VL 05

Chapter 5

“It seems everyone believes I am the culprit who poisoned the Prince…… but in truth, I am merely a victim who ingested the poison alongside him.”

At Mokyeong’s words, Taylor and the elite guards stiffened, but they quickly wiped the expressions from their faces.

Meanwhile, the Emperor asked with a frowning expression.

“You, too, are a victim?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. However, I simply happened to possess a resistance to the poison His Imperial Highness consumed, which is why I awoke sooner.”

“What does that mean? Are you saying the Imperial Consort knows what poison the Prince ingested?”

It was the question she had been waiting for.

With a faint, smiling curve on her lips, Mokyeong spoke.

“Yes, it is a poison I know exceedingly well. I, too, was subjected to it several times when I was young.”

“What? What do you mean by that?”

“Whenever I disobeyed him in my youth, my adoptive father would brew these poisonous herbs weakly and force me to drink them. Because it plunged me into a death-like sleep, it kept me from being a nuisance.”

Murmurs rippled through the gathering at Mokyeong’s words.

In the House of Oult, the title had been passed down to women for generations.

The reason was very simple.

It was because the survival rate in the venom-laden land was higher for women than for men.

Consequently, the lords of Oult mostly took in matrilocal husbands, and Rowan’s mother, the current Marquis of Oult, also welcomed a second husband after her first died.

Yet, according to Rowan’s words, that second husband had dared to abuse the heir of the Oult family.

No matter how much the House of Oult had been reduced to a mere remnant of its former glory, it was still explicitly a marquessate granted a peerage by the Emperor.

To think they had drugged the heir into slumber with poison.

It had crossed far beyond the line to be dismissed as a mere family dispute.

The murmurs among the crowd grew even louder.

However, what made the people even more confused than the fact that the Imperial Consort had suffered abuse was the remark that followed.

“Did you just say…… a death-like sleep?”

The Emperor asked back in a trembling voice.

Unable to hide his startled look, he sprang up from his seat, prompting his adjutant to hurriedly steady him.

“Yes, Your Majesty. It is a sleep so profound that it is virtually impossible to distinguish whether one is dead or alive.”

“Are you saying that…… the Prince is still…… alive?”

A sudden silence fell over the audience hall, which was vast enough to accommodate hundreds of people.

Even the nobles, who had been buzzing just moments before, shut their mouths.

Enjoying that stillness, Mokyeong answered clearly, in a tone meant for everyone to hear.

“That is correct, Your Majesty.”

At that instant, Taylor’s eyes twitched minutely, though the change was so small no one else noticed.

The Emperor alternated his gaze between his son’s coffin and Mokyeong.

It was the face of a man who simply could not believe it.

“If you do not believe me, I will awaken His Highness right this very moment. Will you grant me permission?”

“W-What are you doing! Rouse the Prince immediately! If my son is only revived, I shall consider your crimes wiped clean!”

The words she had been waiting for had finally come.

Gritting her teeth to keep her expression from breaking into relief, Mokyeong walked toward the Prince.

As she drew closer to the coffin, the man’s face came into view far more vividly than when viewed from afar.

‘He truly is the finest beauty under heaven. A visage that yields nothing to Namgung Hwan.’

Lying in a coffin overflowing with pure white lilies, the man looked as ethereal as someone not of this world.

Even the eyelashes resting softly along his eyelids were golden, and beneath the sharply bridged ridge of his nose, bloodless yet well-formed lips were neatly sealed.

If those closed eyes were to open, he would surely look even more dazzling.

……Yet, he was a flower with thorns.

Mokyeong recalled the man who had always gazed at her with cold, frigid eyes in Rowan’s memories.

‘The tea’s aroma is exquisite. Do partake.’

Such a Prince had personally brewed tea and handed it to Rowan a few days prior, claiming he had procured it himself.

She should have sensed something was amiss back then, but he had smiled so sweetly that Rowan, like a fool, had simply stared blankly at her husband.

‘…The Consort possesses a rather unique constitution, does she not?’

At the man’s nonchalant remark, Rowan’s heart had plummeted.

‘I hear you have a strong resistance to poison… Just how strong is it? Does poison not affect you at all? Or is it merely a matter of suffering a little pain?’

How did he know?

When did he find out?

Would the Empress know that the Prince was aware of this fact? If she found out, what would become of her now?

‘W-Well… I know not what you speak of…’

It was right then, as a terrified Rowan fumbled to bring the teacup to her lips to mask her panic, that—

Those jewel-like, beautiful blue eyes had curved into a dazzling crescent.

And his impeccably sturdy frame had fallen limply toward the floor.

