
correct me if im wrong but I think the emperor was the one behind lippe's tragic past...and i think the reason reas is avoiding her is due to that fact...maybe [ my theory] the emperor saw how reas adored lippe in the past (look at the past chapter, where they were talking about the piano and such as well as the confession between the two where reas was rejected, i think)...now using this theory plus the emperor's obsession to bring down the Castillos...he used lippe's family to hurt reas indirectly. Now that he regressed to past we wanted to show little to jo affection to lippe around people (plus if you look again at past chapters there was a scene where he said "it's not the time yet" or something like that)

I know how the story progressed and you are correct about...
(this is a spoiler so proceed with caution)
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...the Emperor being behind everything that transpired in the past but his reason is different. The family of Calliope's apparently possessed a power—Calliope's power as a Saint—that the Emperor needs to completely rule over the whole Empire or the world. The Emperor thought that the Rustichel family were hiding it from him inciting his anger but the Rustichels were actually completely clueless about the power the Emperor wanted to covet. This lead him to covertly destroying the Rustichels in order to gain what he wanted but he wasn't able to because Calliope didn't awaken her powers in her past life. Her singing is what awakened her powers—something she rarely did in her past life. Also, Reas started to show favor over Calliope when the civil war was already happening in their Empire, unlike right now where they met earlier.

OMG THE AUTHOR IS SO SMART FOR MAKING A FORESHADOW IN THE FIRST CHAPTER NGL I DIDN'T NOTICE THAT UNTIL SOMEONE COMMENTED IT (credits to you missmaam) IF U EVER WANNA NOW IF HE REALLY CAN SEE AURAS, YES HE CAN...GO BACK TO CHAP 1 AND LOCATE THE PART WHERE THEY WERE KISSING, AS U CAN SEE AFTER THEY BOTH KISSED HE ACTUALLY STOPPED AND SAID "OH" REALIZING SOMETHING THIS ONLY IMPLIED THAT AFTER HE KISSED THE MC HE ACTUALLY SAW HIS AURA....PS IDK WHY MADE THIS COMMENT BUT I JUST LOVE HOW THE AUTHOR FORESHADOWED THE PLOT WITHOUT ME KNOWING HAHHAAH
That was the best deciphering technique I've witness...