Chapter 553: Chapter-553
The Prime Minister scoffed, taking a slow sip of his wine. He didn’t even bother looking back at the room.
"What can this useless bitch even do to me?" he sneered in disgust. "She does nothing but sit there and drink tea all day. She is entirely boring."
The mother continued to stroke his hair, completely validating his horrific behavior. "So what is wrong, then? What put you in such a foul mood?"
The Prime Minister’s grip on his wine glass tightened. The dark, bottomless abyss returned to his eyes as a specific face flashed in his mind.
"That daughter of the Marcuset family," he whispered, his voice vibrating with a dark, twisted obsession. "That arrogant Vanguard bitch. I want"
The matriarch paused her petting, looking down at her son. Then, she let out a loud, highly amused laugh, covering her mouth with her silk sleeve.
"Want her, right?" she chuckled. "Are you sure you want a military brute like her?"
The Prime Minister smiled, a sharp, sadistic curve of his lips. He turned to look up at his mother.
"She is quite different, Mother," he explained, his breathing growing slightly heavier with anticipation. "Seeing her today... the way she talked to me, the way she looked down at me... I want to rip her damn pride apart. I want to see her on her knees, begging me for mercy."
Hearing her son talk about brutally breaking another noblewoman, the mother didn’t scold him. Instead, she looked at him with an indulgent, proud smile, entirely enabling his madness.
"Uh-huh," the matriarch cooed softly. "So my precious son has just found someone new he likes, huh?"
"She looks quite strong, Mother," the Prime Minister murmured, staring out at the dark water. "She won’t break as easily as the others. Breaking her... tearing down that Marcuset arrogance... it would be deeply interesting."
"That is my son," the mother laughed approvingly, patting his shoulder. "Always aiming for the best. Anyway, do not drink too much wine out here in the cold. If you want that woman, then simply take her."
Hearing that, the Prime Minister violently slammed his wine glass down onto the wooden table, the red liquid splashing over the rim.
"That bitch is the newly appointed heiress of the Marcuset family!" he snapped, frustrated by the political reality. "She has the entire Vanguard army behind her!"
The matriarch simply scoffed, rolling her eyes as if the legendary military family was nothing more than an annoying gnat.
"Ha. She is just a woman," his mother said dismissively, her tone laced with absolute, deeply ingrained misogyny. "What can she even do? Just throw her into your bed, show her who is the master, and she will obediently follow whatever you say. Women always submit once they are conquered."
The Prime Minister shook his head, his handsome face twisting with genuine irritation.
"No, Mother," he gritted his teeth, remembering how Heena had effortlessly thrown his dead wives in his face. "That bitch did not fall for me at all. My charm didn’t even make her blink."
The matriarch stopped smiling. She raised her perfectly drawn eyebrows, looking completely and utterly baffled. In her narcissistic mind, her son was the most perfect, god-like being to ever exist in the empire.
"What?" the mother asked, genuinely shocked by the audacity. "Is the girl face-blind or something? How could any woman in this capital not fall to her knees for my dear son?"
The Prime Minister’s jaw tightened at his mother’s absolute bewilderment. He took another sip of his wine, the memory of Heena’s cold, unyielding gaze burning in his mind.
"She is not playing hard to get, Mother," he said, his voice laced with venom. "She looked at me with genuine disgust. She even had the audacity to bring up... the unfortunate passing of my previous wives."
The matriarch’s smile faded slightly, her eyes narrowing into sharp, reptilian slits.
"Did she now?" the mother murmured, her tone dropping into a dangerous octave. "How thoroughly uneducated. It seems the Vanguard has spent so much time holding swords that they have completely forgotten how to hold their tongues in the presence of their betters."
She gently smoothed the collar of her son’s robes, her mind already spinning a web of political poison.
"Do not fret, my beautiful boy," she cooed, her voice dripping with malice. "A woman’s pride is nothing but a fragile paper shield. If she refuses to submit in the shadows, then you simply strip that pride away in the blazing sunlight."
The Prime Minister looked up. "The Imperial Banquet is tomorrow night."
"Exactly," his mother smiled, a wicked, triumphant gleam in her eyes. "And I heard she is bringing that absolute laughingstock of a fiancé with her. That spoiled, useless idiot from the South who has been screaming in the markets and wasting Vanguard gold."
The Prime Minister scoffed, leaning back in his chair. "Samuel. The man is a complete fool. He bought out an entire medicinal warehouse today just to impress her. He is utterly beneath my notice."
"But he is her weakness," the matriarch pointed out smoothly. "She is the proud, arrogant heiress of a military family. If you humiliate that idiot fiancé in front of the Emperor, the royal court, and all the foreign dignitaries... her pride will be shattered. She will be a complete joke. And once she falls from her high horse and realizes she has no political standing..."
The mother leaned in, whispering into his ear like a demon offering a contract.
"...She will have no choice but to crawl to the Prime Minister for shelter."
The bottomless void in the Prime Minister’s eyes suddenly sparked with a dark, sadistic excitement. The image of the fiercely independent Heena kneeling before him in the Great Hall, utterly humiliated and begging for his political protection, made his blood rush.
"You are absolutely right, Mother," he whispered, a brilliant, terrifying smile returning to his face. "Tomorrow night... we will show the Vanguard Madam exactly who rules this capital."
The Prime Minister smiled, thoroughly pleased by his mother’s plan to humiliate the Vanguard Madam. He stood up, elegantly adjusting the lapels of his green silk robes to hide the slight wrinkles.
"Go rest, my precious boy," the matriarch said, her voice dripping with warm, maternal affection as she gently smoothed his collar. "You have a grand banquet tomorrow. You need your sleep to look your absolute best for the Emperor. Leave this mess to me. I will take care of all the things here."
"Thank you, Mother," he murmured. He didn’t even bother casting a final glance at the broken, bleeding girl on the floor. He simply turned and walked out of the Water Pavilion, his footsteps fading away into the serene night.
The moment the wooden doors clicked shut, the warm, doting mother completely vanished.
The temperature in the pavilion seemed to drop ten degrees. The matriarch slowly turned around. Her heavy purple silk skirts rustled against the wooden floorboards as she walked toward the center of the room. She stopped just inches from where the third wife was lying in a pathetic, trembling heap, struggling to draw a single breath through her shattered ribs.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter