Chapter 140
Becky frowned deeply as she felt around the area and continued:
“Creating something like this inside the mansion. She’s something else.”
Lione and Becky thoroughly searched potential locations for a secret space, and before long, they discovered Jane’s secret storage.
“Isn’t this too shabby to be called a secret?”
“As Becky said, it’s impossible to create a truly secret space inside the mansion without special techniques.”
While Lione reached into Jane’s secret space, Becky unconsciously spoke again:
“It really is shabby.”
“But this mechanical device is completely different.”
Carefully extracting a device that appeared to be the epitome of precision even at a glance, Lione observed the liquid sloshing at the top of the device and said:
“This must be the mysterious poison.”
“Let’s take some with us.”
“Won’t she notice if some is missing?”
“She probably would, but even if she noticed, what could the shadow do?”
Becky smiled a vile smile that could never be described as mild, even as a figure of speech.
“I wonder if she could tell anyone about poison disappearing from a secret space she created without permission.”
“But if that happens, she might do something unpredictable.”
Becky hesitated at Lione’s unexpectedly firm attitude and stern face.
“A person is most dangerous not when they have a dangerous plan, but when they act unpredictably without a plan.”
At his words, which flowed from genuine experience, Becky nodded compliantly to him for the first time.
“All right. But we need to know what this poison is.”
“Regarding that matter, I think we should seek permission from the lady.”
“From the lady?”
“Yes.”
After hearing Lione’s subsequent explanation, Becky nodded resolutely.
“Good. With the lady’s permission, I’ll need to take some action.”
Riina tugged at the back of her father’s head as he was about to leave and asked:
“Father, did I hear you correctly?”
“Yes. They’re conspiring to assassinate His Majesty the Emperor.”
Though it still didn’t make sense even after hearing it again, just as she was about to open her mouth for confirmation, there was a knock.
Knock-knock.
“His Highness the Second Prince has come to visit.”
At Sebastian’s words, Riina’s face bloomed like a morning glory at dawn, causing the Duke’s brow to furrow sharply.
However, he couldn’t turn away the Second Prince at the door when his daughter was smiling like that.
The Duke permitted him to enter with a voice that had a layer of frost on it:
“Tell him to come in.”
Sebastian, who always had the same impeccable gait, entered through the silently opened door, but no one followed him.
Riina unconsciously craned her neck slightly and looked at the open door, and the Duke narrowed his eyes exactly the same way he did when Riina saw something unpleasant or suspicious.
“Einar?”
Einar, who had been standing at the doorway with the tips of his eyebrows lowered as if embarrassed, responded to Riina’s call with a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes, but he couldn’t step into the office under the Duke’s fierce gaze.
Although it seemed unlikely, he even felt as if the Duke had caught him taking Riina’s breath away for quite some time.
No, probably the moment the Duke learned that he had kissed her, a dueling glove would have flown at his face.
Reflexively wiping his face, Einar opened his mouth while receiving the Duke’s ice-blue gaze that seemed ready to burn him alive:
“I came because I heard some interesting news, but it seems you’ve already heard it.”
“This isn’t something to discuss with the door wide open, so please come in first.”
The unspoken follow-up, “and leave as quickly as possible,” seemed audible, but seeing Riina tilting her head as she looked at him standing outside the door, he couldn’t help but approach.
As Einar naturally took his place beside her, Sebastian skillfully served tea that perfectly matched his taste.
The Duke’s eyes narrowed even further, as if that scene also bothered him.
“You seem to understand the Prince’s tea preferences well.”
Though the words were directed at Sebastian, it was impossible not to understand the implied meaning: “Has Sebastian prepared the tea you like in advance because you’ve been frequenting the mansion?”
If he hadn’t known that it was the Duke who had turned back time, he would have smoothly praised Sebastian and moved on, but…
With nothing to say even if he had ten mouths, Einar merely took a sip of tea and let out a dry laugh.
The Duke looked at him disapprovingly and seemed determined to get rid of him quickly, going straight to the main point:
“I heard that His Highness the Third Prince plans to assassinate His Majesty the Emperor and frame His Highness the Second Prince for it.”
“That’s exactly what I heard too.”
As Einar closed his mouth, a deep silence fell between the three people.
No one spoke first, but they were all thinking the same thing.
