Chapter 56: 56

After entering the little Emperor’s office, Michelle bowed her head a bit and the young prisoner behind her knelt down in surprise, not expecting Michelle to really bring him to the Emperor, and right away at that. “Hello, Your Majesty!” she smiled. “Can I have a daring request?”

David Elether wasn’t with the little Emperor at the moment, but that was not too unexpected, because he couldn’t be there all the time as he had other things to take care of. “Go ahead, teacher. What do you need?” the little Emperor asked, his gaze falling on the kneeling young man. He could guess that she wanted to speak about the young man.

Michelle smiled a bit and gestured to the young man before speaking: “Your Majesty, I’d like you to allow me to take this man out of the prison. He’s officially a death-row prisoner, but for over three years, his case wasn’t even brought up in court to decide when he will be executed. As Your Majesty knows, that only happens when someone is thrown into jail after being framed and the real perpetrator doesn’t dare bring up the execution in the court as it could reveal the truth while going over the case.”

The little Emperor observed the young man for a short while as he listened to Michelle. As a nine-year-old, he was already used to much longer speeches than what Michelle said, as he always had to listen to the officials prattling on at the meetings, so he had no trouble understanding Michelle. And what she said was the truth. Prisoners who were thrown into the death-row prison, but were left there for an extended period, were mostly thrown there after taking blame for something or after being framed because of a grudge with someone more powerful than them.

“What did he do?” the little Emperor asked after a while of silence.

Michelle glanced at the young man, signaling for him to speak up. “Your Majesty, this servant was imprisoned for raping his master’s wife and for killing his master’s son.”

Hearing that, Michelle sneered. She liked the young man more and more. He would make a good friend for her with how he was, as he was similar to Ivona. And Michelle liked people like that. He was smart and partly alibistic. He neither said that he committed a crime, nor did he say that he was framed. He just said that he was imprisoned for the crime, so no one could use his words against him.

The little Emperor looked at the young man and nodded a bit. “And who’s your master?” he asked.

“Viscount Garric Sloan…” the young man answered.

That made the little Emperor frown. Viscount Sloan was a young Viscount who inherited his title just recently. He had a five-year-old son and a young wife. He was known for being harsh and rude, and the little Emperor suspected both him and his father of corruption, but he held no proof as they were like slippery eels. “And your name?” the little Emperor asked a question that Michelle knew an answer to. She knew the name since the start, because she had heard about the young man before.

“I’m Kieran Ashford!” the young man answered, making the little Emperor raise a brow. For a mere servant of a Viscount to have a last name was surprising, and also, the last name Ashford was quite well known in the capital as it was the name of the fallen Ducal family which ruled over the Emperor’s knights.

Michelle wasn’t surprised as she already knew the past of Kieran, but the little Emperor was surprised. “Do you have something to do with the fallen Ducal family?” he asked straightforwardly.

When the question fell, Kieran remained silent for a while before answering with a sigh: “The last Duke was this servant’s father.” Michelle could hear some suppressed rage in Kieran’s voice, but she didn’t comment on it.

The little Emperor was too young and inexperienced to notice the hatred in the speech, so he just raised a brow in surprise. “As far as I know, the Duke suddenly disappeared six years ago and when he returned a year later, he asked the Emperor Emeritus to strip him of his title and land and make him a commoner. The Emperor Emeritus did it, and the Duke disappeared with his whole family. His territory was then divided between the viscounts and counts living around there. Viscount Sloan was also among them, if I’m not wrong.”

Kieran was still kneeling, but he didn’t mind. And it was also normal in the world for commoners to only kneel in the presence of the Emperor, even if they were high aristocrats in the past. “Yes, Your Majesty is right! But it wasn’t the current Viscount Sloan who was there but his father, the old Viscount.” he nodded.

The little Emperor was getting more and more curious by every moment: “The Duke never explained why he wanted to be stripped of his title and made a commoner. Do you know why? And why did the Emperor Emeritus agree to make him a commoner, when he was clearly a competent official? No Emperor would accept losing such an official without a good reason. What really happened six years ago? Why did your father disappear?”

