The Baby Who Regressed Refuses Childcare - Chapter 17
The Imperial Courtier’s expression hardened.
“Do you not know who this person is? He’s the prince, right? The Imperial Crown Prince?”
The Imperial Courtier looked bewildered, glancing back and forth between me and Crown Prince Tian.
I forcefully separated the courtier from the Crown Prince and continued speaking.
“If you treat him disrespectfully, you will be decapitated by the guillotine!”
“W-What?”
The courtier stammered.
Turning away from him and facing Crown Prince Tian, who was still frozen like a statue, I said,
“Right, Your Highness? This gentleman here has made a serious mistake, hasn’t he?”
I squeezed his cold hand, and the Crown Prince, who had been standing motionless, looked at me with a vacant expression.
“Huh? Right?”
After repeating my question a few more times, he nodded, moving his head ever so slightly.
It was enough for me.
Immediately, I turned to look at the courtier again.
“Grandpa, you’re really in big trouble!”
The courtier stood frozen in place.
I could feel Tian looking at me.
I shook my head and raised my eyebrows.
“Physically harming the Crown Prince is a severe crime of treason.”
“What!”
At the mention of the word ‘treason,’ the courtier exclaimed.
Seemingly quite flustered, he failed to grasp the fact that I had used difficult words like ‘physical violence’.
“Moreover! I am here under the orders of Empress Karyn to escort the Crown Prince! What do you know, you…!”
I narrowed my eyes and looked at the servant innocently.
“Still, Grandpa, you’re the courtier, right? Courtiers aren’t supposed to recklessly disturb a Crown Prince, are they? That’s insulting the royal family.”
I felt a bit embarrassed using the term ‘insult to the royal family.’
In fact, I had made a slip of the tongue by calling the Crown Prince a ‘dethroned prince’ just a while ago.
However, the courtier’s face had already turned ashen.
“Th-that…!”
“And, besides, who said that it’s okay to grab and drag the Crown Prince if ordered by the Empress? The Crown Prince is a higher rank.”
I subtly shifted my gaze away from the courtier to the servant.
“It’s really strange. Even Grandpa doesn’t know about it… But I’m four years old and I know that.”
After giving him a brief glance, I murmured quietly.
“He seems a bit ignorant, too….”
***
Jacques, the courtier, turned red and fumed for a while.
However, without saying anything more, he left the room.
Now, only the two of them remained in the room.
Tian’s shoulders hunched in tension, and he heard a small voice whisper in his ear.
“Your Highness, I find that Grandpa Jacques is scary.”
Tian turned his head with a rigid expression.
The silver-haired girl, whom he had just met a while ago, was staring at him intently.
Soon, a hurried addition followed.
“Uh, um! But it’s not that scary! Why was Grandpa like that?”
Tian’s expression became even more gloomy.
The little girl’s words were completely accurate.
Tian was indeed scared of Jacques.
Everything started on the day his mother left the world.
Tian still vividly remembered the words Queen Karyn uttered that day.
“His Majesty is very disappointed with His Highness.”
They were never close, his mother and Karyn.
They just happened to stay together in the palace, Tian as the Crown Prince and Karyn as the Empress.
“His Majesty thinks that Your Highness might as well have killed the Empress.”
But that day, Empress Karyn’s eyes shone brightly.
The white hand that gently stroked the sleeping emperor’s back.
“You do realize, of course, that the Empress’s health deteriorated rapidly after she gave birth to Your Highness.”
However, Tian, born a prince and raised in the palace, was well aware of everything.
He could not have been unaware of the stories that were being told in the court about him and Mohu.
Whether it was his mother’s health deteriorating after giving birth to him, or her body becoming so frail that she could no longer fulfill her duties.
There were even trivial rumors suggesting that because of him, the Emperor no longer sought his mother as he did before.
“His Majesty lost the woman he loved because of Your Highness. If it were me, I would have immediately expelled Your Highness from the palace.”
Empress Karyn spoke with serene eyes, looking down at the Emperor.
At that moment, Tian experienced for the first time in his life a blankness in his mind.
“Those who incur His Majesty’s displeasure don’t survive long in the palace. In the eyes of His Majesty, Your Highness might not fare any better.”
Those who had been hanged for failing to serve the Emperor properly, those who had earned the Emperor’s hatred and been driven from the palace.
Numerous faces flashed and disappeared in his mind.
Tian’s body trembled.
With his mother gone and the Crown Prince being despised, Tian felt as if he had become a trapped beast.
