Chapter 582: Chapter-582
With a guttural, strained cry, the Third Wife planted her feet, leaned all her weight backward, and pulled with everything she had left.
SPLASH!
Heena’s head broke the surface of the water.
She violently gasped, sucking in a massive, desperate breath of air before her body immediately betrayed her.
Cough! Cough! Cough!
Heena choked, violently expelling the foul, freezing water from her lungs. She sounded like she was going to cough her entire respiratory system onto the floorboards. Her chest heaved, her eyes watering, her throat burning with a completely different kind of agony now.
Hovering right next to her ear, the glowing blue lion was absolutely furious.
"I knew it! I knew it!" the System screamed, pointing a glowing, accusatory paw at the weeping woman. "This woman is a double agent! She is trying to kill my Host! Assassinate her! Cook her! Drown her! What’s next, dropping a piano on her head?!"
The Third Wife didn’t let go. She kept her arms wrapped tightly under Heena’s armpits, practically hugging the soaked, coughing Vanguard Madam from behind, using her own frail body to wedge Heena against the edge of the tub so she wouldn’t slip back under.
"My Lady!" the Third Wife sobbed, her tears freely mixing with the freezing bathwater. "I am so, so, so, so sorry! I didn’t know! I wasn’t thinking! I just thought the cold water would wake you up, I forgot you were paralyzed! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!"
Heena rested her chin heavily on the wooden rim of the tub, her soaked hair plastered against her pale face. She took another ragged, deep breath, her lungs burning, her head throbbing from where it had been slammed against the doorframe, the floor, and the table.
She closed her eyes, letting out a long, exhausted, bubbling exhale.
What could she even say? She couldn’t yell at her. She couldn’t punish her. This frail, abused, clumsy woman had just dragged her halfway across the Forbidden Inner City with broken ribs and had single-handedly thwarted the Prime Minister’s flawless assassination plot.
’System,’ Heena finally groaned in her mind, her telepathic link painfully flickering back online as the icy water continued to suppress the boiling aphrodisiac in her blood.
The digital lion instantly stopped its ranting, its ears perking up. "Host! You’re back online!"
’Shut up and scan my body,’ Heena commanded weakly, though a sliver of her usual commanding edge had returned. ’How long until the neurotoxin wears off enough for me to stand?’
The digital lion’s eyes glowed with a bright, scanning light as it swept its gaze up and down Heena’s soaked, shivering body. A translucent blue interface popped up in the air, scrolling rapidly with medical data that only Heena and the System could see.
"Scanning complete," the System reported, its voice dropping its dramatic flair to deliver the grim reality. "Host, you have a mild concussion, heavy bruising on your right shoulder, and your internal temperature is completely at war with itself. The freezing water is suppressing the aphrodisiac, but the neurotoxin is deeply embedded in your nerve receptors."
Heena grit her teeth, forcing her raspy, burning voice to work. "Time."
"Without an antidote? Your Vanguard constitution is burning through it, but you need at least ten minutes before you regain gross motor functions," the System warned frantically. "And if you get out of this freezing water before the aphrodisiac is fully neutralized, your blood will literally boil your brain!"
Ten minutes.
It was a death sentence. In the silent, echoing courtyard outside the guest pavilion, the heavy, crunching footsteps of the Prime Minister’s assassins had stopped directly in front of the wooden door.
Creak.
The sound of the outer courtyard gate being slowly pushed open sent a violent shudder through the Third Wife’s body. She froze, her hands still gripping Heena’s soaked robes, her eyes widening in sheer, primal terror.
"Check the guest quarters," a low, muffled voice hissed from outside. "The master said leave no stone unturned. If anyone is inside, silence them."
The Third Wife clamped her hands over her own mouth to stifle a sob. They were right outside. They were going to burst in, find them huddled in the bathroom, and slaughter them both like pigs in a slaughterhouse. All her desperate dragging, all the pain and broken ribs, had been for nothing.
"Host, they’re at the door!" the System shrieked, its digital fur standing on end as it pointed toward the bathroom entrance.
Heena’s eyes darkened into freezing, murderous slits. She was the Vanguard Madam. She did not die sitting in a dirty bathtub, waiting for a bunch of discount assassins to slit her throat.
"Stop crying," Heena rasped.
Her voice was incredibly weak, completely stripped of its usual booming authority, but the sheer, freezing command laced within those two words cut through the Third Wife’s panic like a blade.
The Third Wife looked down at her, her chest heaving. "M-My Lady... they are here."
"I know," Heena forced the words out, her throat tearing with the effort. She locked her fierce, unyielding gaze with the terrified woman. "Listen to me. In my left... inner collar. There is a seam. Tear it open."
The Third Wife didn’t hesitate. She threw herself over the edge of the tub, her small, trembling fingers desperately digging into the thick, soaked fabric of Heena’s champagne robes. She found the stiff seam hidden beneath the fur collar and violently ripped it open.
A single, incredibly long silver acupuncture needle slid out, catching the faint moonlight.
"Take it," Heena commanded, her breath coming in shallow, icy gasps.
The Third Wife grabbed the needle, her hands shaking so violently she almost dropped it into the water. "What... what do I do with it?"
Outside, the heavy thud of a boot kicking against the pavilion’s main door echoed through the room. The latch groaned under the pressure.
"The back of my neck," Heena whispered, her eyes burning with absolute, desperate madness. "Base of the skull. You are going to drive that needle... straight in. Two inches deep."
"HOST! ARE YOU INSANE?!" the System screamed, throwing its glowing paws in the air. "That is the Jade Pillar acupoint! If she misses the nerve cluster by even a millimeter, she will permanently paralyze you from the neck down! She’s clumsy! She tripped over her own feet with a water jug!"
Heena ignored the digital lion entirely. She stared directly into the Third Wife’s terrified eyes.
"If you do not do it," Heena whispered coldly, "we both die in ten seconds. If you do it... I will kill every single man outside that door. Do it. Now."
The Third Wife stared at the needle, her breath hitching. The sound of the main door splintering under a second, heavier kick violently shattered her hesitation.
The Prime Minister had taken everything from her. Her dignity, her health, her freedom. She refused to let him take the one woman who had shown her what it meant to fight back.
The frail, abused noblewoman gripped the silver needle with both hands. She gritted her teeth, her eyes flashing with that same, terrifying spark of rebellion. She leaned Heena forward in the freezing water, exposing the back of her pale neck.
CRASH!
The main door of the pavilion violently gave way, splintering inward as three black-clad assassins rushed into the outer room, their poisoned blades drawn.
Without a single second left to spare, the Third Wife closed her eyes, raised her trembling hands, and forcefully drove the long silver needle directly into the base of Heena’s skull.
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