Mokyeong leaned even closer to the Prince.

“Your Highness, do you truly intend not to awaken? Even when everyone is waiting for you so desperately?”

As her voice reached his ears, the muscles in the Prince’s face shifted almost imperceptibly. For a moment, he even appeared to clench his teeth.

As expected, he was awake.

Yet judging by how stubbornly he refused to open his eyes, he seemed to be waiting for her to give up first.

‘His stubbornness is extraordinary as well.’

Then again, he was the kind of man who would sacrifice his own wife to fulfil his plan. He wouldn’t easily give up over something as minor as this.

After observing him silently, Mokyeong cupped the prince’s cheek in her hand.

His body temperature must have returned to normal because his skin felt hot against her palm.

Then again, that also revealed just how cold Mokyeong’s own body was.

Startled by her touch, tiny goose bumps rose along the prince’s neck.

Mokyeong chuckled and leaned even closer.

“Gasp!”

“What in the world……!”

The moment their lips met, the Prince’s lips trembled faintly in apparent shock at the unexpected contact.

Mokyeong did not miss the opening and slipped her tongue between his tightly closed lips.

‘Although you tried to kill this body, I am going so far as to kiss you to save your life. You ought to consider it an honor.’

Suppressing a scoff, Mokyeong gathered the internal energy she had painstakingly accumulated throughout the previous night. It was as precious as the last grains of rice scraped from an empty jar.

She concentrated it at the tip of her tongue and pushed it past his lips.

“……!”

As if by a miracle, at that moment the prince, who had lain there with his eyes closed as though he were dead, opened them abruptly.

Their gazes met so closely that their breaths mingled.

His vivid blue eyes, reminiscent of the open sky, quivered uncontrollably.

In that instant, bewilderment and fury flashed through them simultaneously.

This was far too vivid for someone who had been pretending to be dead only moments earlier.

How lovely.

As Mokyeong slowly raised her head, a silvery thread of saliva stretched between them, finally snapping as though severing the bond connecting them.

As though nothing remarkable had happened, she curled her eyes into crescents, smiled warmly and whispered.

“You are finally awake, Your Highness.”

***

When he opened his eyes, the prince was breathtakingly beautiful.

His radiant golden hair was slightly disheveled from lying motionless, but this only added to his strangely sensual allure, contrasting with his usual immaculate appearance.

Then there were his vivid blue eyes, like precious jewels; his perfectly straight nose; and his rose-colored lips, which had been pressed against hers only moments ago.

‘He certainly deserves to be called the Greatest Beauty in the Empire.’

While Mokyeong studied his face in admiration, Roanne’s reflection appeared clearly within those beautiful blue eyes.

Then the man’s expression turned frighteningly cold.

‘Well, I expected this much.’

According to Roanne’s recollections, Carden never hid his displeasure when their fingertips touched.

Even when he was forced by duty to spend time with her, he never lost his courtesy or dignity. Yet his gaze remained guarded and openly hostile.

It was never the gaze of a husband looking upon his wife.

Carden saw Roanne solely as a political enemy, someone he intended to behead at the first opportunity.

The poisoned tea he finally served her must therefore have been his last weapon against her.

Had everything gone according to plan, Roanne Oult would already have been beheaded by the time Carden ‘miraculously’ regained consciousness.

But look at what happened.

Roanne had not died.

She had survived unscathed — and ruined Carden’s scheme in the process.

Strictly speaking, it was ‘Tang Mokyeong’ who had done so, rather than Roanne. But now that she regarded herself as Roanne, the distinction hardly mattered.

“You.”

His low, hoarse voice lashed out at her.

“……What did you do to me?”

His voice alone made it clear that he was furious.

Without the slightest trace of fear, Mokyeong smiled and withdrew the hand that had been cradling his cheek and neck.

“Nothing.”

Whether because she had died and come back to life or due to the poison in her body, her temperature was now as cold as a corpse’s.

Tiny goosebumps rose once again across Carden’s skin wherever her chilly fingertips brushed him.

Mokyeong looked down at them calmly before adding softly,

“I merely awakened the sleeping prince a little sooner than expected.”

Carden’s gaze shifted subtly.

