Chapter 540: Chapter-540
(Please be aware that there could be disturbing depictions of murder and abuse, so it’s important to read it with care.)
The System hovered near her shoulder, its glowing blue interface blinking rapidly as its processing core tried to make sense of her hostility.
Heena didn’t say anything more. She just leaned her head against the velvet cushions of the carriage, looking out the small, slatted window at the passing capital streets. The absolute disgust burning in her dark eyes was impossible to ignore.
As a veteran host who had transmigrated across countless lifetimes, she had seen and done terrible things. She had manipulated villains, destroyed empires, and yes, she had beaten and tortured cheating, abusive men when the plot demanded it. But she possessed an ironclad moral code: she never, ever raised her hand against an innocent person.
She couldn’t explain the full, horrific truth to the System yet, because the AI wouldn’t truly understand the nuance of human cruelty. In the System’s cold, logical language, political assassination was perfectly fine. To the AI, the fact that the Prime Minister’s wives had died simply meant he was playing the political game efficiently; it didn’t compute as him being a monstrous serial killer. The System didn’t understand the horrific reality of the wives’ ages, the brutal manner in which they died, or the true, bloody stepping stones this man had used to rise to the front of the civil court.
The System floated closer, reaching out a tiny, holographic paw to tug gently at the edge of her dark leather sleeve.
[Host... please,] the System begged, its mechanical voice sounding genuinely distressed. [Why are you saying this? Tell me. I don’t understand. Please, please, please explain the data to me.]
Heena let out a long, heavy sigh. She didn’t look at the hologram. She kept her gaze fixed on the bustling streets outside, her voice dropping into a calm, dead cadence.
"The Prime Minister’s first wife," Heena began, "was officially recorded as fifteen years old when she was married off to him."
The System tilted its head. In the modern world, that was a shocking crime, but its database recognized that in this ancient, historical era, it was unfortunately not considered a massive scandal.
Heena continued, her voice turning colder. "That was her official, documented age. But according to the shadow guards who tracked down her former servants... she was actually only thirteen. Her merchant father bribed the local officials to forge her registry and make her look two years older so he could secure the marriage alliance faster."
The System still didn’t quite grasp the full depth of the horror.
"When he was just a struggling, low-ranking scholar, he married this first wife," Heena explained. "She was the daughter of a wealthy merchant, born to a concubine. By all accounts, she was a remarkably soft-spoken, incredibly gentle girl. After the marriage, she did all the grueling housework. She took care of his demanding in-laws. At that time, his family was going through a severe financial crisis. They survived purely off her dowry."
Heena turned her head slowly, looking directly at the floating blue lion.
"And exactly two years later, he was suddenly promoted. He became the brightest young star of the Ministry of Rites, catching the Emperor’s eye. He was twenty-three years old at the time."
The System’s digital eyes widened as its processor finally ran the brutal math.
[Wait...] the System stammered, its hologram flickering. [Twenty-three... which means when they married, he was a fully grown twenty-one-year-old man... and she was just a thirteen-year-old child.]
Heena gave a single, grim nod.
"People didn’t notice anything was wrong," Heena continued, her voice tightening. "The girl was always so quiet and submissive. Her biological mother had died years before the marriage, so there was absolutely no one in her maiden family to speak up for her or check on her well-being. People just assumed she was naturally shy."
She took a shaky breath, the disgust clawing at her throat.
"And then, suddenly, one winter morning... she was found drowned in the estate’s koi pond. The official report filed by the Prime Minister claimed she was washing clothes and accidentally slipped into the water."
Heena’s eyes flashed with a sudden, violent fury.
"Tell me, System," Heena demanded, her voice vibrating with barely contained rage. "Which absolute idiot goes near a completely frozen pond, in the dead of winter, to wash clothes?!"
The System froze completely mid-air. It had never, in all their travels, seen this level of pure, righteous anger radiate from its host.
"The Prime Minister ensured the funeral happened incredibly fast," Heena said, her voice dropping back to a lethal whisper. "Closed casket. Immediate burial. But... there was a single, loyal maidservant of the young lady who saw the body before it was wrapped. And she recorded everything."
Heena reached into the inner pocket of her crimson robes and pulled out a small, heavily folded piece of ancient parchment. It was the intelligence report her shadow guards had handed her late last night.
She opened the paper and laid it flat on the small wooden table between them.
The System floated down to examine it. Its digital eyes locked onto the crude ink drawings on the page, and its holographic interface violently glitched with a sudden spike of horror.
On the left side of the paper was a standard, elegant ink portrait of a young, smiling thirteen-year-old girl with intricate hairpins.
But right beside it, drawn with frantic, trembling strokes by the terrified maid, was a second drawing. It was the exact same girl, with the exact same face. But instead of wearing her heavy silk robes, her body was drawn bare. And covering every single inch of her small, fragile frame were thousands of jagged, overlapping scars.
The System physically shuddered, its blue light dimming.
It realized there was a second, tightly stuck page underneath. Driven by a morbid need to understand, the System generated a small digital breeze to flip the heavy parchment over.
On the back were four more detailed, anatomical drawings of the girl’s back and legs. The visual documentation was absolutely horrific. There were thick, raised whip marks crisscrossing her spine. There were deep, jagged burn scars. And most terrifyingly, there were strange, perfectly round, dark circular wounds that looked like deep puncture holes dug into her flesh.
[What... what the heck is this?] the System whispered, entirely unable to comprehend the sheer scale of the cruelty.
Operating purely on its artificial intelligence algorithms, the System did something it rarely did without Heena’s direct permission. It scanned the crude ink drawings into its internal database and ran an AI visualization program to render exactly what those wounds would look like in real life.
When the render finished, the System let out a sharp, digital gasp of horror.
A fully rendered, 3D holographic projection of the thirteen-year-old girl appeared on the carriage table. Her small body was completely, entirely covered in bloody, infected, and brutalized wounds. Looking at the realistic projection, it was violently obvious just how much prolonged, agonizing torture this child had endured.
The System’s core processor was spinning frantically, still trying desperately to find a logical, less horrifying explanation.
[Host...] the System stammered, its voice shaking. [Is it possible... could these wounds have happened before she married him? Perhaps her stepmother tortured her in her maiden home?]
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