“There’s a limit to stupidity.”
Following Einar, who spoke first, Riina also opened her mouth with a sneer:
“I already knew that the head on his shoulders was merely decorative.”
The Duke nodded with an expressionless face, agreeing with her words.
“Did he think he could make such plans in the imperial palace without His Majesty the Emperor finding out?”
“Who knows. How could we understand the thoughts of someone who wears his head as decoration?”
As Einar waved his hand indifferently, Riina asked:
“Are you going to leave it alone?”
“His Majesty already knows everything, so it will end before I need to take action.”
The Duke immediately negated Einar’s words with an expressionless face:
“His Majesty will observe. If the Third Prince’s plan works plausibly, His Majesty might even reconsider the Third Prince.”
“Ah. His Majesty is certainly capable of that, and more.”
Riina also nodded and added:
“And although the Third Prince is stupid and thoughtless, because of that, he’ll be persistently annoying if left alone. The more foolish and diligent a person is, the more troublesome they tend to be.”
Einar simply nodded at Riina’s words, who knew the Third Prince’s tenacity and obsession with power better than anyone.
“Then we’ll have to deal with it.”
His tone suggested he was picking up and throwing away trash that had fallen in front of him, but none of the three thought that aspect was strange.
“By the way.”
Einar continued, turning his gaze to the Duke:
“How exactly does he plan to harm His Majesty the Emperor? Have you heard anything specific?”
“You don’t need to hear it to know.”
At the Duke’s words, which seemed to imply “can’t you even figure that out,” Einar smiled dryly and replied:
“The best method would be to disguise it as an accident, but Smith doesn’t have that capability. As for other methods, there’s assassination, but given the target, he wouldn’t be able to find someone capable of carrying it out.”
“Since he hasn’t specially trained anyone, assassination must be crossed off the list of options.”
Of course, before the regression, Riina had secretly trained people who would do anything for Smith, but that was a future that would not happen, a past that had disappeared.
“Then there’s only one method left.”
“Poison.”
“Poison.”
As Riina and Einar uttered the same word simultaneously, the Duke frowned as if displeased but didn’t deny it.
As thoughts extended to poison, Riina immediately mentioned a person related to it:
“I heard that Jane and the Third Prince have met several times. Both of them will stop at nothing to get what they want.”
“The Third Prince wants the imperial throne, but what about the shadow?”
“Ah, I haven’t told you yet.”
Riina conveyed Jane’s delusion to Einar, and he showed the same reaction as everyone else who had heard the story:
“Was she mentally ill?”
Einar’s gaze naturally turned to the Duke.
That Duke of Bolshevik brought in such a woman as a shadow?
Even knowing that she had harmed Riina before the regression, he did so again after the regression?
If so, there were two possibilities:
First, although the Duke made Riina regress, he himself did not regress, or if he did, he had no memory of it.
Second, despite knowing everything, he had no choice but to make the deranged woman a shadow.
Come to think of it, hadn’t someone said that the price of a completed deal couldn’t be changed?
It must be the second option.
After the regression, the Duke cannot change anything according to his own will.
Having reached a conclusion in the blink of an eye, Einar inwardly swallowed an even deeper sigh.
Because he had realized how much the Duke had endured and continued to endure for his daughter.
To have to repeat the events from before the regression exactly and merely hope that Riina would not meet the same future as before.
What a terrible price.
Momentarily lost in thought about the Duke, Einar was instantly brought back to reality by Riina’s next words, as if splashed with cold water:
“In a manner of speaking, yes. She seriously believed that and poisoned me.”
“She poisoned what?”
“What did you say?”
At Riina’s calmly delivered bombshell statement, Einar and the Duke exclaimed simultaneously.
But Riina calmly repeated despite their intense reactions:
“She put something in my teacup. It’s not a fast-acting poison, and I’ve already instructed an investigation to identify it.”
Einar’s ash-gray eyes, which had been staring at Riina—who was terribly insensitive to dangers directed at herself—became like a sky covered with dull clouds, filled with sadness, but this emotion soon submerged inside him.
He didn’t tell her to think more about her body or to pay more attention to her own safety.
Such words wouldn’t reach Riina, who had lived her entire life dominated by misfortune, exposed to all kinds of dangers, and survived each time.
Instead, Einar decided to remove the things that threatened her.