But no matter how curious the little Emperor was, Kieran didn’t know the answer to his questions: “This servant is sorry, Your Majesty! This servant doesn’t know.”

What the two didn’t know was that Michelle knew the answer, but she had no plans on telling them. She had two good reasons for that. First, as a good teacher, she wanted the little Emperor to gain some experience with investigation and critical thinking. And second, she wanted to see the extent of Kieran’s abilities when he decided to search for the truth. So she would just give the two some leads.

“Kieran, how did you end up as a servant in the Sloan Viscounty five years ago?” Michelle asked lazily, planning to lead Kieran onto the right track. “And don’t say it’s because the Viscount was generous. Usually, when a Young Master’s family loses their influence, no one would help them, as all Young Masters have grudges with others. So tell me, why would Viscount Sloan risk being targeted by your enemies and let you be a servant in his Viscounty?”

Hearing Michelle’s words, Kieran didn’t think much at first, but her last sentence made him frown. “The current Viscount wasn’t the one who accepted me. I was accepted by the old Viscount, Malrik Sloan. He said he owed a debt to my father, so he couldn’t just leave me on the streets after my father disappeared.” Even he didn’t believe himself as he spoke. It was impossible for Malrik Sloan to have good intentions.

Michelle smiled a bit, her purple eyes narrowing as she saw the frowns on both Kieran and the little Emperor’s face. They were already clearly thinking about it more deeply. “What would Malrik Sloan gain by helping you? What would he get by helping the son of the guy part of whose territory he gained when the guy got stripped of his title?” she continued asking.

Kieran’s frown deepened as he thought about Michelle’s words. After a long while of silence, a thought came to his mind: “Probably information…”

“About what?” Michelle asked, clearly seeing in his expression that he already had a piece of information in his mind.

For another long moment, Kieran remained silent before answering. “The part of father’s territory that the old Viscount gained was known for being useless, but he probably knew that my father was obsessively protective over it, like his life depended on it. So he probably kept me around to find out what my father wanted with the territory there.”

Hearing that, Michelle herself was a bit surprised. She was guessing a different reason as to why Malrik Sloan would keep Kieran around. “I heard that the old Viscount had a strange obsession with cultivators,” she leaned against the wall as she decided to explain her thoughts. “There are a few legends saying that if a non-cultivator stays around a weak cultivator for a long enough time, he might get sensitive to spirit energy and slowly be able to cultivate too. Of course, it’s a bullshit, but an obsessed person would believe anything that gives him hope to achieve his goal. The old Viscount stated you to be the closest servant of his son, the current Viscount, because he wanted Garrick Sloan to be able to cultivate.”

Listening to that, Kieran’s eyes widened in realization. “So that’s why the current Viscount has always hated me so much!” he slapped his forehead. “That bastard…” he laughed coldly. “That… bastard…”

The little Emperor was getting lost in Michelle and Kieran’s conversation as he didn’t have the full context. “Why did he hate you?” he asked curiously, the innocence of a nine-year-old child he was peaking out.

Michelle answered instead of Kieran as he still looked quite hysteric. “The current Viscount was probably always jealous of Kieran because his father, the old Viscount, was always comparing the two. The hatred boiled and grew, and when the current Viscount finally inherited the Viscounty from his father, he decided to get rid of the eyesore, so killed his son when his son raped his wife and framed Kieran for all that, so Kieran was sentenced to death.”

“Teacher, how do you know all that?” the little Emperor asked curiously, his admiration for Michelle growing like that of a child admiring a friend’s older sibling.

“It wasn’t that hard to find out!” Michelle said as she looked at Kieran. “Before I decided to come ask Your Majesty for permission to go into the death-row prison, I used my father’s information network to find out all about each prisoner, so I knew who to use for my experiment. It was then that I found out about Kieran’s past.” She carelessly explained.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep