all I amount to?”
His low, bitter voice echoed through the quiet greenhouse. He had bled so much during the purification ritual — and before the blood he’d purged had even had time to replenish, he was vomiting it again. And the ritual hadn’t been free, either. What a waste of the budget — the cost-efficiency was appalling.
But to the two men hidden behind the leafy plant, watching it all, those words carried an entirely different meaning.
What does that mean……?
All I amount to. To Kirian’s ears, those words sounded like a final soliloquy directed at his own guttering life.
Is this all the time I have left to hold on — is this all the life remaining to me? That was the quiet, desolate grief those words seemed to carry.
Kirian’s pupils shook as if struck by an earthquake. Kael too was unable to close his mouth. Every action he had condemned just moments ago rapidly reassembled itself in his mind.
The sight of him blazing through documents — that had not been ambition. It had been the desperate struggle of someone trying to fulfill his duties in the little time he had left. The indifferent silence had not been a disguise. It had been a grueling act of endurance, holding back the pain.
“……”
As the thoughts of the two men tangled together, Luan casually wiped the remaining blood from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve. Then, as if nothing had happened at all, he crumpled the bloodied handkerchief deep into his pocket and leaned back against the bench once more.
As if vomiting blood were simply routine. As if enduring this pain alone were only natural.
That composed, unbothered manner sliced through the Emperor’s chest like a blade.
“……Your Majesty.”
Kael’s voice was trembling.
“What was I…… even thinking……”
Kirian could not answer. The sharp wariness and suspicion he had harbored until just a moment ago shattered to pieces, and in their place, a whirlpool of emotions he could not name took root.
While he had been trailing the Empress like prey, suspecting him — Luan had been here alone, bleeding, measuring what remained of his life.
“……Kael.”
Kirian forced the words out.
“We…… saw nothing.”
“But his condition——!”
“If the Empress has gone to such lengths to hide it.”
Kirian’s gaze fixed on Luan’s small, precarious back.
“The two of us stepping forward now and letting on that we know would only bring him greater humiliation.”
Kirian clenched his fist tight. His nails dug into his palm, but he felt no pain.
“……Let’s go.”
Kirian turned away as if fleeing. Afraid that if he approached, he would expose the secret Luan had been desperately trying to conceal — and crumble the pride Luan had so fiercely wanted to protect.
The two men slipped out of the greenhouse without a sound.
But burned into both their minds — like a brand that would not fade — was the image of Luan’s pale profile, the blood-stained handkerchief, and that soft, self-deprecating voice filled with sorrow.
Only Luan, oblivious to all of it, felt his stomach settle just slightly and thought:
Looks like I’ll need to file another support request. A body that does nothing but bleed is defective, obviously.
All without the faintest dream that it was the beginning of a sweeping misunderstanding that would shake the entire imperial palace to its core.
oh my god pls lmfaoooooooo the misunderstandings continue 😂😂