Ive Come to Pay His Majesty Back
Cassidy looked away, her face falling. *Ugh, so boring,* she thought. *I was hoping to play matchmaker for once, maybe get a little finder's fee out of it.*
The System's voice chimed in. "Host, are you that desperate for cash?"
Her heart gave a little jump. "Who complains about having too much money?" You never realize how important cash is until you're flat broke. Musing on that, she glanced at the silver in the box, suddenly second-guessing her plan to hand it over at the palace.
"System, tell me something. If I don't pay the emperor back, you think he'll let me borrow money again?"
"It's possible," the System replied. "Don't you humans have a saying? 'Good credit makes for easy borrowing.'"
Cassidy sighed. "True. Let's not be deadbeats. Come on, we're going to the palace to pay him back."
Vaughn Garrison noticed she'd gone completely silent the second he finished speaking. He figured he must have said something wrong and cast about for a way to break the silence, but he'd always been awkward and had no idea what to say.
Luckily, Cassidy was a real chatterbox. Finished with her internal debate, she turned back to Vaughn. "Lord Garrison, are you interested in joining our Capital Inspection Bureau?"
Vaughn was floored. He'd fought tooth and nail to become Commander of the Jinyiwei, and now the princess was asking him to quit and become a city patrolman in Argent? He scrambled for a polite way to turn her down.
Seeing his hesitation, Cassidy figured he was looking down on her little startup. Annoyed, she launched right into her sales pitch.
"Lord Garrison, don't judge the Capital Inspection Bureau by what it is now. Believe me, it won't be long before I make it famous across the entire Aethelian Empire. I'm going to be a hero to the people."
She leaned in conspiratorially. "If you join now, I'll make you my second-in-command. So, are you tempted?"
Vaughn chose his words carefully. "Princess, I'm the Commander of the Jinyiwei. A transfer isn't something I can do without the emperor's permission."
Cassidy remembered the last time she'd asked the emperor for Vaughn. He'd basically told her to get lost.
"Then go tell the emperor you *have* to come work for my bureau!"
Vaughn pressed his lips into a thin line. "Princess, I... I'm more comfortable with the Jinyiwei. A position like an Inspection Officer isn't really my strong suit."
Cassidy stared, searching his face for any sign that he was just looking down on her little operation. But his expression was completely sincere.
*So annoying.*
She huffed and nudged her little donkey forward, putting some distance between them. "Fine! If you won't join me, then we're rivals from now on. I'll beat you sooner or later and become number one in Argent."
With that, she spurred her donkey on, heading straight for the Imperial Palace.
Vaughn watched the fuming princess ride off and scratched his head, completely baffled. He couldn't understand how someone's mood could flip so fast. One minute, she was all smiles and thanking him; the next, she was glaring at him and declaring a rivalry.
Cassidy, whose mood did, in fact, change on a dime, soon arrived at the emperor's private quarters.
Steward Payne's eye started twitching the moment he saw her. *Why is this little troublemaker here again?* he thought, hurrying forward to block the doorway with a shallow bow. "Princess, His Majesty has already retired for the evening."
The implication was clear: *Please, don't go in there and torture the emperor again.*
"I'm here to pay the emperor back," Cassidy announced, holding up the box in her hands.
Hearing this, Steward Payne let out a huge sigh of relief, his face immediately breaking into a wide, genuine smile. "Then please wait a moment, Princess. I will go and report to His Majesty right away!"
The emperor was still wide awake, fuming over the twenty thousand taels the princess had conned out of him at dinner. Soon, Steward Payne returned, looking much more cheerful.
Cassidy dashed inside, clutching the box and calling out before she was even fully in the room. "Uncle! Your niece is here to bring you some money!"
The emperor's furious expression finally softened a fraction.
He wasn't mad that she'd borrowed twenty thousand taels.
He was mad about the two-thousand-tael painting his scoundrel of a brother had given him.
He'd thought his niece was finally showing some consideration, but it turned out to be a setup for a much bigger loan.
To his deep annoyance, he had even happily hung that painting in the most prominent spot in the room.
Cassidy wore a smug look. "See, Uncle? I told you I wasn't lying. If I borrow money, I always pay it back right away." She opened the box. "Here, this is twenty-two thousand taels. The extra two thousand is a gift for you."
The emperor couldn't stand hearing the words 'two thousand taels' right now. "I'll just take the twenty thousand I'm owed." He worried that if he took this two thousand, the little rascal would be back tomorrow asking for two hundred thousand.
"No way!" Cassidy stuffed the two thousand taels right into the emperor's hands. "You have to take it. It's a gift. When I make it big, I'll send you money every day."
The emperor, who had every intention of refusing, was mortified to find himself swayed by the grand future this little rascal was painting for him.
His hands seemed to accept the money against his will, his mind clinging to the thought that it was, after all, a gift from his niece.
Thinking of this, his lips curled into a smile, and he asked casually, "Where did you get all this money?"
Cassidy cleared her throat and launched into her story.
"I won it back, of course! Uncle, let me tell you, that Duke of Crestfall is a real snake. And that supposedly 'sensible' brother of yours? He falls for his tricks every single time. He knew there was something shady about the duke's chickens but still went to gamble with him.
If it wasn't for me being so clever, who knows when we would have ever gotten Ashworth Manor back."
The more the emperor listened, the more something felt deeply wrong. "You went gambling with that scoundrel father of yours?"
"Yep! And let me tell you, Uncle, the Duke of Crestfall didn't even want to bet against me. Not until I brought out the Ninefold Soul-Return Elixir."
The emperor shot to his feet. "What did you say you brought out?"
"The... The Ninefold Soul-Return Elixir," Cassidy stammered, startled by his sudden outburst.
The emperor pointed a trembling finger at her. "You... you little rascal! Do you have any idea that elixir is priceless? You can't buy it with any amount of money! And you used it as a gambling stake?"
Outside the door, Steward Payne wore a look that said it all: *I knew it.* He knew that whenever the emperor had to deal with the father and daughter from Ashworth Manor, he was either furious or on the verge of becoming furious.
Cassidy flinched. "Uncle, you actually believe that thing can bring the dead back to life and heal any wound?" She thought her father had just been bluffing.
The emperor glared at her. "Did your father not tell you that your mother left that behind?"
"He did," Cassidy nodded. "My mother didn't even want my father anymore, so why would she leave him anything good? He's just bluffing."
Cassidy just figured her father was bluffing.
Given his lazy, good-for-nothing vibe, he would have been labeled a total deadbeat where she came from.
Her mom probably fell for his smooth talk, realized what he was really like after they got married, and took off without a second thought, not even wanting her own kid.
Honestly, Cassidy kind of respected that.
The emperor heard this and could only assume the girl held a deep grudge against the mother who abandoned her, making her hate anything her mother left behind.
"You shouldn't be so prejudiced against your mother," the emperor said, his voice softening slightly.
"Years ago, when your grandmother was poisoned and the Imperial College of Medicine was helpless, it was your mother's miraculous healing that saved her. That alone shows how brilliant her medical skills were. I may not know where she came from, but she was no ordinary woman."
He remembered it well. His foolish brother had come running into the palace, giddy with the news that he'd fallen in love and wanted to get married. The emperor had been even happier than his brother; someone finally wanted to take that hot potato off his hands.
He just never expected that the woman would use his brother, leave him high and dry, and then simply vanish. A few months later, a baby was delivered to Ashworth Manor.
He and the Empress Dowager had always suspected the woman was drawn to Prince Ashworth's good looks but couldn't stand his foolish nature. They figured she used him, got what she wanted, and then disappeared without a trace, not even wanting the child she'd borne him.