CH 65.1

The thumps outside the Palace continues reverberating──

The signs of the thirty-first minute of knocking on a palace door in the long life of the most honourable Prince of the Schweshi’ugenyaong Empire;

The thumps inside the Palace continues reverberating──

The sounds of Her Highness Elizabeth’s tears, dropping when she realised she has been deceived by false signs unrelated to her experiment, and is now thus crying a river;

Ni Haofan feels like his almost completely hairless head is about to get glossier.

He watched as Her Highness Elizabeth’s face that was healthily red from conducting the experiment go pale until an unhealthy blank white began settling in. He feels like it might not be odd to see signs of rigor mortis settle in at any moment, and the coroners won’t even be able to notice any difference…

Oh, His Esteemed Highness, the Prince from Schweshi’ugenyaong Empire,

You’ve gone and set foot on a mine right from the beginning here.

Ni Haofan sighs, then gestures to the maids behind him. They immediately lift their skirts and work hard to move the entire wardrobe in the Princess’ chamber outside.

Ni Haofan goes forward, and quietly, carefully, without-daring-to-breathe-loudly-ly, extends a finger to give the Princess’ shoulder a little poke, saying,

“… Your Highness must act to ensure the greater picture is maintained here. Our nations’ diplomatic relations are at stake here. It would severely impact us if you kept the Prince locked out.”

──Really, he is supposed to be a good STEM researcher who has dedicated his hair to his academic studies already. It’s already amazing he managed to say this.

Ni Haofan would give himself a passing mark inside.

A maid, holding two dresses up, asks,

“Your Highness, would you like to dress as the gentle, knowledgeable Princess today──Or the natural, refreshing, cute Princess instead?”

Her・Soulless・Highness・Dead・Elizabeth replies, “¿Por qué no puedo tener éxito…? (TL: ‘Why can I not succeed’) ¿Por qué no hay heartbeat? ¿Por qué can’t they become pregnant… Is mere biological limitation really going to prevent the production of the perfect human specimen…?! I will not stand it! I will not stand it…”

Ni Haofan “…

Never mind, just go open the door.”

Ni Haofan stuffed Her Highness back into the wardrobe to take her back to her chambers.

──Experience says the Princess would at least maintain this pseudo-death state for half an hour, possibly up to 40 minutes. They should just invite the Prince inside for some tea before sending him away, telling him Her Highness is outside today, and invite him here another time…

──Ah, what a genius I am!

Ni Haofan, feeling very confident about his ability to handle things today, adjusts his colourful lab coat and brushes his hairless head first. Then, he shows a very business-like, polite smile while bowing respectfully as the door swings open.

“Nice to meet you, the honourable Princ──”

“Ah! Are you the beautiful Princess of this great Empire of the Orient?”

Before Ni Haofan can react, he has already been locked into an embrace with a humanoid congregation of red and pink, which is also speaking with rather rudimentary Chinese.

“Ah, my beautiful Princess, I definitely did not expect that the number one Princess of this world is such a beautiful girl. Do you know how much these sparse grey hair remind me of the brambles in the deserts of my home country?”

The young girls behind His Highness quickly comes up to help, “Ah… Old man… Excuse us, I mean old mister, we apologise, His Highness is…”

They couldn’t finish what they were saying.

Ni Haofan has already been incapacitated by this big African man with black skin, half-curled blond hair and wearing a big red and pink Lolita-style dress hugging him tightly.

“Holy… Holy shit.”

Ni Haofan, gargling at his throat, suddenly goes limp and is shocked unconscious.

Blai’nd, also shocked, is now madly shaking the ‘Princess’ in his lap who is already most of the way to the River Styx, yelling,

“Oh, my beautiful Princess! What is wrong?! Could, could this be the, the legendary, Sleeping Beauty who I must save? Then certainly! For the Princess’ health’s sake, even if I have to sacrifice my reputation──”

“──W-wait, Your Highness, that, that is a scientist of our research team! He’s not the Princess!”

The slightly bolder Maid A, deciding to intervene, finally tries to stop him.

Blai’nd adjusts his monocles, which one must suspect are mere decorations, asking, “what? Did I mistake her again?”

Then he turns to the girls accompanying him to ask, “tell me, did I mistake this person?”

The two tired, speechless girls then answer, “… yes.”

“Haha… I apologise, then, can I ask where your Princess is? Do I have the honour to share dinner with her?”

“This… might be difficult, as Dr Ni Haofan has secretly hid the Princess in her bedroom, telling us that if the Prince asks for her, then we tell him that the Princess is not here.”

“Oh, oh! I see!”

Blai’nd looks all understanding, and claps his hands together with a clean smacking sound, giving a brilliant smile contrasted by the expressions on the girls behind him who looks like they might start hyperventilating any time soon, and showing all his big yellow teeth in all their glory, saying,

“Since the Princess is absent, then I shall be visiting another time…

Oh, it is unfortunate. Even though I took the effort to learn from the divine-looking Ms… I mean, Mr Murong, and his girlfriend, and cross-dress, thinking that girls in Country A enjoy that──”

Zoom──

Piu──

Zap──

As soon as he was saying that, almost racing against the light, a human silhouette suddenly popped in, having spent less than three seconds reaching her destination from eight hundred metres away in her chambers!

──Before anyone could react, a girl with her long blonde hair swaying all around, half-naked, has lunged at Blai’nd, pinning him to the floor with his back down.

Who else but Elizabeth, right?

──Her Highness Elizabeth’s face, with the paleness of a long-dead corpse, twists into a freakishly wide smile. Her voice is hoarse and rough; it is almost ethereal.

“You, have, seen, Murong Jihua, and, his, SO, already?

Quickquickquick tell me! What did they do? Any [REDACTED]? What about [REDACTED]? Information! I need data, I need the data from their impregnation experiment [C]!”

“Oh…”

Blai’nd, narrowing his eyes, tries to recall,

──And remembers, that day, on the dinner table, when they ran up to him to scold him, the two blobs of colour that intermingled with each other.

──”Yup.”