The Eldest Daughter Walks Down The Flower Path - Chapter 206

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Chapter 206

Translator: Yonnee

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‘To be honest, I wanted to go watch your seal bestowment ceremony last time, too.’

Radis swallowed those words with a smile.

She didn’t want to see Robert’s eyes, which had just started to contain light and laughter, darken again.

Instead, she said,

“Aren’t you hungry? Should we have dinner a bit earlier?”

“You’re the one who’s hungry, aren’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“It’s your stomach we’re talking about here.”

Robert smiled faintly.

Looking at him, who now laughed more often than before, Radis thought to herself.

‘If I ask what he was going to say after he came back from the bestowment ceremony in the past… It wouldn’t be a good idea, would it?’

Robert never held Radis accountable for all the lies she had told, and for the final mistake she made in their previous lives.

He seemed unwilling to talk about things that couldn’t be undone.

‘Yeah, that seems right.’

She smiled, looking ahead.

The soft evening sunlight streaming through the window gently touched her face.

While looking at her like that, Robert thought to himself.

‘This is enough. My greatest wish has come true.’

They walked side by side down the corridor, maintaining a distance as if they were about to touch… but not quite.

And it was within this distance that they could find the happiest place for them both.

* * *

After dinner, Radis returned to her room and sat back at her desk.

However, whether it was due to the wine served during dinner or the dark sky with the silvery moon hanging above, she couldn’t focus on the book as she did before.

Staring at the book that stubbornly refused to turn its pages, Radis eventually closed it and walked over to the window.

She opened it to reveal the night sky, where the moon shone brightly, surrounded by a ring of stars, almost as if you could reach out and touch them.

“Beautiful…”

Radis perched on the windowsill. The moon looked so beautiful and lonely, making it hard for her to see otherwise.

While gazing at the night sky, Radis pondered,

“When I go to the Imperial Palace next time… I’ll meet Prince Olivier again, won’t I?”

As she thought of him, the sensation of his lips brushing against her forehead in that momentary touch seemed to revive.

Even the words he whispered.

“I love you.”

Radis’s face turned red.

“Ack…!”

Radis vigorously fanned her heated cheeks with her hands to cool them down.

“Really… If you say something like that all of a sudden…”

She tried to calm the emotional turbulence by cupping her cheeks with both hands.

“Haa…”

As her emotions settled, a deep sigh escaped her.

In truth, she had fantasized that a day like this might come someday.

How could she not, with the image of a man as cool as ice and as statuesque as a sculpture sending her warm smiles that seemed to be reserved solely for her?

However, her imagination always ended there.

‘Why… Why can’t I imagine what comes after that?’

He had expressed his feelings, and now it was her turn to respond.

‘I like Prince Olivier, but…’

With one hand tightly gripping her cheek as if pinching herself, she delved into her thoughts.

Olivier was already a precious person to her.

She lifted her head to gaze at the silvery moon, shining so brightly that it seemed to eclipse the starlight.

‘I want to protect him.’

As he had called the palace, which should have been his home, something he ‘hated’ and where he lived precariously under the constant threat of assassination, she couldn’t just not sympathize.

‘Because… he reminds me of the old me.’

Her only genuine wish was for him to be happy.

But could that really be love?

Radis couldn’t be sure about that.

“Haaa…”

Furrowing her brows, Radis rubbed her face vigorously with both hands.

In truth, the word ‘love’ made her uneasy.

Whenever she thought of it, it felt like reaching out in the darkness and accidentally grabbing onto something unfamiliar, clenching it tightly in her hand.

Afraid but unable to endure the anxiety without confirming it, she felt a trembling sensation, cautiously exploring and confirming its form with her hands, as if she were feeling her way through the dark.

Once, she had so, so desperately wanted that feeling.

In her previous life, she had gone to great lengths, even to the point of dying, to receive that thing called ‘love’ from her family.

She was so desperate that she could endure the pain of her bones thinning and her flesh melting away.

However, in the end, she faced death without understanding what love truly was.

This time, she didn’t want that.

‘Absolutely not.’

She had experienced losing everything once due to those vague and uncertain emotions. She didn’t need to go through it again.