My Taboo Harem!

Chapter 950: How Much Did They Pay You

A ripple of laughter broke loose before people could stop themselves — nervous laughter, but laughter all the same.

Phei’s smile stayed soft. "Why do you think I wasn’t surprised when you defended Marcus at every turn tonight when I answered or said things that might damage his public image? It’s common knowledge that most Legacy families — apart from the few powerful enough to breathe without permission — bow to Heavenchild whims. So, who’s to say their heirs don’t bow to the next Heavenchild heir as well?"

The implication hung there poisonous beneath the lights.

The anchor inhaled carefully, he choose his next words rather than glide into them. "Isn’t it possible," he said slowly, "that you’re simply... bitter? That you’re accusing Marcus Heavenchild of bullying based on conspiracy theories rather than evidence?"

Phei smiled as though the question genuinely amused him.

"Maybe," he said.

The anchor paused.

Phei spread one hand. "Maybe Marcus is innocent. Maybe I’m envious of him as you say. Maybe I woke up this morning and decided the finest possible use of my time was hurling accusations at the Prince of Earth — because nothing announces emotional stability quite like picking a public fight with the single most protected heir on the planet. So why don’t we proceed to the next question and simply assume I’m bitter?"

The anchor’s eyes sharpened with brief triumph. "Sure. After all—"

"After all," Phei interrupted smoothly, "Marcus fears me so badly that my mere presence — without my doing a single thing — made the Prince of Earth fall over and ruin his trousers."

For half a second, the audience froze.

Then laughter detonated across the garden so violently that several people in the front rows physically folded forward. A few of the production crew cracked despite themselves, and one cameraman had to duck his face behind his equipment; professionalism became genuinely difficult when a young master casually executed a global heir’s dignity on live television using Prince of Puddle humor.

The anchor cleared his throat, fighting to drag the interview back before the laughter slipped its leash entirely. "According to evidence provided," he said, voice tightening, "it suggests you were the one who attacked Marcus."

Phei sighed.

It was a soft sigh, but the microphone caught it with perfect clarity, and the whole garden heard the tiredness folded inside it.

He wasn’t afraid, and he wasn’t guilty — he was just bone-deep tired, the way he always got around people who brought shovels to graves they’d personally dug and then stood there expecting applause for the landscaping.

If not for Emily’s voice in his ear — telling him which angle to push, which blade Ashworth wanted drawn — Phei would cheerfully have answered every remaining question with "sure," "yes," and "yeah," strictly to finish faster and go back to doing literally anything else.

Her voice had stayed level the entire time, feeding him direction, steering him toward each pressure point with the brisk efficiency like she were performing public surgery without anaesthesia and rather enjoying the precision of it.

He didn’t yet know the full shape of the old man’s endgame. But Melissa had asked him to do Ashworth this favor for a reason, and Phei trusted Melissa enough to tolerate even this — which, given how he felt about media, ought to have qualified as a sacred sacrifice in at least two religions.

Emily had laid out the other benefit, too.

This interview would make getting out of showbiz like he wanted to, considerably easier.

Because when people called the Heavenchilds rulers of Earth, they weren’t being poetic.

They were being depressingly literal; so the moment Phei walked off this stage, Emily had warned, the inboxes would begin filling with cancellations of all the commercial and campaigns they’d booked with him— companies that had been smiling at him yesterday discovering sudden, severe spinal problems today.

Deals, bookings, endorsements, features, brand partnerships, all evaporating faster than courage at a Heavenchild dinner table.

The business world loved beauty and fame and momentum, but it loved surviving the literal Rulers of Earth a great deal more, and nobody wished their commercial ads photographed with a man who stood against the Heavenchilds — not unless they were shielded by another Legacy house powerful enough to make neutrality look cheap.

So yes. Phei would poke exactly where Ashworth wanted him to poke.

Not because beating Marcus with words felt like victory.

Words were cute little tools — useful for interviews, contracts, and insulting people in ways lawyers had to read twice before they understood they’d been insulted.

No.

’When the time comes, I intend to crush Marcus with my own two hands, slowly, and without an audience to perform for.’

’But first — Ashworth’s favor.’

He leaned forward, returning his full attention to the anchor. "Sure," he said. "I attacked Marcus. I’m the one who told him to walk over to my table and made him do everything he did. So, if that’s the case; then I must be either a masochist who enjoys humiliating himself and my whole family in public using Marcus — or your Prince of Earth is a dog who barks precisely what I tell him to, exactly like he did yesterday.

"Which one do you think it is?"

The laughter came back sharper, threaded now with gasps and low murmurs. The anchor cleared his throat again — a tragic little habit he seemed to be developing under pressure.

At this rate the man’s throat was going to file for separate legal representation.

Phei did not let him recover fully.

"Unless," he continued pleasantly, "you’ve got evidence that I attacked Marcus, the way you just claimed. Because as far as I’m aware, all of it happened live. There are videos everywhere. You could find them in seconds."

He smiled, helpful as anything. "Just search Prince of Puddles. That should get you what you need."

This time the audience laughed openly — they knew the videos, knew the name, knew the humiliation that had spread across the world like a wildfire someone had thoughtfully uploaded in high definition.

Some people covered their mouths but others didn’t bother. Landon looked seconds away from dying of suppressed laughter; Brian had already surrendered entirely to the absurdity.

And David — usually the sort to treat chaos as pleasant background music — looked delighted enough to considering how much followers he’ll get from live streaming and filming the interview from his seat, because apparently one preserved angle of any given humiliation was never sufficient for the man.

"As far as anyone watching can see," Phei said, once the laughter began to ebb, "the videos show what Marcus said, what Marcus did, and what I did. I stood there. Marcus did the rest to himself. Maybe I simply have a talent for revealing who people truly are behind their powerful little façades — especially the ones who’ve grown so very used to bullying anyone weaker than them."

The anchor’s jaw tightened. "I’m familiar with the videos."

"Then you already understand what I meant," Phei said, his voice staying calm even as his gaze pinned the man in place. "You watched what happened. You know what happened. And yet you sat there and told me I attacked him and claimed there was evidence to prove it." A small pause.

"So? Can you show me that evidence?"

The garden seemed to hold its breath.

The anchor glanced down at his cards.

"That... that is—"

Phei scoffed.

Not loudly. He didn’t need volume — he’d established that already, several humiliations ago.

"How much did they pay you?" he asked.

And there, beneath the lights, in front of the cameras, before an audience suddenly far too awake to keep pretending it didn’t understand — the anchor’s smile finally cracked clean down the middle.