Because she understood why he had done it, because she knew he had genuinely trembled with fear of losing his wife when she lost consciousness for days after giving birth, she couldn’t bring herself to be angry.

“As a wife, I should say I’m touched. Cutting off your own seed to completely block the possibility of your wife going through childbirth again—I’ve never heard of such a husband before.”

“There probably aren’t many. Though perhaps there are unexpectedly many men like that who are just too embarrassed to reveal it like I did.”

“Haha, I doubt it. But will you really be alright, Your Majesty? Though Ivenia is healthy, she’s still young. We don’t know what might happen in the future. We should have at least one or two more children……”

“Calie, it’s fine. It will all be fine. One child is enough for us. With just Ivenia, I already feel as fulfilled as if we owned the whole world.”

In an era where medicine, no matter how advanced, couldn’t completely prevent disease—especially in this world where small, fragile children died so easily—there was no guarantee that a child would safely reach adulthood just because they were born and raised with care.

Moreover, this was the imperial family. A place where qualification was determined by bloodline, where fewer hands meant threatened legitimacy, and where the existence of children became power.

Although she had given birth to a cute and healthy baby girl, Calie still felt anxious. She feared that her position as Empress, which she had regained after many twists and turns, might be shaken because she had too few children.

Just imagining the possibility of something happening to her beloved baby in the future was horrifying. But one always had to prepare for unforeseen accidents.

In that sense, it would have been better to have one more child, but her husband seemed to think differently.

“I’m overflowing with happiness just having Ivenia and you. I’m no longer afraid of anything. There’s no need for you to risk your life to have another child. We’ll raise Ivenia to be a benevolent ruler.”

When he whispered sweetly, Calie softened somewhat. She couldn’t reproach her husband for making such a decision solely for her sake. She leaned into his embrace and rested her head on his firm shoulder.

“Alright, I hope Ivenia becomes an even more benevolent ruler than you. Where else could one find such a selfish Emperor?”

It was a light reproach disguised as a joke. In reality, while she was touched as a wife, she was shocked by the Emperor’s decision as an Empress.

If one considered only the future of the empire and the stability of the imperial family, having many children was certainly the beneficial choice. She couldn’t completely deny that fact.

“Well, I never wanted to become a benevolent ruler in the first place.”

Leian replied bitterly. Calie hesitated. When she raised her head to look up at him, her face was reflected in a pair of sorrowful green eyes.

“I decided to become Emperor for a selfish reason too.”

He confessed quietly. He recalled a distant past. The Empress who was determined to push aside her stepson and place her biological son on the throne, and the weak Prince who couldn’t go against his mother.

“If I didn’t become Emperor and continued to oppose Duke Lucaen, my mother threatened to harm you as well… So I accepted it. Originally, my brother was meant to be the benevolent ruler.”

This was the first time he had shared such detailed past events.

Although he had already shared more stories than before when reconciling with Calie and reuniting with her, he had never spoken this honestly about his brother, who remained a fundamental source of guilt.

“So this time too, I can’t help but be selfish. My choices have always been based on you, Calie.”

Leian spoke softly with a gaze that mixed sadness and love.

He still felt only apologetic when thinking of his brother, and he would probably have to live with the guilt of his filial impiety for the rest of his life.

But he couldn’t regret the path he had walked so far. At the end of that road, he had met the woman he loved and the daughter he came to love even more, so how could he regret it?

For that love, Leian made yet another extremely selfish decision. Regardless of his duty to produce heirs, he made a decision quite unbecoming of an Emperor solely to prevent his beloved wife from being in danger.

He had no regrets about this either. Apart from not being able to hold his head high as a monarch who should prioritize the country over individuals and family.

But this was who he had always been. In fact, he had been consistent from the beginning until now.

“And of course, Ivenia will become a more benevolent ruler than me. Because both of us will be better parents than our own parents were. It shouldn’t be that difficult.”

Surely our daughter will be far better than me. Unlike me, who was conceived in adultery and flawed from the start, she will grow into an adult whom everyone cannot help but acknowledge as righteous.

