Chapter 624: Chapter-624
"W-Who are you?!" Lord Jin shrieked, his voice cracking as he wildly thrashed against his bonds. "Do you have any idea who I am?! My father is the Vice Minister of Revenue! He controls the Emperor’s gold! If you don’t untie me right now, I will have your entire families skinned alive!"
From the dark corner of the warehouse, a slow, utterly unamused sigh echoed.
"Yes, Jin. We know exactly who your father is," a cold, smooth woman’s voice replied. "That is precisely why you are sitting in that chair, ruining your silk pants in terror."
Heena stepped out of the shadows.
She wasn’t wearing her usual aristocratic gowns or the heavy Vanguard armor. She was dressed in completely black, unidentifiable stealth robes, a navy blue cloak draped over her shoulders. Her face was half-concealed by the high collar, but her dark, predatory eyes caught the lantern light, gleaming with absolute, freezing ruthlessness.
Behind her stood Kael, her scarred lieutenant, holding a pair of heavy iron tongs.
Lord Jin’s eyes widened in sheer horror. He didn’t recognize her face, but he instantly recognized the terrifying, blood-soaked aura of a seasoned military killer.
"W-What do you want?" Lord Jin stammered, his previous arrogance completely evaporating. "Gold? Silver? Name your price! My father can pay it!"
Heena slowly walked forward, pulling up a wooden stool and casually taking a seat right in front of him. She crossed her legs, resting her chin on her hand, looking at him with the detached curiosity of a butcher examining a pig.
"I don’t want your father’s gold, Jin," Heena stated calmly. "Because it isn’t his gold. It belongs to the Vanguard Northern Army. And your father has been quietly starving my soldiers for three years."
Lord Jin’s face went completely pale. Vanguard.
"I... I don’t know what you are talking about!" he lied, sweating profusely. "The Ministry of Revenue keeps perfect records! The official ledgers—"
"Are heavily forged garbage," Heena interrupted, cutting him off effortlessly.
She reached into her cloak and pulled out a thick, leather-bound book. She tossed it onto the dirty warehouse floor at his feet.
"These are the official ledgers my spies pulled from your father’s study an hour ago," Heena explained smoothly. "Brilliantly doctored. Flawless calligraphy. Unfortunately for him, I need the real ledger. The one that tracks the black market grain sales and the exact location of the hidden treasury."
Lord Jin violently shook his head. "There is no real ledger! I swear!"
Heena didn’t yell. She didn’t threaten him with a long, dramatic villain monologue.
She simply looked up at Kael and gave a single, dismissive nod.
"Break his left pinky," Heena ordered casually.
Kael didn’t hesitate for a microsecond. He stepped forward, grabbed Lord Jin’s left hand, and violently snapped the finger backward.
CRACK.
"AGHHHHH!" Lord Jin let out a blood-curdling, agonizing scream, thrashing so hard the wooden chair nearly tipped over. Tears streamed down his face as he sobbed hysterically. "YOU CRAZY BITCH! YOU BROKE MY FINGER!"
"Host!" the System screeched, covering its pixelated eyes. "Oh my god, you didn’t even count to three! You didn’t even try the good cop routine!"
’I am running on a tight schedule, and my head is killing me,’ Heena replied internally, entirely unfazed by the screaming. ’I don’t have the patience to play good cop with a rat.’
Heena leaned forward, her dark eyes completely dead.
"Now that we have firmly established that your father’s title means absolutely nothing to me," Heena murmured, her voice slicing through his hysterical sobbing like a frozen blade. "Let’s try this again. Where is the real ledger, Jin?"
"I don’t know!" Lord Jin wept, snot and tears mixing on his face. "Only my father knows where it is! He never tells me anything! Please, I swear to the heavens, I don’t know!"
Heena stared at him. She analyzed his dilated pupils, his frantic heartbeat, and the sheer, unfiltered terror in his voice. He wasn’t lying. The Vice Minister was smart enough not to trust his idiot, brothel-visiting son with the empire’s most treasonous secret.
"Well," Heena sighed, sitting back on her stool. "That is highly unfortunate for you."
"W-Why?" Lord Jin whimpered, cradling his broken finger against the ropes. "I told you the truth! Let me go!"
"Oh, I am going to let you go," Heena smiled, an incredibly dark, brilliant expression that made Lord Jin’s blood run cold. "In exactly three days, my guards are going to drop you off right in front of the Imperial Palace gates."
She picked up a small, empty glass vial from the table beside her and twirled it between her metal-clad fingers.
"You see, Jin, the Emperor wants your father’s faction dismantled. But simply arresting him is boring, and the civil court would protest," Heena explained, adopting the tone of a patient teacher explaining a simple math problem. "So, instead, I am going to have my scribes forge a series of deeply treasonous letters between you and the Northern Barbarian tribes."
Lord Jin’s breath hitched. "N-No..."
"Yes," Heena nodded cheerfully. "The letters will clearly show that you, the Vice Minister’s beloved son, have been selling the stolen military grain directly to the enemy to fund a private rebellion against the Emperor."
She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a terrifying whisper.
"When those letters are ’discovered’ in your bedroom, the Emperor will be furious. He will order the immediate execution of your entire family for high treason. And your father... a paranoid, greedy, cowardly man... will realize that the only way to prove his innocence and save his own life, is to produce the real ledger to show the Emperor he was only embezzling money, not funding a rebellion."
Lord Jin stared at her in absolute, mind-breaking horror.
She wasn’t just going to frame him. She was going to mathematically force his own father to hand over the ledger to the Emperor just to avoid a worse execution. It was a flawless, sociopathic checkmate.
"You are a demon," Lord Jin whispered, completely broken.
"I am a Vanguard," Heena corrected smoothly, standing up and brushing the dust off her cloak. She turned to Kael. "Keep him alive, but don’t let him sleep. I want him looking sufficiently traumatized when we dump him at the palace gates."
As she turned and walked out of the freezing warehouse, a sharp, violent spike of pain suddenly pierced through her skull, causing her vision to momentarily blur. She stumbled slightly, catching herself against the heavy wooden doorframe.
"Host!" the System yelled in alarm.
Heena gritted her teeth, gripping the doorframe until her knuckles turned white. The blood clot. The ticking clock was getting louder.
’I am fine,’ Heena commanded, forcing herself to stand perfectly straight as she walked out into the freezing night. ’Just eight days. I just need to survive eight days.’
For the next three days, the Vanguard estate was completely sealed off from the outside world. To the capital, it appeared that the fearsome Vanguard Madam was simply resting, recovering from her severe illness while her devoted husband prayed in the mountains.
Inside the underground war room, however, it was an absolute hive of treasonous activity.
Seera barely slept. She pushed her failing body to the absolute brink, fueled by bitter tea, sheer willpower, and the adrenaline of the hunt. Her scribes worked tirelessly, meticulously forging the handwriting of Lord Jin and the Northern Barbarian warlords until the letters were completely indistinguishable from reality.
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