Chapter 2. After The Regression, Comes The Moment Of Choice
***
No matter how much she struggled, the Imperial Administration had left only a ridiculous notice for Liv. In order to eliminate the ill fortune of the prematurely born baby, the child’s remains must be dumped in the ocean farthest from the Imperial Family.
Liv was the Empress of Emporium Empire in name and in reality, but the laws and norms of the imperial family were enough to strangle her.
They had no adoration, no pity. Pleading and hanging on to the Empress Dowager was futile.
So Liv ran to her husband, Edgar, who was in the imperial office as soon as she left the funeral and hung on for the first time.
“Your Majesty, I beg you to retract the words of the Administration that the baby should be thrown into the sea! I beg you!”
She grabbed his legs and pleaded earnestly with tears in her eyes.
But Emperor Edgar gave her a quick, cold look and shook her hand off. It was as if he was brushing away something dirty.
“You wish for bad luck to befall this royal family, don’t you, Empress? Are you planning to put a curse on the newly enthroned Emperor?”
“I can’t believe people say my child is unlucky.………, you’re the only father of the child. Did you even hold his hands or say a word?”
Liv just stared at him, no more than a few times, congestion spilling from her heart.
“The Empress may still have some bad luck left in her, so please don’t come to the Office for the time being until I order.”
Liv’s red bloodshot eyes only followed him coldly as he walked away.
Who said that parents are buried in their graves and children are buried in their hearts?
Only the cold wind was blowing in her empty chest.
***
In the end, with the Empress Dowager’s instructions to handle matters quietly and alone, Liv boarded the carriage without anyone knowing and headed to an unknown island at the end of the coast.
She was alone in the empty carriage, holding only the cold corpse of her baby to her chest, her tears soaking the cloth that covered it.
Liv was suddenly reminded of the first time she greeted the Empress Dowager after she became Empress.
It was the time when everything was strange, when she was not exactly familiar with the etiquette of the court.
How could she forget the way she looked at her belly, protruding like a tadpole, with disdain, and turned away as if to tell her to get out.
At first she said she needed Liv’s family, but as soon as her son ascended to the throne, the Empress Dowager let her son marry the Princess of the Delta Kingdom to become his concubine.
Then, the concubine’s innocent face fooled everyone, and from a certain moment on, everyone, including the Emperor, turned Liv into a woman who despised and envied the concubine.
Liv made up her mind firmly, grabbing the baby’s corpse tightly with both hands in my heart. She was leaving this disgusting imperial family.
‘That’s right, I’m going to give you the divorce you want. No. Can’t I even do that as I wish? Because I can’t do that if I lose the support of the nobles?’
Liv was fed up with everything.
Soon the carriage arrived at the end of the coast. She arrived in a prearranged boat on a deserted island, not a soul in sight. Liv laughed bitterly.
‘I have to leave my child in a place like this where no one knows.’
On an island with no people and surrounded by blue waters on all sides, she followed the imperial secretary’s instructions and climbed up the cliff.
A chilly wind ruffled her hair as she stood at the top of the precipice, towering dangerously high.
She was walking to the end of the cliff. At that moment, she heard someone’s voice from behind.
“Liv.”
It was a cold, calm voice, her husband Edgar.
She didn’t know where he came from, but he must have followed her carriage here.
All the while, the contempt-filled heart that had been frozen in place towards her husband slowly unraveled when she saw his face. Without pride.
Edgar stood beside her with a very sad expression on his face, contrary to the one he had shown yesterday in the office.
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
Why were the tears that she had been holding back coming out at his words? She shouldn’t have cried, but the tears flowed down her eyes, as if she had no self-respect.
“Why have you come now? Shouldn’t you have at least taken a proper look at our baby’s face once…………”
Edgar held Liv tightly in his arms as if to comfort her. She nuzzled her face into his wide, cold chest and cried incessantly as if she let out the breath she had been holding in.
How much did she cry? When she raised her head, she found that she was alone with him on this precipice. He was holding the baby covered with cloth. Edgar stood on the precipice and let the child go. Liv could watch the baby heading for the sea in pain.
Still she was comforted.
Because her cold baby had held his father’s hand even now. The baby at least was held by his father once.
“My baby, your father’s hands are really warm too, aren’t they?”
Liv consoled herself in that way.
Soon he beckoned to her, a signal that she should say a final goodbye to the child.
