As Carden quietly wiped his lips with the back of his hand, he recalled the sweet fragrance that had brushed against them.

It was an intoxicating scent unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

As the memory resurfaced, Carden unconsciously furrowed his brow.

He did not consider whether he found it unpleasant or if there was some other reason for it.

His expression instantly returned to normal, as though he had never laughed, and he turned to Taylor.

“Taylor, what happened to the Princess Consort while I was dead?”

“She was taken directly to the eastern tower, and the Empress visited her last night. Nothing else happened afterward.”

Carden had anticipated both that the Princess Consort would be taken to the eastern tower and that the Empress would visit her.

Then why had the outcome been entirely different from what he expected?

‘No.’

It was not only the outcome that had changed.

The Princess Consort’s behavior was also different from usual.

Those peculiar eyes shining vividly between cascading strands of silver hair.

The face of the woman who had smiled as brightly as the sun despite her deathly pale complexion lingered before Carden’s eyes.

“You are finally awake, Your Highness.”

Had that woman always been capable of pulling such a face?

Despite knowing Roanne Oult for years, he failed to recognize her immediately because she seemed so unfamiliar.

This was despite his keen powers of observation and exceptional memory, which enabled him to remember the faces of people who had merely passed him by.

Her face hadn’t changed.

Her manner of speaking and her voice were also Roanne Oult’s.

And yet, something was strange.

It was as though her outer shell had remained the same while everything inside it had been replaced.

Tap, tap.

Carden tapped his empty glass on the desk.

There was no denying that the failure of his plan was a serious setback.

He had risked his life to eliminate the Princess Consort — the Empress’s pawn — and exploit her downfall to undermine the Empress’s faction. Yet the entire scheme had fallen apart.

Strangely enough, however, he was not particularly upset.

Was the poison still clouding his mind?

“Until the culprit is apprehended, please confine me to the Oult territory.”

Or was it because he had seen the Empress’s expression sour instantly at those words?

The corners of Carden’s lips lifted ever so slightly.

‘What in the world is she thinking?’

Judging by the Empress’s expression when Roanne volunteered to be imprisoned, it seemed that the two women had not planned this in advance.

Of course, the Empress might have been acting, but Carden’s instincts told him that her reaction was genuine.

Furthermore, the Empress had no reason to send the Princess Consort, whom she had worked so hard to place at his side, back to the Oult territory.

That alone was strange enough.

Yet after detoxifying him and proclaiming her innocence, Roanne requested her own confinement.

By proclaiming her innocence, she was showing that she wanted to survive.

If she wanted to survive in the imperial palace, the easiest option would have been to placate the Empress.

Yet today, Roanne had openly defied the Empress’s wishes.

For the first time since marrying Roanne Oult, Carden found himself wondering what was going through her mind.

Of course, it might mean nothing. Perhaps her brush with death had simply terrified her into seeking refuge in her homeland.

But—

‘Would a frightened woman force my mouth open and thr*st her tongue inside?’

Carden’s eyebrow twitched.

No matter how he considered it, the pieces did not fit together.

“……Still, I should find out.”

Even if she was his consort in name only, he would not be satisfied until he discovered what was inside her head—at least until he decided he wanted to kill her again.

“Taylor.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Place someone new beside the Princess Consort. Someone close to her. A double agent pretending to serve the Empress might work well.”

“What? Someone new? We already have many people watching her…….”

“Due to the poisoning incident, everyone inside the Prince’s palace will have to be replaced. When that happens, replace the person stationed beside the Princess Consort as well. Appoint someone to accompany her to her place of confinement.”

At the Prince’s command, Taylor immediately bowed his head.

“Understood.”

That very night, all of the palace servants were replaced under the pretext of investigating the poisoning.

This included all seven of the Princess Consort’s personal attendants.

***

What is the one thing a dead man should never do?

As everyone knew, it was to return to life.

Yet the Prince had done exactly that — and ‘faked’ it, no less — plunging the entire empire into an uproar.

The Third Prince had already become popular enough to threaten the position of the Crown Prince, but his fame soared to unprecedented heights overnight. Meanwhile, the Emperor made no secret of the immense favor he showed Carden Rubert.

Throughout the capital, people even began suggesting that the day should be officially designated ‘Carden’s Resurrection Day’.