She had pushed something into his mouth only moments earlier, yet now she claimed she had done nothing.

Her newly awakened husband looked utterly dumbfounded, but Mokyeong was no mind reader.

Moreover, she had no time to study his reaction closely.

“Oh, Carden! My son!”

The emperor rushed towards them.

He threw his arms around Carden and cried out with joy. Only then did the frozen nobles and knights recover from their shock, beginning to murmur amongst themselves.

The prince had truly returned from the dead.

Just like the emperor from the ancient legend who founded the empire!

The ‘Period of Grace’ had long been regarded as nothing more than a ceremonial custom.

No one had ever waited a whole week in the hope that the dead would return to life as in the legends.

They simply observed the custom because it was prescribed by imperial protocol.

The tale of those with divine blood returning from the dead had become little more than an ancient fairy tale.

Yet that supposedly impossible miracle had now unfolded before their very eyes.

“This cannot be!”

“A-A dead man truly returned to life?”

“Didn’t the Princess Consort say earlier that he was in a deathlike sleep? She must have been telling the truth!”

“What? Then he was never truly dead?”

“But the imperial physician clearly pronounced him dead…….”

The murmurs quickly grew louder throughout the chamber.

Some crossed themselves in disbelief, while others knelt before the prince as though they had witnessed a divine miracle.

The emperor wept with joy; the empress looked secretly relieved; and the crowd whispered uncertainly, wondering if they had really seen a miracle.

Ironically, the only awkward person was the prince, who had supposedly ‘returned to life’.

Still held in the emperor’s embrace, Carden glanced at his knights and instantly realized how he should behave.

His plan had gone awry.

However, everyone already believed that he had died and come back to life.

In that case, there was no reason to correct their misunderstanding.

“Your Majesty……. Did I truly return from the dead?”

His face was pale as he pressed a hand to his forehead and deliberately made his voice tremble.

Anyone who saw him would believe he had truly died and come back to life.

“Why was I lying inside a coffin……? I clearly remember collapsing after drinking the tea my wife poured for me…….”

Her husband turned towards Mokyeong, his expression distorted as though he could not believe what had happened.

Just listen to how he phrased that!

Technically, it was the prince who had brought the tea leaves, while Roanne had merely poured the tea.

But the way he told it made it sound as though Roanne had poisoned the tea and calmly served it to her husband.

‘I save his life, and he immediately tries to gain the upper hand.’

Roanne would have been too busy watching the reactions of the Empress and the Prince to respond properly, but Mokyeong was different.

“Your Highness! It seems the remaining poison has left your mind confused! Please think carefully. It was Your Highness who brewed the tea leaves. I merely poured the tea for you.”

As Mokyeong recounted the events of that day in vivid detail, a look of fleeting disbelief flashed across Carden’s face.

Their gazes clashed in mid-air.

His eyes were cold and blue, while hers gleamed with an unyielding determination to stand her ground.

However, any battle could be won by seizing the momentum.

This secret had also enabled her mother, despite her inability to handle poison properly, to rise to the position of Second Madam within the Sichuan Tang Clan.

Mokyeong threw herself flat on the floor and sobbed as though overcome with anguish.

“I can only beg your forgiveness for awakening before you, Your Highness. I do not know who was responsible, but it seems that someone tried to assassinate us both. Therefore, Your Majesty! Please uncover the full truth of what happened today!”

When Mokyeong suddenly raised her head, the rims of her eyes were already red.

As a trained martial artist, controlling her appearance or forcing herself to cry was not difficult for her.

Although most of her internal energy had been depleted, she still had enough to manage this.

Soon, large tears spilled from her reddened eyes.

“It wouldn’t have mattered if I had died there, but the same can’t be said for His Highness! He carries Your Majesty’s noble blood and is a precious prince, destined to support the Crown Prince. The mere thought that something so terrible could have happened fills me with dread. Therefore, Your Majesty, apprehend the culprit at all costs! You must ensure that such a tragedy never happens again!”

She wailed as though she had lost and then miraculously regained her beloved husband. With a pale, desperate expression, as though the fate of the empire itself hung in the balance, she pleaded fervently with the Emperor.

It was an astonishing performance from someone who had used Carden’s life as leverage to save her own only moments earlier.