Chapter 629: Chapter-629
She tapped her finger on the wooden table.
"But if he is legally registered under my name, all five of those absolute protections activate the second the ink dries. And in return, this helps me later. When I eventually have my own child... that child will legally be the second born of this family. The burden of the ’eldest heir’ will already be shouldered by this thirty-year-old man. My child will automatically be protected from the political crossfire, safely shielded behind him."
Heena leaned back, her expression growing cynical. "I just can’t handle those bastards in the court anymore. It’s not like we can just endlessly sacrifice our blood on the battlefield for a government that hates us. I don’t think you have that much blind love for this country."
She tilted her head, giving her grandfather a skeptical look. "Wait. Does Grandpa actually love this empire too much?"
"To the hell with it!" the grandfather barked, waving his hands defensively. "I am not something like that! In my eyes, the whole world is beautiful!"
"Right?" Heena pointed out. "It can’t be that you just like to cut people down and bathe in blood."
"Why the heck would I like something like that?!" the old Marquis sputtered indignantly. "Do you think I am a monster?!"
Sitting quietly beside them, the grandmother finally snapped her fan shut and shot her husband a withering glare.
"Cannot you even answer your granddaughter straightforwardly?" the grandmother scolded. "Do you need to speak such idiotic words? Just looking at you right now makes me tired."
The grandfather completely froze, instantly cowed by his wife. "I... I mean, I am saying that of course no one likes war! And of course, I also want to live peacefully! I love my empire, but I love the whole world too. Every person is equal."
"Yes, Grandpa. That is exactly what I am saying," Heena said, her voice turning quiet but carrying the undeniable weight of the Vanguard legacy. "The empire is divided by borders, but the people... they are still human, whether they live on this side of the line or that side."
She looked at her aging grandfather, seeing the countless scars hidden beneath his robes.
"I am sorry if this sounds rude," continued, "but I do not have such a big, noble heart to die for my country. Nor do I want to send my future generations into the meat grinder. So, I am going to do something that stops us from going to war, forever."
She locked eyes with him, playing her final, most devastating card—Condition Number Five.
"You are getting old, Grandpa," Heena warned smoothly. "Do you really want to spend the rest of your limited time on a blood-soaked battlefield? When are you going to actually spend time with Grandma?"
"But—" the grandfather tried to interject.
"What ’but’?" Heena cut him off, her tone sharp. "It is the Emperor’s duty to protect his people. It is the duty of the Imperial Censors, who do nothing but shout in the Great Hall. You do not want the heavy burden of the Vanguard title. I do not want it. Grandma certainly never wanted it. So why are we still fighting and wasting our lives?"
She gestured to the grandmother.
"I want to travel the world and actually enjoy it before my time is up. And I know Grandma wants the same," Heena stated bluntly. Then, she delivered the killing blow. "Or do you want to spend your old age on a battlefield, die a ’heroic’ death someday, and then watch Grandma legally marry someone else under my new Imperial Decree? Is that what you wish, Grandpa?"
The old Marquis completely froze. The heavy, philosophical atmosphere in the room shattered into a million pieces at ’s final sentence.
"Marry... someone else?!" the grandfather choked out, his eyes wide with absolute, unadulterated horror. He whipped his head toward his wife.
The old Marchioness didn’t even flinch. She simply picked up her teacup, took a delicate sip, and gave her husband a cool, challenging look.
"Well," the grandmother said smoothly, her eyes glinting with amusement. "Seera has a point. If you insist on dying on a freezing battlefield just so the useless civil scholars can write poems about your ’noble sacrifice,’ why on earth should I sit alone in this giant estate weeping for the rest of my life? I am still quite a catch, you know. I could easily find a handsome, retired merchant who actually stays home."
"You wouldn’t dare!" the old Marquis spluttered, his face turning a dangerous shade of red. The legendary Vanguard General, who had faced down hordes of barbarian warriors without blinking, looked genuinely panicked.
"Try me, old man," the grandmother challenged, setting her cup down with a sharp clink.
Heena leaned back in her chair, a deeply satisfied, calculating smile spreading across her pale face.
"See, Grandpa?" Heena concluded smoothly, clasping her hands together. "This is exactly why we need to stop being the Emperor’s bloody sword. For generations, the Vanguard family has been trapped in a toxic cycle of ’honor’ and ’patriotism.’ We bleed, we die, and the throne reaps the rewards while the civil court spits on us."
She gestured toward the courtyard where her new, thirty-year-old son had just departed.
"That man," Heena explained, her tone dropping into the cold, sharp cadence of a master tactician. "Is the ultimate loophole. By adopting him as my eldest son, I immediately activate the Five Imperial Pardons and the military exemptions I forced the Emperor to sign. He is a scholar, not a fighter. The Emperor cannot force my ’heir’ to go to war, because the conditions explicitly state that the Vanguard descendants are no longer bound by mandatory military service."
The grandfather rubbed his forehead, his blood pressure slowly returning to normal as he processed her terrifyingly brilliant logic.
"You are using him as a human shield against the draft," the grandfather realized, his eyes widening.
"Exactly," Heena nodded. "When the time comes, and I have a biological child... my child will be the second born. The capital will have already gotten used to the Vanguard heir being a peaceful, neutral scholar. The precedent will be set. My child will never have to pick up a sword unless they actually want to. They will never be held hostage by the censors, and they will never be forced to die for a piece of borderland."
Hovering near the ceiling rafters, the System was frantically calculating the political implications, its digital brain practically overheating.
"Host, you are an absolute demon," the System whispered in sheer awe. "You didn’t just find a loophole. You legally adopted a grown man just to mathematically break the empire’s conscription laws."
’I told you,’ Heena replied internally, her mental voice dripping with pragmatic pride. ’I don’t play by their rules. I rewrite them.’
The old Marquis let out a long, heavy sigh. He looked at his granddaughter—frail, exhausted, yet possessing a mind sharper than any broadsword he had ever wielded. He then looked at his wife, who was still giving him a deeply unamused, threatening side-eye.
"Fine," the grandfather relented, throwing his hands up in defeat. "Have it your way. Adopt the thirty-year-old scholar. Rewrite the family lineage. Just... don’t tell the Imperial Censors yet. Let me at least have one more peaceful night of sleep before the entire capital explodes from the scandal."
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