Chapter 601: Chapter-601
"General speaks reason," the Emperor announced, his deep voice finalizing the verdict. He looked down at the Prime Minister with an expression of absolute, freezing disgust. "A military genius does not choose a heavily guarded trap to stage a rebellion."
The Prime Minister slumped onto his hands and knees, the polished jade floor suddenly feeling like a bed of icy spikes. His perfect hair was disheveled, his crimson robes tangled around him. He had lost. He had lost absolutely everything.
His elite spy network was dead. His assassination plot had been expertly reversed. And now, instead of standing over the ruined corpses of the Vanguard family, he was kneeling before the Emperor, publicly branded as an incompetent, paranoid, closeted deviant who wasted the court’s time to cover up a messy midnight rendezvous.
"Prime Minister," the Emperor’s voice cracked like a whip through the silent hall. "You have abused the urgent petition board. You have attempted to frame a loyal military house with High Treason to cover your own disgraceful tracks. And you have dared to waste My time."
Heena remained kneeling, her head bowed. But beneath the shadow of her dark hair, a terrifying, victorious smile finally broke across her face.
Checkmate.
As the Prime Minister collapsed onto the cold jade floor, a heavy, knowing silence settled over the older, more experienced ministers in the Great Hall.
No one dared to speak it aloud, but every seasoned politician in the room completely understood the true, terrifying depth of the Prime Minister’s original strategy. The high petition board was never about proving the Vanguard’s treason on the spot. It was a calculated, bureaucratic death trap.
If Heena had not shown up, or if she had simply tried to argue back with standard military logic, the Emperor’s legendary paranoia would have eventually won out. Forced by imperial protocol and the sheer weight of a Prime Minister’s formal accusation, the Emperor would have had no choice but to launch a formal investigation into the Marquisate.
And the absolute first step of any imperial investigation into a military house?
The immediate suspension of power.
The Emperor would have demanded the old Marquis hand over the Vanguard military command seals until his innocence could be proven. The family would have been stripped of their authority, their shadow guards disbanded, and their estate placed under the strict surveillance of the Imperial Army.
Every scholar in the room knew the dark, blood-soaked history of the empire.
There were thousands of recorded instances in the imperial archives where a loyal, powerful family was accused of treason. The patriarchs, believing in their own absolute innocence, would willingly surrender their military seals and allow the inspectors into their homes, trusting the Emperor’s justice.
They never lived to see the verdict.
Once a military family was disarmed and confined, they were nothing but sitting ducks. Their political enemies would immediately swarm. Assassins would slip into their manors in the dead of night. Forged letters would miraculously be "discovered" hidden under floorboards. By the time the official investigation concluded, the entire family—nine generations deep—would already be wiped off the face of the earth, leaving no one alive to claim their innocence.
That was exactly what the Prime Minister had planned. He didn’t need to win the argument today; he just needed to strip the Vanguard family of their swords. Once they were disarmed, he would have slaughtered them in the dark.
Standing quietly on the opposite side of the aisle, the old Vanguard Marquis looked at his granddaughter’s kneeling back. His aged eyes were slightly damp with a fierce, overwhelming surge of pride.
Heena had not just won a shouting match. She had recognized the lethal bureaucratic snare the Prime Minister laid out, and instead of trying to untangle it, she had thrown a live grenade right into the center of it.
By twisting the narrative into a scandalous, humiliating tale of a closeted deviant hiding a male harem in the Cold Palace, Heena had completely destroyed the dignity and credibility of the Prime Minister’s accusation. She made the situation so utterly ridiculous and embarrassing that the Emperor could not possibly justify launching a formal state investigation over it.
She had protected the Vanguard’s military seals without ever having to draw her blade.
The Emperor looked down from the Dragon Throne, his expression hardening into absolute authority.
"The petition against the Vanguard Marquisate is entirely dismissed," the Emperor declared, his voice echoing with finality. "There is no treason. There is only a Prime Minister who has let his personal, chaotic affairs bleed into the sacred halls of My court."
The Emperor pointed a heavy, gold-ringed finger at the trembling man on the floor.
"Prime Minister," the Emperor commanded coldly. "You have disgraced yourself, and you have disgraced the decorum of this assembly. You are hereby suspended from court for one full month. You will confine yourself to your manor and reflect on your sheer incompetence. Furthermore, you are fined one year’s salary for abusing the urgent petition board."
The Prime Minister squeezed his eyes shut. His fingernails dug so hard into his own palms that they drew blood. He had walked into the Great Hall expecting to completely annihilate his greatest enemy, and instead, he was being locked away in his own home like a reprimanded child, his reputation utterly in tatters.
"This subject... accepts His Majesty’s grace," the Prime Minister choked out, his voice utterly broken.
The Emperor waved his hand dismissively. "Take him out of My sight. Court is adjourned."
As the imperial guards stepped forward to forcefully escort the humiliated Prime Minister out of the Great Hall, Heena finally stood up. She smoothly dusted off her navy blue robes, her metal gauntlets glinting in the light.
She turned and locked eyes with her grandfather. The old warhorse gave her a single, firm nod of absolute respect.
The Vanguard family had survived the political slaughter, and the Capital was about to learn a very brutal lesson: the young Madam of the Vanguard did not just know how to fight wars on a battlefield—she knew exactly how to win them in the shadows.
.
.
.
Twenty minutes later, the grand morning assembly was officially concluded.
Heena casually walked down the towering, white jade steps of the Great Hall, her navy blue outer robe billowing gracefully in the crisp morning breeze. Her posture was relaxed, her expression serene, looking every bit the untouchable Vanguard Madam who had just completely dominated the imperial court.
Hovering right beside her ear, however, the System was aggressively pacing in mid-air, absolutely fuming.
"What an idiot!" the digital lion ranted, throwing its pixelated paws up in exasperation. "Seriously, Host, who in the world made that guy the Prime Minister?! He couldn’t even win a simple argument! He tried to fight you with zero proof, zero backup, and zero logic! I cannot comprehend how a muddle-headed guy like him can even run a ministry, let alone the entire civil court!"
Heena kept her gaze fixed on the palace gates ahead, completely ignoring the bowing officials who scrambled out of her way.
’Well,’ Heena replied telepathically, her tone incredibly casual. ’Considering he was heavily poisoned, the fact that he was even standing there and forming sentences was actually quite a smart move.’
The digital lion froze in mid-air. It blinked its large blue eyes, the internal gears of its AI brain violently grinding to a halt.
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