Chapter 176
"What... does that mean?"
No matter how she thought about it, Liv couldn’t grasp the meaning of what Hayden said. When Liv frowned and asked that, Hayden took a breath before beginning his explanation.
"While investigating in a mountain village this time, I heard something. So I searched through records and found evidence supporting it. Looking at historical records, while there are records of all other Emperors having children, the 6th Emperor and Empress have none. Without any record of childbirth, records of the 7th Emperor’s childhood suddenly appear."
"And?"
"I also compared portraits of the 7th Emperor with previous Emperors, and somehow couldn’t find any resemblance. It was hard to find matching hair and eye colors too."
"So you’re saying the 7th Emperor wasn’t the 6th Emperor couple’s biological child?"
"So I looked up records of the 6th Emperor couple’s relatives. Looking at the family tree showing up to eighth cousins, one eighth cousin’s name was erased one day. And that eighth cousin’s name was the same as the 7th Emperor’s."
"Are you saying the 6th Emperor couple adopted their eighth cousin as their child?"
"Yes, exactly. When they couldn’t have children, they adopted a child from distant relatives."
While it was unexpected news since she thought Emperors before Liv had continued the line without problems, she wondered how it was possible.
"If I were to adopt from Lartman’s collateral line or an eighth cousin’s child, there would be opposition questioning legitimacy. Why weren’t the 6th Emperor couple attacked?"
"Your Majesty, that’s exactly the point to note."