The Mind-Reading Mate: Why Is the Lycan King So Obsessed With Me?!-Chapter 173: Digging Through Lies

Primrose let out a soft sigh, then knocked gently on the balcony door instead. "Husband," she called gently. When he turned his head toward her, she asked, "Aren’t you cold sitting out here?"

[So, my wife didn’t want to surprise me ... then why was she walking so slowly?] Edmund wondered. [Was the floor too cold for her feet? Or... is her body still sore?]

Before he could get up from his chair, Primrose opened the balcony door and deliberately lifted her dress just a little, just enough for him to see she was wearing slippers.

"It’s not that cold in the afternoon," Edmund said as he reached out his hand to her. "Come here. Are you alright? Does anything still hurt?"

Primrose walked toward him without saying much, not expecting that Edmund would pull her straight onto his lap.

By the time she realized what was happening, it was already too late to escape, so she simply sat there with her cheeks pink from embarrassment.

"I’m fine." She cleared her throat. "Thank you for healing me."

"There’s nothing to thank me for," Edmund replied, wrapping his coat around her to keep her warm. "It was my fault to begin with."

Primrose didn’t want them to start playing the blame game, so she quickly tried to change the subject.

"What were you reading?" she asked, glancing at the newspaper he had set on the table earlier.

Edmund picked up the newspaper and opened it in front of her. "I just wanted to check the situation here, but ... I don’t think the newspaper is very helpful."

So, he was working after all.

But it made sense. He was trying to gather information from the newspaper rather than directly asking the Marquess of Moonshadow.

Governments might be able to cover up the problems happening in their territories, but the people behind newspapers often try to uncover the truth.

Sure, most journalists these days preferred to write silly gossip since it sold better, but there were still a few journalists who held on to their integrity and kept criticizing the government where it was due.

"There’s nothing serious in here," Primrose muttered as she flipped through the pages. "There’s not even any meaningful gossip."

Most of the articles were about trivial things, like someone falling into a well, or a herd of snow deer that apparently enjoyed swimming.

No mention at all about the ruined roads to Moonshadow. Nothing about the thinning soil layers in the city either.

"What about the older newspapers?" Primrose eventually slipped off Edmund’s lap and sat beside him. "Maybe there’s something useful there?"

Edmund shook his head and pulled out a thick stack of newspapers from under the table.

Now Primrose understood, he didn’t sit on the balcony just to enjoy warm tea and read the newspaper, he was working hard even before Primrose woke up.

And what was with his habit of hiding papers under every table he used? Was it his way of pretending he was free?

"Did you read all of those?" she asked, wincing a little at the height of the stack. "Since this morning?"

"I did," Edmund replied, lowering his head with a guilty expression. "I’m sorry. This was supposed to be our vacation ... but I ended up ruining it."

"No, no, it’s really fine!" Primrose quickly reassured him. "You did the right thing."

After she had told Edmund that she wanted to kill the Marquess of Moonshadow, of course he needed to dig deeper into the man’s secrets. Maybe he just wanted to make sure his wife was planning to kill someone who was so rotten.

Or ... maybe that wasn’t his reason at all.

[If my wife wants him dead, then I need to find something so rotten about him that no one will feel sorry for this man,] Edmund thought. [It has to be worse than just embezzlement. Something that makes people disgusted by him.]

So, it turned out Edmund wasn’t trying to stop Primrose from making a mistake. He was actually helping her by collecting evidence of just how rotten her target really was.

Her husband ... was kind of a menace.

"I have a feeling he sabotaged the local newspapers," Edmund muttered. "That’s probably why there’s nothing bad written about him."

Primrose blinked. That made sense. Come to think of it, all the scandals about Moonshadow only started to appear after the Marquess was dead and the Marchioness was locked away in the dungeon.

"I think so too," she said, tapping the newspaper. "Even if he just bribed the local journalists, that would be enough to keep any bad stories from getting out of the city."

Usually, journalists had their own networks where they shared information with each other.

But if the local journalists in Moonshadow had been covering everything up, then those outside the city wouldn’t bother looking deeper.

"Do you think ... you could find someone who can confirm our theory?" Primrose asked hesitantly. "Maybe we could talk to one of the journalists?"

Edmund nodded. "I can do that. But... is it alright if I leave you for a while?"

[It would be easier to just kidnap one of them and force them to talk,] he thought.

’What?! He wanted to do what?’

Primrose nearly opened her mouth to object, but closed it immediately as she realized Edmund didn’t say it out loud.

Alright. Maybe that was fine.

Her husband was good at these kinds of things, and honestly, it was probably better to let him handle it his own way.

"Will you be gone long?" she asked quietly.

"I’m not sure," Edmund replied. "But I’ll do my best to return as soon as I can. I’m really sorry about this, my wife."

[I really don’t want to leave her,] he thought. [But if I want solid information, it’s better if I search for it myself instead of waiting for my soldiers to gather it.]

[Will she be sad?] He sighed. [Seeing her sad is worse than facing her disappointment.]

Was she sad? Maybe just a little.

She had planned to spend the whole day with Edmund, and now that plan was falling apart.

But instead of showing her disappointment, Primrose gave him a warm, gentle smile. "Don’t be sorry. As long as you come back with what we need ... that’s more than enough."