Even as he collapsed to the ground, the man had not taken his eyes off Rowan until the very end, murmuring:

‘I see…… You were indeed a constitution untouched by it.’

And thus, this flower-like man had knowingly ingested the poison himself.

Before a wife whom poison could not touch.

All to forge her—and her alone—into the absolute, flawless poisoner.

‘What a truly ruthless man.’

Rowan, it seemed, had somehow harbored this terrifying man in a corner of her heart as her husband, despite it all.

‘A foolish woman… There are as many men in the world as there are grains of sand trodden underfoot.’

Clicking her tongue in pity, Mokyeong momentarily thought of the lovers she had left behind in the Central Plains, but promptly banished the thought from her mind.

If there was one thing she had learned most profoundly over the past two days, it was that this present moment was by no means a dream.

In other words, her reality was right here, and the Murim was a world she had already left behind.

Mokyeong was not the type of foolish person to dwell on things that had slipped through her fingers and obsess over them.

Furthermore, Namgung Hwan wasn’t even the sole lover she had left behind……

The one she worried about most among them was Soye, but if her own predictions proved correct, Soye would be fine.

‘So for now, I must focus on my own situation.’

Shaking off stray thoughts, Mokyeong spoke to the Empress in a crisp, clear voice.

“Your Majesty the Empress, would you be able to prepare the items I am about to list? I need to draw out the residual venom lingering in His Highness’s body. They are nothing difficult to procure.”

In truth, pressing his pressure points and channeling her internal energy would have sufficed.

The problem was that, in the eyes of the people here, such methods would look unmistakably like some kind of unidentified, suspicious trickery.

Gathered right before her eyes were not only the Emperor and the Empress, but a host of high-ranking nobles and priests to boot.

There was no need to invite treatment as a witch the moment she managed to survive.

‘Even if it’s a hassle, it’s best to put up a proper facade.’

She needed to secure a plausible justification so that even if she used her own methods hereafter, it wouldn’t look out of the ordinary.

It would be bothersome to go through this kind of charade every single time, after all.

Before long, the Empress’s maids brought over the ingredients Mokyeong had requested.

Among them were medicinal herbs that were difficult to easily acquire on the open market, but this was the imperial palace, after all.

If there was any place in the empire where anything could be obtained through money and power, this was it.

Mokyeong inspected the brought ingredients one by one.

‘The condition isn’t bad.’

She mixed a few of them appropriately, ground them in a mortar, and placed them over a small brazier to ignite them.

As grayish-white smoke billowed upward, a bitter medicinal fragrance permeated the audience hall.

On the surface, it was quite a plausible detoxification ritual.

Mokyeong placed it near the Prince’s bedside, then extended a hand as if checking his complexion, pressing his meridian points.

The moment she channeled a very slender thread of energy through her fingertips—

Twitch.

The tip of Carden’s finger moved.

‘Got him.’

Mokyeong breathed an inward sigh of relief.

With this much, he should be able to wake up fully shortly.

And yet……

“Imperial Consort.”

More than half of the incense had burned down, yet the Prince had not opened his eyes.

Growing impatient, the Empress spoke up first.

“The herbs seem nearly burnt out, why is the Prince not waking up?”

“……Indeed.”

Mokyeong, too, was beginning to find it strange.

Quietly tilting her head, she closely inspected the Prince’s condition.

He lay there looking as though he were dead, no different from a moment ago, but his complexion had already returned to a state close to normal.

Oddly enough, however, the sound of his breathing was virtually imperceptible.

Mokyeong brought her ear close to his face. Then, her eyes widened in shock.

‘This man, he’s deliberately suppressing his breathing?’

Though it could only be felt if one got close, he was indeed breathing—very quietly, and with utmost stealth.

Now that she thought about it, the Third Prince was a renowned powerhouse in the empire.

He even held the title of “Inversio,” known as the dragon slayer, after all.

If that was the case, it made sense.

By suppressing his respiration to the absolute limit, he made it impossible to distinguish at a glance whether he was breathing or not.

However…… When it came to the human body, Mokyeong held the upper hand.

No matter how formidable a martial artist he was, if he didn’t possess detailed knowledge of human anatomy, there were signs one simply could not conceal.

Namely, his pupils.

Even without looking directly into his eyes, she could see the bluish pupils beneath his thin eyelids moving ever so slightly.

Mokyeong narrowed her eyes.

‘This man…… he’s intentionally refusing to wake up, isn’t he?’

It was so absurd a dry laugh naturally escaped her.

Well, naturally. He was a man who had poisoned himself. Waking up in a manner like this must not have been part of his plan.

Still, she couldn’t afford to back down here, either.

Her very life was on the line.

‘Let’s see just how long you can keep this up.’