Forensic Imperial Concubine by Erika Black

Upon seeing that the tripod religiously followed Harper no matter where she went, the chief guard of the Secret Pavilion was
deliriously heartbroken. She had put great effort in every object of the pavilion. But now, that useless tripod totally ignored her
and stuck with Harper and even followed her everywhere. There was nothing the guard could do to stop it from acting like that.
"Harper Chu, what did you do to it? Did you use some kind of spell?" the guard asked in anger. She was so exasperated that her
voice turned more serious. As the chief guard of the pavilion, she should not leave the premises. But it seemed like the object
had thought of Harper as its master and went away with her. Therefore, the guard had no other choice but to leave the pavilion
and chase after it.
Harper responded, "A spell? I can only hope that I mastered that skill. But if you're serious in asking that, I didn't do anything to it.
Come on. You can't blame me just because I entered the Secret Pavilion earlier. And, I didn't ask it to follow me. It just went out
by itself and follows me wherever I go. You saw what happened. Why would you even question me?"
"But it's impossible for an inanimate object to—" The guard tried to protest but Harper cut her off.
"I wouldn't say that. Even an inanimate object can have intelligence. Believe it or not, I really didn't use any tricks. I swear it. I
don't know what's going on with it either."
But no matter what Harper said, the guard didn't trust her words. Seeing Harper's serious expression, she didn't believe the
princess would lie. But still, she was at a loss about how to deal with this tricky situation. Left without any other option, she
decided to follow Harper wherever she went in order to find the right opportunity to take the tripod back.
Meanwhile, Francis who had been seriously injured had just escaped from the imperial capital. He met up with Diana who came

her. After all, he didn't have any reason to do so, especially for such an important matter like that. "Well, now that Hoffman is dead, there's no need for me to stay here anymore," Diana nonchalantly stated and was immediately about to

in a very good condition. Hearing Francis' words, Diana immediately understood what Francis truly wanted. She just smiled at him and asked, "Do you mean to say that you want to be my ally in Hoffman's place?" "Why not? I'm sure you're well aware that a partnership with me is more advantageous than that with Hoffman. Besides, he had been a useless man since a long time ago. I had removed all of his men in the south domain. Are you sure you don't want to be allies with me?" Francis asked. Even though he was having a fever, he would never show any weakness. After thinking about his words carefully, Diana figured out something by reading along the lines. "What do you mean by that? Are there members of the south domain's army that are yours?" Francis gestured for her to

"Your wound has festered. I have to remove the slough and re-apply the medicine. It will hurt so badly once I remove it though. Do you need to—" But before she could finish speaking, Francis interrupted her, "Just go ahead. I'm not afraid of pain." Despite the circumstance at hand, his voice was still very gentle. He even had a tender smile on his face. Diana only sneered in response. In her opinion, even though he was