Liv approached the precipice with a single white flower, but she couldn’t bring herself to let the flower drift into the sea.
The moment she sent this, Edmund and her would part.
‘No, it’s okay, Edmund is in my heart.’
‘We are not parting. Because I will remember you forever.’
At that moment.
“I should have sent him with you long ago.” (Edgar)
From behind her, she heard a voice that sent shivers down her spine, different from before.
As she hurriedly turned back, she saw Edgar’s face staring at her as ruthlessly as looking at a bug, and the hunting knife in his right hand.
Edgar’s mouth curled up when Liv was too flustered to say anything.
“Is it only over when it comes this far? If you had died with the baby, I wouldn’t have blood in my hands again.” (Edgar)
“What, what do you mean………..” (Liv)
“Why didn’t you eat all the lemon cake that day? If you had eaten it, you wouldn’t have tired each other out.” (Edgar)
It took Liv a moment to remember the cake she’d eaten that day. It was the first sweet gift he had given her since she was pregnant.
She couldn’t even bring herself to eat that bite.
It only took a moment for the happy memory of that day to be positioned as the worst moment of her life.
‘The cake that day………………… No way. …… I don’t think so…’
Liv deliberately shook her head, letting the flowing tears run down her face again and again… Sadly, God did not allow all the time to look back on the past and take revenge.
Ah!
Two stabs and her whole body stiffened. As it was, red blood spurted out and wet her black dress.
She was confused, lost her center of gravity, and fell off the cliff.
Both of her eyes were fixed on him who had plunged the knife into her heart and she had loved him all her life.
‘God, if I could, let me go back to that day when I didn’t choose him.’
Deep in the ocean, along Edmund whom she missed so much, she was thus swept away.
***
“Liv! Liv!”
She could faintly hear her father’s voice calling her.
‘How can I hear my father’s voice in heaven? No, I don’t think so.’
“How long is the girl who says she has to go be an assistant teacher at the academy going to sleep?”
‘Is there an assistant teacher of the education institute in heaven? I can watch Edmund grow up here.’
“What on earth did this child do yesterday that she can’t even wake up now? Evan! You come and try to wake her up.”
Soon she heard more and more footsteps.
“Liv!” Aren’t you going to get up? Are you dead?”
‘Wait a minute, how can I hear the two in heaven…?’
Liv, opening her eyes in surprise, was suddenly hit on the head with a flying pillow.
When she opened her vision, which was hidden by the pillow, she really saw her father and brother standing by her bed. They were dressed in their uniforms, as if they had just finished their imperial duties meeting in the morning.
Liv hurriedly jumped up from her bed.
“Where am I?”
“This is your room. What are you talking about?”
“Did father and brother save me?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
The puzzled look in their eyes made Liv flinch.
Soon her brother, Evan, threatened her with pathetic eyes.
“If you don’t wake up now, you’ll do terrible harm to our family. The Edinburg family, who have been in charge of education in the Emporium Empire for generations, is not much to look at. “
‘I think I heard this quote from my brother before I became Empress……..’
Liv was startled and began to scan her surroundings.
She knew for sure she was hit by Edgar’s knife and fell into the cold ocean…. but why…
She ran her hands over her healthy body. Then she ran her hands over her stomach.
However, her stomach was flat. It was as if Edmund wasn’t there from the beginning.
Liv urgently asked her father.
“Father, what year are we now?”
“I don’t know. What year is it in the imperial calendar…?
“It’s the year 851.”
Evan said instead, looking at his father as he searched for a calendar.
Year 851……….The year she fell into the sea was 853. It was in 853 that Edgar ousted Carius and ascended the throne as Emperor…………
Liv asked, keeping her voice calm.
“Does that mean that Emperor Carius is still on the throne?”
The two men’s expressions became serious as Liv’s repeatedly said the strangest things.
At her sudden behavior that they had never seen before, Evan hurried to answer.
“You say that someone else has ascended the throne? Liv, did you have a dream?”
She felt a stronger shock hit her on the head than Edgar’s betrayal.
She couldn’t believe she went back two years from the time she died.
At that moment, her previous life was running through her mind like a flash of light.
The man who loved her, and the man she loved.
Without an ounce of hesitation, Liv chose Edgar, the man she loved, and he killed her.
‘If I had held the hand of the man who loved me instead, would it change anything?’
And so she was back to the moment of choice again, facing the two men.