Chapter 602: Chapter-602
"Poisoned?" the System shrieked, instantly flying around to hover directly in front of her face. "Wait, wait, wait, wait! You poisoned him?! When? Where? How?! If I am not wrong, he absolutely did not ingest that paralyzing venom you had! So how did he get poisoned?!"
Heena calmly stepped off the final jade stair, walking onto the cobblestone path that led toward the outer gates.
’Oh, yesterday night,’ Heena explained in her mind, sounding as if she were discussing the weather. ’I sprinkled some on someone. A really nice, custom batch.’
The System’s jaw dropped. "Sprinkled?! What type of poison do you just ’sprinkle’ on someone? And on who? Host, who did you sprinkle poison on?!"
’It was for her own good, so I think it’s fine,’ Heena shrugged slightly, adjusting the hilt of her sword.
"Her?! Host, tell me clearly right now who you poisoned!"
’It is really not a big deal,’ Heena sighed, mildly annoyed by the lion’s panic. ’Last night, when I gave the Third Wife the paralysis pill and was helping her establish her alibi, I discreetly threw a small, invisible white powder onto her clothes and hair. It is not lethal. But if you smell it for a long period of time, your cognitive functions rapidly decline and you become incredibly muddle-headed.’
The System clutched its digital head. "You poured mind-numbing poison on that poor woman?! Host! She is already a fragile, muddle-headed girl who can barely survive her own household, and you poisoned her?! How can you be so evil?!"
Heena stopped walking for a fraction of a second. She shot the floating blue lion a look of pure, unfiltered annoyance.
’Come on. I knew she would not get muddle-headed,’ Heena shot back calmly, resuming her stride. ’First of all, that specific poison clears out of the system in a single day with enough rest. And secondly, the fastest way to instantly neutralize its cognitive effects... is physical pain.’
Heena looked up at the morning sun, a cold, calculating shadow passing over her eyes. ’Given her circumstances, I am absolutely certain she is completely normal and clear-headed right now.’
The System paused, its digital brain running the calculations. If pain cured the poison, then the Third Wife was fine. But then...
"Wait a minute," the System frowned, floating closely beside her shoulder. "But how did the poison transfer to the Prime Minister? For his brain to be that slow and panicked during the court assembly today, he must have been inhaling it directly from her clothes for hours! Did... did he hug his wife for hours to comfort her after the ’attack’?"
Heena let out a short, dark, entirely humorless scoff.
’Hug her?’ Heena replied, the sheer, freezing venom in her voice making the System physically shiver. ’No. He actually beat her for hours, if I am not wrong.
The System completely froze.
The horrifying realization crashed down on the digital lion. The Prime Minister hadn’t been comforting his wife. He had dragged her into his private chambers and violently beaten her throughout the night to vent his frustration.
And in doing so, he had spent hours standing directly over her, heavily panting from physical exertion, breathing in massive, concentrated doses of the invisible powder clinging to her ruined clothes.
The intense pain of the beating had completely neutralized the poison in the Third Wife’s system, keeping her perfectly sharp and focused to execute the half-coffin plan. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister had unwittingly drugged his own brain into a state of paranoid, chaotic stupidity right before the most important political battle of his life.
Heena had weaponized the Prime Minister’s own domestic abuse against him.
The System stared at its Host’s calm, beautiful profile as she walked through the towering red gates of the Imperial Palace. For the first time since it had bound to her soul, the System didn’t say a single word. It just quietly floated behind her, absolutely terrified of the monster it was supposed to be guiding.
It was a risky gamble, sprinkling the invisible powder on the Third Wife. A smarter, more attentive man might have noticed the residue. A kinder man might have left his traumatized wife alone to rest and change her clothes, completely neutralizing the poison before it could take effect.
But Heena knew exactly what kind of domestic abuser the Prime Minister was.
She had seen countless men like him. They were inherently useless cowards. When they lost a battle outside and suffered humiliation in the real world, they never reflected on their own incompetence. Instead, they went home and took their boiling rage out on the helpless women trapped behind their locked doors. Heena knew the bastard wouldn’t give his wife a single second to change before the physical abuse began.
It wasn’t that Heena was entirely cold-blooded. If she had really wanted to, she could have slipped a lethal poison into the Prime Minister’s tea herself and ended his life without leaving a trace. She could have forcibly extracted the Third Wife, legally cornered the Prime Minister into signing a divorce decree, and set the woman up in a new, safe city. It would have been politically messy, but entirely possible for the Vanguard.
But Heena didn’t do it.
The answer was brutally simple: To truly escape an abuser, the very first step must be taken by the victim herself.
If a savior simply swoops in and forces the separation, the victim often falters. Societal conditioning, misplaced guilt, or twisted feelings of fatalistic devotion frequently drag them right back into the fire. Victims often end up forgiving their abusers, confusing the inflicted pain for a twisted form of love, and ultimately turning their resentment onto the person who tried to save them.
Heena was not going to bet the lives of the entire Vanguard Marquisate on a fragile, battered woman who might suddenly develop cold feet. True help could only be given when the victim genuinely wanted to destroy their abuser.
That was why the "paralysis pill" Heena had given the Third Wife wasn’t a deadly neurotoxin at all.
It was just a piece of hard candy.
It was a test. If the Third Wife actually slipped it into his morning tea, the Prime Minister would merely wake up with a slightly sore throat, and the wife would immediately realize the pill was a fake. But if she took that step—if she proved she had the absolute, undeniable resolve to murder the man who tortured her—then Heena would step in. She would legally and physically cripple the Prime Minister for her.
It was a cruel, manipulative way to test a victim. That was exactly why Heena hadn’t even bothered explaining her reasoning to the System. But in the ruthless political ecosystem of the capital, it was the only brutal truth that mattered.
"Wait!" a booming, boisterous voice echoed from behind her.
Heena paused on the white jade stairs and turned around. It was her grandfather. Because of the recent transition of military power and his endless duties at the border camps, he had been incredibly busy lately; she hadn’t actually spoken to him casually in quite a while outside of formal emergency meetings.
The old Marquis was striding down the steps, trailed by a half-dozen heavily armored, battle-hardened Vanguard generals. As they approached, Heena gracefully bowed her head, greeting her elders one by one.
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