Chapter 537: Chapter-537
The dining hall fell silent, save for the distant laughter of the children outside. The raw, unfiltered anger of a woman ready to burn down the world for her family hung heavy in the air.
From the other side of the table, the old woman gently reached out.
"My child," the old woman spoke, her voice soft but carrying the immense weight of a seasoned matriarch. "We are not trying to stop you. We would never stop you. But you must remember... once this game officially starts, it will not end until one side is completely struck down. There is no middle ground."
Hearing her aunt’s warning, the blazing fury in Grandma Marcuset’s eyes slowly cooled into a chilling, absolute resolve. She looked down at the table, a self-deprecating, deeply dangerous smile forming on her lips.
"When was it ever going to stop, Aunt?" Grandma asked softly.
She looked back up, her eyes cold and steady.
"These people will not stop until they see our blood spilled on the jade floors of their palace," Grandma stated, accepting the reality of their political existence. "They want us dead. So... if my family is going to die?"
She picked up her teacup, holding it up in a silent, deadly toast.
"I would like to drag every single one of them to hell together with me."
For a brief, suspended moment, the dining hall was quiet. The weight of Grandma Marcuset’s vow to drag the imperial family to hell hung heavily in the air.
And then, Big Uncle suddenly threw his head back and burst into a booming, breathless fit of laughter.
He laughed so hard he had to slap his hand against the heavy wooden table to steady himself, his eyes crinkling with absolute delight. He pointed a trembling, calloused finger at Grandma Marcuset.
"You..." Big Uncle wheezed, wiping a tear from his eye. "You are exactly like my sister-in-law. Absolutely terrifying and entirely unreasonable!"
Grandma Marcuset didn’t even crack a smile. She simply took a slow, elegant sip of her tea, delicately shrugged her silk-draped shoulders, and stated the undeniable truth: "Well. Genes."
Big Uncle chuckled, shaking his head in fond exasperation. He turned to the old woman sitting beside him. "So, what do you say, dear? Are we going to war against the Son of Heaven?"
The old woman paused, holding her teacup in mid-air. She slowly turned her head, looking at her husband with a sharp, incredibly disdainful sneer.
"What do you think, you old fool?" she scolded, her voice sharp as glass. "Of course we are going to fight."
She set her cup down with a definitive clink and straightened her neck, looking around the table at the gathered generations of the Soram bloodline. Her eyes gleamed with a dangerous, deeply cunning light.
"Besides," the old woman reasoned, waving her hand dismissively. "We are not going to die. After all, technically speaking... your niece is not even a member of our family."
A collective, highly amused hum rippled around the table.
"It is beautifully documented in the royal archives," the old woman smirked, highly satisfied with the loophole they had created decades ago. "She was ’cast out.’ We severed ties. So, legally, we can do whatever the hell we want. We are not some high-class, stuck-up Dukes or Marquises tied down to the capital’s rules. We are not bound by court etiquette, and we certainly aren’t walking into the Emperor’s throne room to play his political games. If the Vanguard commits treason, it is the Vanguard’s problem. If the Soram family accidentally happens to crush the imperial supply lines in the process... well, that is just aggressive business."
Suddenly, one of the female cousins sitting further down the table—a woman in her early fifties who controlled half the southern silk trade—slapped her hand on the table and laughed out loud.
"Exactly!" the cousin cheered, her eyes practically shining with predatory excitement.
She looked at Grandma Marcuset, leaning forward like a predator smelling blood in the water. "It has been a very, very long time since I last played the Great Game. The South has been entirely too peaceful. Let’s see if those royal pests actually dare to reach their hands out to touch my grand-niece. Let’s see if we can tear their manicured fingers apart, joint by joint."
The rest of the table instantly erupted into laughter and nods of fierce agreement.
Looking at them, an outsider would have been utterly horrified. They were actively sitting around a dining table, eating sweet pastries and drinking floral tea, while casually discussing high treason, regicide, and the total destabilization of the empire. But to the Soram family, they looked as if they were simply planning a fun, highly competitive family outing.
There was absolutely zero fear in their eyes. The Emperor was not a god to them; he was just an incredibly annoying business rival who needed to be violently bought out.
Grandma Marcuset looked around the table, the fierce pride in her chest warring with her lingering protective instincts.
"Hold on," Grandma cautioned, raising a hand to quiet the excited chatter. She looked at her cousins, her expression turning dead serious. "You all know the risks, right? Legal loopholes or not, if we do this, the Emperor is not stupid. He will try to link us together. You might all get convicted of treason. The royal army will march South."
Hearing her dire warning, the cousins merely exchanged utterly unbothered glances.
"Well," the silk-trading cousin shrugged her shoulders, popping a candied plum into her mouth. "If we do, then we do. Let’s just see if the Emperor actually has the financial and military power to drag the entire South down with him."
"And anyway, even if the absolute worst happens and the royal army actually manages to corner us..." another female cousin spoke up. She was the matriarch who controlled the shipping ports, a woman whose merchant fleets spanned across three different oceans.
She swirled the tea in her cup, offering Grandma a wicked, conspiratorial wink.
"I already have the western water routes completely secured and prepped," the shipping cousin stated casually. "I have a dozen ghost fleets waiting offshore. If we get ’caught,’ we will simply pack up our gold, change our names, sail across the sea, and buy a small country somewhere else. Let the Emperor rule over an empty, bankrupt valley."
For a second, Grandma Marcuset just stared at her relative.
And then, she couldn’t hold it back anymore. A genuine, unrestrained laugh burst from her lips, joining the roaring laughter of her family.
This was the true terror of the Soram bloodline. They didn’t care about titles, they didn’t care about prestige, and they absolutely did not care about the "honor" of dying for an empire. They loved their family, they loved their freedom, and they loved their money. If the Emperor wanted to play a game of life and death, he was about to realize that his opponents had already rigged the board, bought the referees, and parked a getaway ship right outside the arena.
The heavy, gilded doors of the Great Courtroom finally closed behind her with a resounding thud.
Heena stepped out onto the vast, sunlit jade terrace, immediately pausing at the top of the grand staircase.
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