Chapter 597: Chapter-597
The civil officials, snapping out of their shock, erupted into chaos. Some were gasping, some were clutching their pearls (or jade beads), and a few of the older ministers were visibly leaning on each other for physical support.
"Silence!" the Emperor commanded, slamming his hand down on the armrest of the Dragon Throne.
The hall instantly quieted, though the Prime Minister was still hyperventilating, his face flushed a deep, dangerous crimson.
The Emperor leaned forward, his eyes practically sparkling with the kind of intense, unfiltered curiosity usually reserved for palace gossip, not high treason trials.
"General seera," the Emperor said, stroking his beard to hide his growing amusement. "This is a very heavy, very specific accusation against the highest official of my court. Are you simply trying to insult him, or do you have a reason for bringing this... personal matter to the throne?"
Heena didn’t even look at the sputtering Prime Minister. She kept her eyes respectfully on the Emperor, her face completely deadpan and terrifyingly serious.
"Your Majesty, I would never dare to insult a fellow official without cause," Heena declared smoothly. "I bring this up because it is the exact reason he is currently kneeling before you, falsely accusing my family of treason to cover up his own disgusting crimes."
Hovering invisibly above Heena’s head, the System was literally rolling in the air, clutching its digital stomach.
"Oh my god, Host!" the System wheezed, tears of pixelated laughter streaming down its face. "You are completely gaslighting the entire imperial court! This is villainy at its absolute peak!"
Heena ignored the lion and raised her voice so the entire hall could hear every single damning word.
"Last night," Heena began, her tone shifting into a grave, dramatic recount, "I was taking a peaceful, solitary walk near the ruined courtyards of the Cold Palace. But as I was admiring the moonlight, I accidentally stumbled upon a horrific, unspeakable scene."
The Prime Minister’s heart skipped a beat. She was going to tell them about the assassination attempt. He opened his mouth to shout her down, to accuse her of making up the assassins, but Heena beat him to the punch with a hook he never saw coming.
"I found the Prime Minister," Heena said, her voice dripping with perfectly faked trauma. "And he was not alone. He was having a secret, midnight rendezvous with a group of heavily muscular men dressed in tight, black leather armor!"
A collective gasp echoed through the hall. Several military generals physically recoiled in disgust.
"LIES!" the Prime Minister shrieked, his voice reaching a pitch previously thought impossible for a man of his age. "YOUR MAJESTY, SHE IS MAKING THIS UP!"
"Let her finish!" the Emperor barked, waving the Prime Minister down. He was completely invested now.
"Your Majesty," Heena continued, looking deeply distressed. "These men were not assassins or guards. They were his secret, male harem! He smuggled his lovers into the Forbidden City, using the darkness of the Cold Palace to hide his filthy, unnatural affairs from the world and his own wife!"
The old Vanguard Marquis, standing across the aisle, had to violently bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing out loud. His granddaughter was an absolute, terrifying genius.
"When the Prime Minister realized I had seen them," Heena said, her eyes narrowing into cold slits, "he panicked. To protect his reputation, he ordered his... lovers... to silence me. They drew their weapons and attacked me, an unarmed woman, right there in the courtyard!"
The Prime Minister clutched his chest, looking as though he were actually going to have a heart attack on the jade floor. She was taking his flawless assassination plot and turning it into a scandalous, trashy romance novel!
"Because my life was in imminent danger," Heena declared, her voice ringing with righteous military authority, "I blew my emergency Vanguard whistle. That is why my grandfather’s shadow guards entered the palace walls, Your Majesty! Not to threaten the Crown, not to harbor a secret army, but to save the Royal Tutor from being murdered by the Prime Minister’s enraged, secret male concubines!"
The brilliance of the play was astronomical.
By framing the Prime Minister as a closeted homosexual hiding a secret harem, Heena had perfectly explained away the presence of the men in black armor. She had simultaneously justified the Vanguard shadow guards entering the palace—they were responding to a distress call to save an imperial official.
And best of all, she had put the Prime Minister in an impossible, checkmate position.
If the Prime Minister denied they were his lovers, he would have to admit they were his elite assassins sent to murder her—which was actual High Treason, punishable by immediate execution.
If he denied they were his men entirely, he had no grounds to accuse the Vanguard of deploying shadow guards, because the guards had clearly been fighting someone.
Heena had given him a choice: Die as a traitor, or live as a publicly humiliated, closeted deviant who got caught having an affair in the Emperor’s backyard.
The Emperor leaned back in his throne, his sharp eyes darting between the furious, red-faced Prime Minister and the perfectly calm, unbothered Vanguard Madam. The Emperor was not a fool; he knew a political masterstroke when he saw one.
"Well, Prime Minister," the Emperor said slowly, a dangerous, highly amused glint in his eye. "What do you have to say for yourself? Were you hiding an army... or were you hiding your lovers?"
"She is lying!"
The Prime Minister’s voice tore through the Great Hall, his composure entirely shattered. He scrambled to his feet, pointing a trembling finger at Heena. His chest heaved as he let out a venomous, panicked sneer. "Just because you want to hide the truth about your own treason—about your illicit troops—you dare to fabricate such filth against me?!"
Heena did not flinch. She simply raised a single, pale hand, her metal gauntlet glinting in the sunlight.
"Wait, wait, wait," Heena said smoothly, her voice completely calm, cutting through his hysteria like a blade. "Before you start foaming at the mouth, know this: I am not just throwing accusations. I can prove it."
The Prime Minister froze, his eyes narrowing into paranoid slits. What proof could she possibly have for a lie?
Heena turned away from him, addressing the Dragon Throne with flawless respect. "Your Majesty, I wish to prove this through established facts first, and then I will present the physical evidence. With your permission, I would like to question the Prime Minister."
The Emperor, now leaning so far forward on his throne he was practically at the edge of his golden cushion, waved his hand enthusiastically. "Granted. Proceed, General ."
Heena turned back to the Prime Minister, her fox-like eyes locking onto him with terrifying precision.
"Prime Minister," Heena began, her tone conversational but laced with ice. "If the imperial records are correct, you are thirty-three years old this year, are you not?"
The officials murmured. The Prime Minister, who maintained the flawless, ageless appearance of a man barely out of his twenties, grit his teeth.
"Yes," he spat. "I am thirty-three."
"And if I am not mistaken, this current wife of yours is your third marriage," Heena continued, pacing slowly across the jade floor.
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