Chapter 612: Chapter-612
The Third Wife never even made it out of the hallway.
Before she could push the heavy mahogany doors open, the sheer, agonizing toll of the hours-long beating caught up to her fragile body. Her vision violently spun, a terrible fever spiking in her blood, and she collapsed onto the floorboards, the teacup shattering beside her. The poison dissolved harmlessly into the spilled puddle on the floor.
Inside the study, the Prime Minister heard the crash. But after screaming at the servants to drag her away and clean up the mess, he finally sat heavily in his chair, rubbing his aching temples.
He called for a hot bath. As the steaming water washed away the sweat and ink, the frantic, chaotic fog that had been suffocating his brain for the past twelve hours finally began to thin. The invisible powder Heena had used was completely filtering out of his system.
His mind was clearing up. And as the clarity returned, so did a cold, terrifying realization.
He was a genius. He had passed the imperial exams with the highest honors. How in the world had his brain moved so slowly in the Great Hall? Why had he panicked? Why had he forgotten to prepare counter-arguments?
Poison.
He immediately summoned a physician from the Royal Medical Bureau.
The elderly physician sat across from him, pressing his fingers firmly against the Prime Minister’s wrist. For a long moment, the room was completely silent. Then, the physician froze. He frowned, looked at the Prime Minister’s face, and then pressed harder on the pulse point.
"Well?" the Prime Minister demanded, his voice tight.
The physician slowly pulled his hand back, looking deeply perplexed. "I can’t find anything, my lord. You are perfectly normal. Just... incredibly tired."
The Prime Minister’s eyes flashed with barely suppressed rage. He gripped the edge of his table, forcing himself to control his temper—this man was appointed by the royal family, and throwing a tantrum would only cause more problems.
"Are you one hundred percent sure that there is no problem in my body?" the Prime Minister asked through gritted teeth.
The physician nodded firmly. "I am one hundred percent sure, my lord."
"No remnants of a toxin? No mind-altering poison or herbs?"
The physician looked him directly in the eyes. "No, my lord. I have checked your pulse thoroughly. Looking at your complexion and feeling your meridian flow, I can confidently say that you simply look deeply exhausted."
The physician was dismissed. The Prime Minister sat alone in the dim quiet of his study—the classic, heavily decorated room where old, idiot nobles spent their days pretending to contemplate worldly affairs while actually just staring at the wall.
He scowled, his pride taking a massive, devastating hit.
If the royal physician couldn’t find a single trace of poison, then that meant there was no poison. It meant that he had simply walked into the Great Hall, fumbled his words, and completely ruined his own ten-year political career just because he was... tired?
How could he make such a catastrophic mistake? He had prepared everything perfectly! How could a lack of sleep turn him into such a bumbling fool in front of the Vanguard Madam?
He couldn’t accept it. His mind was still buzzing with frustrated, restless energy. Sitting in the study was only making him angrier. He needed to leave the manor. He needed fresh air to clear his head, regardless of the Emperor’s command to stay indoors and reflect.
He threw on a fresh, pristine white inner robe and a sweeping, elegant outer coat of pale silver silk. He ordered his personal guard to ready the carriage.
The carriage rolled through the bustling streets of the capital, finally coming to a halt outside a high-end stationery pavilion. Normally, a man of his supreme status would send his butler to purchase new paper and ink, but today, he just needed an excuse to exist in the real world.
The Prime Minister stepped out of the carriage.
And of course, this bastard was so handsome that seeing him, the entire street practically ground to a halt.
He stepped onto the cobblestones with the fluid, effortless grace of a celestial immortal. His long, immaculate black hair blew gently in the afternoon breeze. His skin was flawless, his jawline sharp, and his dark eyes held a profound, melancholic depth that made the women on the street instinctively blush and lower their fans.
He looked like the perfect protagonist of a romantic poem—a flawless, tragic scholar descending from the heavens. No one looking at that angelic, devastatingly attractive face would ever guess that just hours ago, he had been brutally beating his wife into a feverish collapse.
But as the initial awe washed over the crowd, the whispers quickly began to follow.
"Is that... the Prime Minister?" a merchant muttered, pointing discreetly.
"It is," a woman whispered back, her eyes wide as she remembered the explosive gossip that had been tearing through the city’s teahouses since noon. "But didn’t you hear what the Vanguard Madam exposed at court today? They say he prefers the company of men... heavily armored, leather-clad men!"
The Prime Minister’s incredibly handsome face twitched. He could hear the murmurs. He could see the awe in their eyes slowly twisting into scandalized curiosity.
He tightened his grip on his folding fan, forcing a serene, unbothered smile onto his face as he walked toward the paper store, completely unaware that his disastrous day was far from over.
Beside the Prime Minister, his personal knight’s face darkened with fury. The guard’s hand dropped to the hilt of his sword, his knuckles turning white as he clenched his fist, entirely prepared to step forward and silence the whispering commoners by force.
Snap.
The Prime Minister smoothly flicked open his wooden folding fan, holding it elegantly in front of his face. He didn’t even look at the knight.
"Let them be," the Prime Minister murmured, his voice soft, cultured, and entirely devoid of warmth.
He slowly turned his head, casting his dark, melancholic eyes over the gathered crowd. He didn’t shout. He didn’t draw a weapon. He didn’t even drop his polite smile. But the sheer, suffocating pressure that suddenly radiated from his gaze was terrifying. It was the heavy, blood-chilling aura of an absolute apex predator—a man who had casually ordered the deaths of thousands with a single stroke of his brush.
The whispers instantly died in the villagers’ throats. The commoners physically trembled, the color completely draining from their faces. It felt as though a mass murderer had just walked over their graves. Panic seized them, and they frantically scrambled away, scattering down the street in every direction to escape the crushing weight of his stare.
Satisfied with the absolute silence, the Prime Minister folded his fan and stepped gracefully over the threshold of the high-end stationery pavilion.
Inside, the pavilion was quiet and peaceful, filled with the rich scent of pine ink and aged parchment. A few wealthy scholars were browsing the aisles, carefully examining documents and paper samples. The Prime Minister casually walked through the rows of intricately bound texts, letting the mundane task soothe his fractured pride and clear his exhausted mind.
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