The Empress tried desperately to dispel the rumors, insisting that it had been a ‘detoxification’, not a ‘resurrection’. However, whether he had truly returned from the dead or had merely been purged of poison mattered little to the public.

All they wanted was a fresh, scandalous tale about the imperial family to savor and dissect.

For days, the incident was the main topic of conversation in taverns, while farmers discussed the prince’s resurrection over their midday meals in the fields.

The young women of the capital became even more infatuated with the handsome prince, whom they had previously only seen in portraits. They embellished the tale with every imaginable detail, claiming that the Prince had risen from his coffin, or that a god had descended personally to bless him.

Whatever the truth, it was a captivating story either way.

Naturally, the Empress was the person most displeased by the situation. Fortunately, however, she was too preoccupied with nursing the crown prince through a mysterious high fever to concern herself with anything else.

For Mokyeong, this was an exceptionally fortunate turn of events.

At least until she left for her confinement, she would be able to focus on her recovery without interference.

“Phew.”

Opening her eyes late in the day, Mokyeong remained lying down and quietly steadied her breathing.

The orthodox method would have been to sit cross-legged and slowly practice a cultivation technique, but she currently had neither the time nor the proper environment for it.

Fortunately, she possessed another cultivation technique far removed from orthodox methods—one she had created exclusively for herself.

Mokyeong relaxed her entire body as though falling asleep and breathed deeply.

As each inhale and exhale gradually slowed, her consciousness sank deep within her body. Before long, she began sensing the poisonous energy clinging to every corner of Roanne’s body, one trace at a time.

‘……Good heavens. She truly consumed every poison imaginable.’

There was more than one or two kinds of poison clinging thickly to her meridians.

Some had lost their toxicity long ago and left only traces behind, while others remained tangled within her organs, stubbornly asserting their presence.

It was a wonder she had survived for so long.

Yet those very poisons had driven Roanne to her death, and now, ironically, they were becoming the means by which this body would live again.

The Poison Transformation Heart Method.

It was a cultivation technique that reversed the poisonous energy accumulated within the body and transformed it into internal energy.

Mokyeong practiced the technique whenever she had the opportunity, and every time she opened her eyes, she ordered her attendants to bring nourishing food.

After devouring meat, porridge, soup laden with medicinal herbs, and every piece of fruit she could find, she would sleep briefly before circulating her energy again. She spent the entire day caring for nothing but her body.

Even so, her recovery remained frustratingly slow.

‘Too slow. This is far too slow!’

Back in the martial world, half an hour would have been more than enough to accumulate this much internal energy.

Yet now, even after struggling for an entire day, she managed to gather only a shallow pool at the bottom of her dantian.

At this point, she desperately missed the countless miraculous medicines and elixirs stockpiled inside her secret cave.

The Namgung Clan’s Myriad Poison Gu, Shaolin’s Great Restoration Pill, Mount Hua’s Purple Cloud Pill, and even the thousand-year-old snow ginseng she had obtained from Kunlun.

The miraculous medicines that made her mouth water from the mere thought of them shimmered before her eyes.

‘No. This world must possess miraculous medicines of its own.’

This was a world where knights wielded aura, priests used divine power, and even dragons openly existed.

There was no possibility that it lacked medicines capable of nourishing the body or enhancing one’s energy.

The imperial treasury most likely contained a considerable stockpile of such treasures.

The problem was that Mokyeong currently lacked the ability to raid it.

‘What a shame.’

It truly was regrettable.

If only she had the Azure-Scaled Viper Venom the Empress had been carrying.

The difference between poison and medicine was razor-thin.

Just as one could not formulate medicine without understanding poison or handle poison without understanding medicine, any miraculous elixir could become a deadly poison. Likewise, even poison could become a miraculous elixir depending on the abilities of the person handling it.

‘Should I ask the Empress to give it to me now and say I want to drink it?’

She was chuckling to herself at the absurd idea when—

Knock, knock.

From outside the door, one of the Emperor’s attendants delivered the news she had been awaiting.

“Your Highness. His Majesty has issued an order.”

Mokyeong’s eyes flew open.

“You are to prepare to depart for the Oult territory by tomorrow morning.”

At last, the moment she had been waiting for had arrived.

The thought of finally leaving the imperial palace made the corners of Mokyeong’s lips rise unconsciously.