Chapter 501: Chapter-501
She walked through the inner palace without a single maid daring to stop her. When she approached the Ninth Prince’s training courtyard, the silence was deafening.
She stepped through the moon gate.
Standing dead center in the courtyard, shivering slightly in the crisp morning air, was the Ninth Prince.
He was not wearing his ridiculous, heavy silk hunting robes. Instead, he was dressed in basic, unadorned linen training clothes, exactly as she had ordered. His face was bruised from where he had face-planted the day before, his eyes were bloodshot, and he looked like he wanted to be absolutely anywhere else in the universe.
But he was there. And he was on time.
Heena’s sharp eyes swept over the surrounding perimeter. The eunuchs and maids were all kneeling, trembling in fear. The Imperial Guards stood at strict attention, not daring to make eye contact with her.
Heena walked forward, her boots clicking sharply against the stone. She stopped five feet away from the trembling boy.
"You are early, Your Highness," Heena stated, her voice devoid of any warmth or praise.
The Prince swallowed hard, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on her boots. "You... you said you would have your shadow guards drag me out of bed by my ankles if I was late."
"I did," Heena confirmed smoothly. "And I meant it."
She reached down, picked up the wooden training sword from the ground, and tossed it to him. The Prince scrambled to catch it, wincing as the wood hit his severely blistered palms.
"Yesterday, you showed me exactly how weak you are," Heena said, slowly drawing her own steel sword. The lethal ’shing’ of the metal echoing in the quiet courtyard made the Prince flinch violently. "Today, you are going to show me if you have the spine to fix it."
She pointed the tip of her steel blade directly at his chest.
"Horse stance. One thousand swings. And this time, I will be counting," Heena commanded, her eyes glowing with the merciless spirit of the Vanguard. "If you drop the sword, I will hit you. If you break your stance, I will sweep your legs. Begin."
The boy’s lip quivered, tears of dread welling up in his eyes, but he didn’t scream for his guards. He didn’t threaten to tell his mother.
With a ragged, shuddering breath, the Ninth Prince sank into a shaky horse stance, raised the wooden sword, and swung.
Sitting comfortably in the shaded pavilion with a fresh cup of premium tea in her hand, Heena watched the young prince with genuine, quiet surprise.
She truly hadn’t expected this.
In her mind, children were like newly molded clay that had not yet been put into the furnace. They were completely soft, easily manipulated, and shaped entirely by the hands that held them. Because the Ninth Prince had been aggressively spoiled, pampered, and practically trained to be a useless tyrant since childhood, Heena had zero confidence in his mental fortitude.
She had honestly believed that after a few minutes of agonizing muscle pain, his fragile spirit would shatter again. In fact, when she had arrived at the palace gates this morning, she fully expected to find him barricaded inside his luxurious bedroom, refusing to come out and throwing a massive tantrum. If he had done that, Heena wouldn’t have even blinked. It would have been the standard, predictable behavior of a ruined noble child.
But seeing him actually standing in the courtyard, forcing his blistered hands to grip the wooden hilt, and swinging the sword with a desperate, burning dedication in his bloodshot eyes... it genuinely shocked her.
Normally, when you brutally shattered someone’s ego and physical limits, it took at least two or three days of deep psychological depression before they found the will to start fighting back. But this boy had decided in less than half a day that he was going to return to the courtyard.
Perhaps it was simply because his massive royal ego was bruised, or perhaps he was genuinely terrified of her threat to drag him out of bed by his ankles. Whatever the reason, the spark of absolute stubbornness was there.
’’Well,’’ Heena thought, taking a slow sip of her tea as she watched his trembling arms push through the fiftieth swing. ’’Maybe he isn’t completely useless after all.’’
.
.
.
The grueling training session continued for half the day. The sun climbed higher, beating down on the stone courtyard, and the Prince was once again soaked in sweat, though he hadn’t collapsed yet.
Heena was just reaching for a lotus pastry when her sharp, highly trained senses picked up a sudden shift in the ambient noise.
Even before she set her teacup down, she heard the distinct, rhythmic sound of multiple footsteps approaching the moon gate. They weren’t the heavy, armored boots of the Imperial Guards. It was the soft, deliberate rustle of high-quality silk and the clicking of dozens of expensive palace slippers. A massive royal entourage was moving as one.
A split second later, a shrill, high-pitched eunuch’s voice echoed across the courtyard.
’’"His Majesty the Emperor and Her Majesty the Empress have arrived!"’’
Heena calmly set her teacup down and stood up. She smoothed the front of her jet-black training robes and turned toward the courtyard entrance, her expression instantly shifting back into an unreadable, flawless mask. She lowered her head into a perfectly measured, respectful bow.
Across the courtyard, the Ninth Prince froze mid-swing.
He was panting heavily, his face flushed and covered in dirt and sweat. He hastily lowered the wooden sword, turned toward the moon gate, and dropped into a deep, desperate bow to his parents.
The Emperor—a tall, imposing man wearing golden robes embroidered with magnificent dragons—stepped into the courtyard, with the serenely smiling Empress right by his side. Dozens of guards, ministers, and maids trailed behind them, instantly filling the space with suffocating political pressure.
"Greetings to Their Majesties," Heena said smoothly, her voice betraying absolutely no emotion.
The Emperor’s sharp eyes swept over the scene, taking in Heena’s relaxed posture in the pavilion and his son’s completely disheveled, exhausted state in the dirt.
But before the Emperor or the Empress could even open their mouths to speak, something entirely unexpected happened.
The Ninth Prince didn’t run to his mother. He didn’t cry. He didn’t complain about the abuse he had suffered.
Instead, the boy simply straightened up from his bow, turned his back on the most powerful rulers in the world, raised his wooden sword with violently shaking arms, and immediately resumed his horse stance.
’"Three hundred and twelve,"’ the Prince rasped quietly to himself, swinging the blade down with a heavy ’thwack’.
The entire courtyard held its collective breath.
The silence was so absolute that the only sound echoing across the vast stone training ground was the heavy, labored panting of the Ninth Prince and the sharp ’thwack’ of his wooden sword cutting through the air.
’"Three hundred... and thirteen,"’ the boy gasped, his arms trembling violently as he forced the blade down again.
The Emperor stared at his son in profound, unblinking shock. For years, he had watched this boy throw horrific tantrums over a slightly cold cup of tea or a delayed carriage. He was entirely accustomed to the Prince immediately dropping to his knees and weeping to his mother at the slightest hint of physical discomfort.
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