Chapter 525: Chapter-525
Samuel simply crossed his arms, watching his grand purchases disappear with a wistful, highly entertained expression.
"Well, that was incredibly rude," Samuel tutted, stepping up right beside her. He leaned in slightly, his voice dropping into a smooth, teasing murmur that only she could hear. "You know, for someone who claims we are legally divorced... you certainly just threw a very convincing jealous wife tantrum in front of the entire capital."
Heena slowly turned her head to look at him, her eye twitching all over again.
"Get in the carriage," Heena ordered, her voice trembling with suppressed rage. "Before I decide the mountain was a good idea just so I have a place to bury your body."
Hearing her threat, Samuel didn’t look even remotely intimidated. Instead, he simply smiled slightly, tilting his head and perfectly arranging his features into an expression of bashful, utterly victimized innocence.
"Come on, Wifey," Samuel murmured, his voice carrying just enough volume to be heard by the bystanders. He gave her a shy, sidelong glance. "Don’t be so fiercely overprotective of me in public."
Heena was completely taken aback. ’What the heck is he playing at now?’
But then, she finally looked past him and noticed her surroundings.
The prime market district wasn’t just filled with merchants. The street was lined with wealthy noblewomen, young aristocratic misses, and wealthy heiresses. And every single one of them was currently hiding the lower half of their faces behind exquisite silk fans, practically vibrating with excitement. They were whispering furiously to each other, their eyes wide and sparkling as they stared at the two of them.
Heena’s stomach dropped. Damn it.
She wasn’t just in the market district; she was in the absolute epicenter of high-society gossip. To these women, Heena wasn’t a furious woman stopping a financial hemorrhage. She was the dominant, powerful Vanguard general aggressively sweeping in to claim her ridiculously handsome, doting husband!
Samuel looked at her again, fully leaning into the shy, submissive husband act.
Heena felt her eye twitch all over again. She clamped her leather-gloved hand around his wrist, gripping it so tightly he actually let out a tiny, genuine wince, and ruthlessly dragged him toward the Vanguard transport.
"Get in," she hissed, shoving him up the steps and practically throwing him into the luxurious velvet interior of the carriage.
She climbed in right after him. "Driver, start the—"
Heena paused. She let out a heavy, suffering sigh. She couldn’t just leave a trail of humiliated merchants in her wake, especially not with half the capital’s noblewomen watching her every move. She had an image to maintain, even if it meant enabling this parasite.
She turned around, leaned back out of the carriage door, and pointed a sharp finger directly at the terrified shop manager of the Spring Blossom Silk Pavilion.
"You," Heena commanded, her voice cutting through the murmurs of the crowd. "Whatever it was he was holding. Pack it up, make sure it is in absolute pristine condition, and put it on my tab. Send it to the estate."
The shop manager, who had been on the verge of a financial breakdown, instantly brightened. He frantically wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, dropping into a deep, joyous bow. "Yes, Madam! Yes, Ma’am! Right away, My Lady!" He immediately scrambled back into his shop, yelling at his apprentices to grab the best boxes.
The moment the words left Heena’s mouth, a collective, high-pitched squeal erupted from the crowd of noblewomen.
A few of them actually swooned, leaning against their maids, utterly captivated by this overwhelming display of aggressive, domineering romance. The wealthy, cold-hearted Madam publicly spoiling her husband without a second thought! It was the ultimate fantasy!
Heena pulled her head back inside and slammed the carriage door shut.
She collapsed onto the velvet cushions across from a highly amused Samuel and rubbed her temples. The sheer absurdity of the ancient world was giving her a migraine.
’Well, what can you expect?’ Heena thought to herself as the carriage finally lurched into motion, leaving the squealing fans behind. ’When you live in an era with absolutely no television, no internet, and zero modern entertainment, a public marital spat is basically front-row theater.’
She let out a long breath, a phantom habit making her reach up as if to push a pair of thick, high-power glasses up the bridge of her nose. In her past life, she had spent countless, exhausting hours staring at glowing screens, meticulously serializing massive palace drama web novels until her eyes burned. Now, she was literally living in one, and these bored aristocrats were acting exactly like her rabid readers waiting for a Chapter update.
’Honestly,’ Heena mused, crossing her arms and glaring at Samuel, who was currently looking far too pleased with his new silks. ’These women desperately need some good serialized fiction to keep them occupied. With my experience, I should just open a publishing house. I would make back everything this idiot just spent in a week.’
The interior of the heavy Vanguard carriage had never felt so suffocatingly small.
Outside, the chaotic, frantic noises of the capital city—the shouting merchants, the clattering of wooden wheels on cobblestone, the distant squeals of gossiping noblewomen—had all but faded away. Inside the cabin, however, the silence was absolute. It was not a peaceful, quiet silence. It was the heavy, crushing silence of a loaded cannon just waiting for the spark to ignite.
Grandpa Marcuset sat rigidly on the plush velvet bench opposite the young couple. The legendary warlord, a man who had stared down enemy cavalry charges without so much as blinking an eye, was currently sweating beneath his heavy ceremonial armor.
He kept shooting rapid, incredibly expressive glances across the cabin at Samuel.
The old general’s eyes were practically screaming a desperate, silent warning: ’You are completely done for, boy. It was nice knowing you. I will personally make sure you have a very handsome funeral.’
Samuel sat beside Heena, looking out the window with forced casualness, though his posture was unusually stiff.
But it was Heena who was the true source of the terrifying atmosphere.
She wasn’t shouting. She wasn’t threatening to turn his skull into a paperweight anymore. In fact, she had completely leaned back into the velvet cushions, crossed her arms over her dark leather riding cloak, and calmly closed her eyes.
To anyone else, she might have looked like a tired noblewoman resting her head after a long morning of tutoring. But to Grandpa Marcuset and Samuel, it was the most pants-wettingly terrifying sight in the world. When a Vanguard general started screaming, it meant you were going to get beaten. When a Vanguard general went completely, deathly silent and closed their eyes, it meant they were meticulously calculating the exact depth of the trench required to hide your body permanently.
For five agonizing, endless minutes, the carriage rocked back and forth over the cobblestones. The rhythmic clack-clack-clack of the horses’ hooves sounded like a metronome counting down to Samuel’s execution.
Finally, Heena moved.
She didn’t open her eyes. She merely tilted her head slightly, leaning her weight subtly toward Samuel’s side of the bench. A soft, chillingly gentle smile curved her lips.
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