Leian added with sincere feeling, wearing a bitter smile. Calie agreed with a somewhat sad expression.

“That’s right, it shouldn’t be that difficult.”

The fake lady and the unfilial Emperor had many deficiencies from the beginning. Perhaps even the happiness they now enjoyed had been unjustly extorted from others who deserved it.

But at least our innocent baby born between us is without sin, so we desperately hope that she will be as pure as we were wrong, as straight as we wandered.

“We will definitely succeed.”

Calie pledged, looking at her husband with a wish for their daughter’s brilliant future. Leian shared the same thought. And even after several years, that feeling remained unchanged.

In any case, Princess Ivenia was still an only child, and Leian, not satisfied with taking the medicine just once back then, still consistently *jaculated outside when mixing bodies with Calie.

In fact, for the medicine to truly be effective, it shouldn’t have stopped at a single dose but required regular consumption. However, faced with the Empress Dowager’s fierce opposition and the Empress’s serious persuasion, Leian reluctantly compromised with a single dose.

They said that medicine strong enough to cut off a man’s seed could cause various side effects if taken too frequently. And ruining his health through drug *buse was not Leian’s goal.

He needed to stay healthy for a long time to help his wife and protect his daughter, so he eventually accepted the compromise. In the end, this too was a selfish decision for the sake of family. Above all, rooted in pure love.

Calie was always grateful for that love. But she thought it excessive for him to be so anxious just because he had *jaculated inside her once. She gently soothed him.

“And I think I’d be fine even if a second child came along. Pregnancy isn’t such a terrible possibility. So don’t worry too much.”

“…Not terrible? You nearly died last time.”

Leian’s voice dropped sharply. His complexion, which had been flushed from their lovemaking, grew somewhat pale. His arms holding her tightened involuntarily. As if he feared she might disappear from his embrace.

Calie swallowed a sigh. Despite being the one who had nearly died, it was her husband who seemed more traumatized whenever that time was mentioned.

‘Well, I was unconscious for most of it.’

Perhaps it was fortunate that she had been continuously unconscious.

For her, she had merely closed her eyes and opened them again, only to find that days had passed, but during those days, Leian had stayed by her side every day, keeping vigil with sleepless nights.

So perhaps the terror engraved in his mind was worse than hers. Just as sometimes those left behind after losing someone suffer more than the person who died.

“But I didn’t die in the end. And my health has recovered a lot since then. Really.”

Calie comforted him affectionately.

After the difficult birth of her first child, she had indeed been quite weak for a while. Her monthly cycle even stopped completely for several months, making her think she might have become infertile.

However, as time passed, her body gradually became healthy again, and her monthly cycle gradually returned until it eventually became much more regular than before.

In fact, Calie had always been healthy. While the real Lady Lucaen had been frail from the womb and was born dead, the illegitimate daughter of a maid had never been sickly.

Perhaps that was why the late Duchess hated the fake daughter so much. Her own daughter had been in the afterlife before she was even born, while the fake of unknown origin was unnecessarily robust.

Despite such a robust constitution, her cycle had been irregular since her first period, and she had no children for five years after marriage. Then, after her divorce, she became pregnant immediately after having relations with her ex-husband. It was strange.

“It’s not an uncommon case. Pregnancy is such a delicate area that a woman’s state of mind can affect it. While innate constitution is certainly important, the influence of psychological stability cannot be ignored.”

There was a clear clue in the opinion of the imperial physician who assisted with the Empress’s postpartum care.

The woman who had not shown a single sign of pregnancy for five years while being a fake lady and an unloved Empress immediately found emotional stability after leaving the imperial palace.

The peace she enjoyed then, the joy of discovering that Leian loved her, and the passionate lovemaking between the two who didn’t care about contraception at all brought about the miracle named Ivenia.

That one miracle was enough. Calie loved the daughter she had unexpectedly met more than her own life.

So much that she felt grief and guilt at the thought that if the real Lady Lucaen had been born safely, she would have grown up receiving such love.