Chapter 626: Chapter-626
Heena closed her eyes, waiting for the heavy herbs to numb her nervous system. She didn’t give a damn about her vitals. She pushed the heavy silk blankets aside, forcing her legs over the edge of the bed. Her muscles protested, heavy and uncoordinated, but sheer, sociopathic willpower forced her to stand.
She walked over to her washbasin, splashing freezing water onto her pale face.
’How long?’ Heena asked internally, staring at her own exhausted reflection in the bronze mirror.
"I... I can’t be one hundred percent sure," the System stammered, its digital interface pulling up a grainy, low-resolution holographic scan of her brain. "My medical scanning modules aren’t fully upgraded in this world. Without an X-ray, an MRI, or proper modern medical equipment... I can only estimate the pressure and the size of the clot based on your physical symptoms."
The blue hologram flickered, highlighting a dark, threatening mass near her temporal lobe.
"Maybe... maybe four months," the System guessed quietly. "If you rest. If you stop stressing your body. But if you keep pushing like this... it could be much less."
Heena stared at the blurry hologram for a long moment. Then, she reached out and swiped her hand through the projection, shattering the blue light into useless pixels.
’I don’t want to count,’ Heena stated coldly. ’Counting is for people who are hoping for a miracle. Without a modern hospital, we both know there is absolutely no cure for this in this era. Four months, two months, three weeks—it doesn’t matter. I will die when I die.’
"But Host—"
’No,’ Heena cut it off, tying her dark hair back into a severe, practical knot. ’If I only have four months left, I am not going to spend them lying in this bed waiting for the ceiling to collapse on me.’
She pulled on her heavy, dark robes, adjusting the wide leather belt around her waist. The painkillers were finally kicking in, dulling the sharp agony in her head to a manageable, throbbing ache.
The Ministry of Revenue had fallen, but the Emperor’s list was not finished. The Ministry of Rites still needed to be dismantled, the Vanguard’s neutrality had to be secured, and the old foxes in the capital were currently sniffing around her door. She didn’t have time to be a patient.
With a completely blank, fearless expression, Heena pushed her bedroom doors open and walked back toward the underground war room.
The underground war room was freezing, but the air inside was thick with tension.
When Heena pushed the heavy iron doors open, the Vanguard generals immediately fell silent. They looked at her pale face, the dark circles under her eyes, and the sheer, unyielding posture she forced herself to maintain. None of them dared to ask about her health; when the Madam was in the war room, she was a commander, not a patient.
"Report," Heena ordered, leaning her weight against the edge of the massive map table so her trembling legs wouldn’t betray her.
Kael, her scarred lieutenant, stepped forward. He looked incredibly stressed.
"The civil court is mobilizing," Kael stated grimly, pointing to a stack of intercepted missives on the table. "Just as you predicted, Madam. The old foxes aren’t entirely blind. They realized the Vice Minister’s sudden downfall perfectly aligns with our missing military grain. This morning, fifty-two civil officials filed a joint petition to the Emperor, demanding a full imperial investigation into the Vanguard estate."
Heena let out a short, cynical scoff. "A joint petition? How deeply tragic for them. Let them write their poems and cry to the throne. The Emperor will stall them."
She picked up a red ink brush, her hand shaking just slightly before she forced her grip to steady. She drew a sharp cross over the Ministry of Rites.
"The Ministry of Revenue is a bleeding carcass," Heena continued, her voice cold and methodical. "Now, we cut off the civil faction’s head. The Ministry of Rites controls the imperial examinations. It is how these old bastards ensure that only their own corrupt, aristocratic sons get government positions, while brilliant commoner scholars are failed on purpose."
Kael’s eyes widened. "You want to expose an imperial exam scandal?"
"I don’t just want to expose it," Heena smiled, a dark, brilliant expression. "I want to shatter their entire foundational legacy. I need our shadow guards to infiltrate the Ministry of Rites’ archives tonight. Find the original, unaltered exam papers of the past five years. When the capital finds out the civil scholars have been stealing the futures of the common people for gold... the citizens will burn the Ministry to the ground themselves."
Before Kael could confirm the order, a frantic, heavy pounding echoed down the stone corridor outside the war room.
Heena’s eyes narrowed. The underground bunker was strictly off-limits.
"Host!" the System suddenly shrieked, its digital alarm bells violently going off in her mind. "Host, the outer gate has been breached!"
’Impossible,’ Heena thought instantly, her hand dropping to the hilt of her broadsword. ’I locked down the entire estate. No one gets past the alpha squad.’
"Well, someone just did!" the System yelled in sheer panic. "And he didn’t even slow down!"
The heavy iron doors of the war room didn’t just open; they were violently violently shoved apart with a deafening metallic CLANG.
The Vanguard generals instantly drew their swords, turning toward the doorway with lethal intent. But the second they saw who was standing in the threshold, they completely froze, their blades hovering uselessly in the air.
It was Samuel.
He didn’t look like the elegant, untouchable genius scholar the capital knew. He looked like an absolute demon who had just ridden straight out of the underworld.
His expensive forest-green traveling robes were torn and caked with road dust. His long hair was wildly disheveled, and his chest heaved with heavy, ragged breaths. But it was his eyes that froze the entire room in absolute terror. His golden eyes were burning with a completely unhinged, murderous fury—and beneath that fury, a raw, desperate panic.
He had ridden a three-day journey back from the mountains in less than thirty-six hours, nearly killing two horses in the process, completely tearing straight through her impenetrable lockdown.
Samuel didn’t look at the drawn swords. He didn’t look at the highly classified war maps or the treasonous forged documents on the table.
His burning golden eyes locked entirely onto Heena. He took in her deathly pale skin, the physical trembling she was trying so hard to hide, and the heavy smell of medicinal painkillers radiating from her body.
"Out," Samuel commanded.
His voice wasn’t a shout. It was a low, terrifyingly quiet vibration that made the stone floor genuinely seem to tremble.
The Vanguard generals hesitated, looking toward Heena for orders. No one ordered the Vanguard Madam in her own war room.
"I said," Samuel repeated, his dark aura erupting, suffocating the oxygen in the room. "GET OUT."
Heena swallowed hard, the throbbing pain in her head briefly eclipsed by the sheer danger radiating from her husband. She gave Kael a slight, barely perceptible nod.
The generals quickly sheathed their swords and filed out of the room, leaving the two of them entirely alone.
As the heavy iron doors clicked shut, the silence between them was deafening.
Samuel slowly walked forward. Every step he took felt like a predator cornering its prey. He stopped right in front of her, towering over her frail, exhausted frame.
"An eight-day prayer ritual, Wife?" Samuel asked, his voice a lethal, freezing whisper as he stared down at her. "Was that your grand plan? Ship me off to a mountain so you could quietly bleed to death while committing high treason in the dark?"
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