WAYSOWRA

Chapter 12

As they left the orphanage, Ebalt continued to read the emperor’s emotions.

His child is not in this orphanage either.

The emperor saw all the children around six to seven years old, but he did not feel any spiritual power from them.

He couldn’t even see a child that resembled him or the deceased empress.

“A-Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Let’s leave immediately.”

The emperor answered calmly and entered the carriage.

He briefly looked outside the window, staring at the places within the grand duke’s territory, however, they all meant nothing in front of the emperor’s disheartened eyes.

‘How nice it would be if my child was in that orphanage.’

His lips formed a sorrowful smile as he watched a silver carriage pass by.

He couldn’t stand the anger that was forming inside his chest.

Using his power, he draws all the curtains inside the carriage.

Slowly, his hair fluttered and the curtains moved by themselves to cover the windows.

The interior of the carriage darkened as if the light was swallowed by the blue curtains that covered the windows.

“……My child, my child, my child!”

His precious child.

Whether his child is a prince or a princess, he promised to love them unconditionally.

His child is not by his side right now, but he wanted to keep that promise.

He spent six years searching.

Everyone thought that the emperor was strange for looking for his dead child.

It was because his other wife, Elena, testified that the baby was dead.

The baby was born, but it died after birth.

The empire has a belief that a baby who died after birth would bring misfortune, so a funeral should be held within three days.

The empress, who gave birth to the child, was weakened and died soon after.

The emperor lost two of his loved ones because of something he had been looking forward to.

He didn’t even get to see them properly before that. It was because the empress went to the west of the empire, where Elena, the emperor’s concubine, helped the empress during her pregnancy and parturition.

(T/N: In the previous chapters, I referred to Elena as ’empress’ since she was called 황비 or hwangbi which means the emperor’s other wife. I concluded that she is the ‘current empress after the previous empress died’ so I kept calling her that in the previous chaps because Elena is also married to the emperor, so imagine my shock when I read that she even interacted with the ‘previous’ empress when she’s already a 황비 – I’m gonna call her ‘concubine’ now –. I thought that concubines are not married since they are referred to as ‘mistress’ so I didn’t refer to her as concubine and that was a mistake on my part. I asked a staff member what I should call Elena and she said ‘concubine’ would be appropriate which I also agree, so now I will be calling her concubine instead of empress – or the emperor’s other wife if stated in Korean like earlier, when Elena’s name was first mentioned –. To make things clear, the real empress is Shuelina’s mother, while I mistakenly referred to the one behind Shuelina’s troubles as empress when it should be concubine. I’m really sorry for the misunderstanding.)