Chapter 529: Chapter-529
Heena’s jaw dropped.
She slammed her hands flat onto the desk and leaned in closer, reading the absolute, unhinged garbage printed below the headline. As a professional writer in her past life, she was usually highly critical of pacing and grammar, but this hack journalist was just pulling cheap, dramatic tropes out of thin air to pad their word count!
Following this morning’s shocking revelation of Lady Seera’s desperate, obsessive love for her hostage-husband, our undercover scholars have deduced the heartbreaking truth behind the Madam’s aggressive spending!
Why did she force him to buy a mountain? Why did she drown him in imperial silk? Sources close to the estate confirm: The Vanguard Madam is deeply, tragically insecure!
Known for her calloused hands, terrifying battlefield aura, and complete inability to compose a basic romantic poem, Lady Seera reportedly feels entirely inadequate next to Lord Samuel’s breathtaking, ethereal beauty. Unable to woo him with gentle feminine charm or soft smiles, the brutish warlord has resorted to the only language she knows: aggressively throwing gold at him!
An anonymous servant wept as they reported: "The Madam practices smiling in the mirror for hours, trying to look cute for the Young Master, but she just ends up looking like a hungry wolf! She is so terrified he will realize she has the romantic appeal of a brick wall, she forces him to wear expensive clothes just so he feels indebted to her!"
"A BRICK WALL?!" Heena shrieked, her voice echoing through the entire east wing of the estate.
Ding.
The translucent blue screen of the System popped up, manifesting as the tiny, glowing blue lion. It was currently rolling on its holographic back, clutching its stomach in digital hysterics.
[System Alert: New Title Unlocked!] the System announced, its mechanical voice glitching with suppressed laughter. [Title: ’The Desperate Brick Wall’! Charisma stats have officially plummeted to negative values! Would Host like to purchase a ’Basic Flirting Tutorial’ from the System Shop for 500 points?]
"I will uninstall you!" Heena roared at the hologram.
She snatched the newspaper, violently crumpled it in her fist, and kicked her oak chair so hard it shattered against the stone wall. She stormed out of the study and marched directly toward the courtyard, leaving a trail of pure, destructive aura in her wake.
When Heena kicked the courtyard doors open, she found Samuel sitting by the koi pond.
He was no longer just lounging. He had fully leaned into his new public persona.
He was holding a delicate pair of silver shears, gracefully trimming a miniature bonsai tree. He looked ethereal, completely serene, and so devastatingly handsome that it was actively enraging. Several of the younger estate maids were hiding behind the courtyard pillars, completely ignoring their chores just to openly swoon at him.
"Samuel," Heena hissed, marching up to him and slamming the crumpled Evening Chronicle onto the stone bench beside him.
Samuel jumped slightly, perfectly acting the part of a startled, delicate scholar. He looked at the crumpled paper, then looked up at her with wide, innocent eyes.
"Oh, Wifey," Samuel sighed, his voice dripping with unbearable sympathy. He reached out and gently patted her leather-gloved hand. "Did you read the evening edition? I told the guards not to let you see it. I didn’t want your fragile, deeply insecure heart to be wounded."
Heena’s eye twitched so hard her vision temporarily blurred. "I am going to strangle you with that bonsai tree."
"Now, now," Samuel tutted, picking up the crumpled newspaper and smoothing it out with his elegant fingers. "You don’t need to be embarrassed, Seera. So what if you have the romantic appeal of a brick wall? I am a very understanding husband. I accept you, calloused hands, terrifying smiles, and all."
He looked up at her, a single, fake tear of profound gratitude welling up in the corner of his eye.
"I know it must be so hard for you," Samuel whispered loudly, ensuring the eavesdropping maids behind the pillars could hear every word. "Knowing you could never naturally win the heart of a man like me... having to resort to buying me mountains and burying me in gold just to keep me by your side. But don’t worry, Wifey. I am trapped in your gilded cage, and I have accepted my luxurious, tragic fate."
From behind the pillars, several maids actually began to weep into their aprons, completely moved by the Young Master’s noble sacrifice.
Heena stood completely frozen.
She looked at Samuel. She looked at the weeping maids. She looked back at the hack-job newspaper claiming she practiced smiling in the mirror like a socially inept teenager.
’I am a professional,’ Heena chanted in her head, closing her eyes and taking a deep, ragged breath. ’I am a ruthless villain. I am an established, terrifying presence. I will not let this over-dramatic, hackneyed palace drama plotline break my spirit.’
She opened her eyes, fixing Samuel with a dead, hollow stare.
"Enjoy the bonsai, Samuel," Heena whispered, her voice dangerously calm. "Because tomorrow, I am personally marching down to the Capital Evening Chronicle printing press. And when I am done explaining my ’romantic appeal’ to the editor-in-chief... you are going to be a widow."
.
.
.
Back in the absolute privacy of her heavily guarded study, Heena finally collapsed into a sturdy oak chair, her hands gripping the armrests so tightly the wood actively groaned under the pressure.
The air in the room shimmered as the digital System manifested once again. The tiny, glowing blue holographic lion floated directly over her desk, tilting its majestic, pixelated head in genuine, digital confusion.
[Host, I truly do not understand your vitriol,] the System stated, its mechanical voice laced with genuine bewilderment. [Why are you so violently angry? Is this not exactly what your grandmother wanted? A massive public commotion to distract the capital? From a purely statistical standpoint, the objective was achieved with a 100% success rate! You are trending!]
Heena slowly raised her head.
Her eyes were no longer burning with the comedic, ego-driven rage she had displayed in the courtyard. Instead, they were blazing with a cold, furious, and terrifyingly calculated light. She looked at the floating blue furball as if it were the single dumbest entity in the multiverse.
"You absolute, unmitigated idiot," Heena whispered, her voice completely devoid of warmth.
The System physically recoiled in the air, its blue holographic fur flattening.
"The commotion itself is not the problem," Heena snapped, leaning forward and slamming her fist onto the desk. "The problem is that now, everyone knows about Samuel! Do you honestly think the capital’s spies are just going to look at his pretty face in the newspapers and politely mind their own business?!"
Heena abruptly stood up, pushing her chair back so violently it tipped over, and began pacing like a caged predator behind her desk.
"Before yesterday, Samuel was just a quiet, nameless scholar I dragged into the estate. A plaything. A shadow. Nobody cared enough to connect the dots," she explained, her mind running a mile a minute, calculating a dozen different disastrous scenarios. "But how long do you think it will take for the intelligence networks of rival nobles to dig into his past now that his face is plastered across the prime district?"
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