Chapter 438: Chapter-438
"Enough!" her voice rang out, firm, icy, and completely authoritative. She turned around, looking straight at her shadow guard. "You stay right here."
Samuel froze. He looked at her, his posture rigid, his voice dropping into a tone so terrifyingly unyielding it actually caught Heena off guard for a fraction of a second. "Definitely not."
Heena’s eyes narrowed, a flash of genuine frustration crossing her face. She stepped closer to the doorway, lowering her voice but sharpening it like a razor. "I am not asking for your permission, guard. I am telling you that ’you’ are staying out here, and ’I’ am going inside. So just shut up, do your job, and guard the door."
Samuel’s entire body violently shuddered. The word ’guard’ cut through him like a physical blade. He clenched his fist so hard his knuckles turned white, then purple.
In her mind, the System frantically floated around her head. ’’[Host! Host, why are you being so harsh on him? Look at him, he’s practically breaking!]’’
’’Shut up, System,’’ Heena retorted coldly in her inner monologue. ’’Do you honestly think Samuel won’t cause an absolute bloodbath if I bring him inside? Look at his face. His jealousy is already a ticking time bomb. He’s a liability for a delicate information exchange.’’
’’[But still...]’’ the System whimpered.
’’No means no.’’
With a final, chilling glance, Heena turned her back on him and stepped into the room. The heavy mahogany door slammed shut between them, the lock clicking into place with agonizing finality.
Out in the corridor, Samuel stood entirely frozen. His head lowered, casting a dark shadow over his face. He clenched his fist with such catastrophic, unbridled force that his fingernails sliced right through his leather gloves and deep into his skin. Silent, crimson drops of blood began to seep from his palm, dripping slowly onto the polished floor. He didn’t even feel the pain. His entire universe was locked behind a door he wasn’t allowed to cross.
### Inside the Special Suite
The moment the lock clicked, a pair of silk-clad arms suddenly wrapped around Heena’s waist from behind, a warm chest pressing against her back.
"Now that we’re alone, sweetheart—"
Before Gu Jiyoung could even finish his purr, Heena’s instinct as an elite Black Lotus agent took over. She grabbed his wrist with a vice-like grip, twisted his arm at a brutal, agonizing angle, and shoved him forward.
"Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch! Let go! Mercy!" Jiyoung groaned, stumbling forward onto his knees.
Despite the sharp pain radiating through his arm, when he looked up at her, his amber eyes were practically dancing with a brilliant, twisted hint of amusement.
Heena looked down at him, her boot resting mere inches from his face, her voice dropping all flirtatious pretense into a terrifyingly cold deadpan. "Careful, boss. If you touch me without my explicit permission again, God only knows if this hand will still be attached to your arm next time."
Jiyoung let out a breathless, delighted chuckle, rubbing his aching wrist as he stood up. "Oh my... and here I thought you were going to pretend to be utterly infatuated with this old man for a little longer."
"Well, I considered it," Heena said, casually walking over to a velvet armchair and tossing her hat onto the table. "But up close, you’re really not ’that’ gorgeous to me."
"So, the masks are entirely off then, my Lady?" Jiyoung smiled seamlessly, turning around to walk toward the grand, silk-draped bed. He sat down gracefully, crossing his legs as his loose robe flowed open, deliberately exposing his long legs. He rested his chin on his hand, staring at her like a cat analyzing a fascinating new mouse. "For quite some time now, it seemed like you knew exactly who I was. But let’s see how much ’I’ know about ’you’."
Heena leaned back, crossing her arms, silently letting him speak.
"You are the firstborn daughter of the illustrious Marquis family," Jiyoung began, his voice smooth, dropping information like casual gossip. "The rightful heir to the northern iron and military logistics. You have four grand grooms who have been engaged to you since childhood. But tragically, about two and a half years ago, you were ’killed’ by your own flesh and blood. Pushed right off a treacherous cliff by your own mother and one of your very own grooms—Kavien, the most utterly useless, pathetic excuse of a man among your husbands."
Heena’s eyes remained completely unblinking, though her mind noted his accuracy.
"After your tragic fall, the Marquisate tore the region apart trying to find your corpse, but they found nothing," Jiyoung continued, tilting his pipe. "Everyone assumed you were dead. But in reality, the fall severely injured your head and body. A dirt-poor, elderly peasant couple happened to pass by. They saved your life, yes, but seeing your priceless, exquisite noble jewelry, greed took over. They stripped you of your belongings, sold the jewelry, and then sold ’you’ as a common servant to a strict, abusive old man’s household."
Jiyoung took a slow puff of his pipe, letting the smoke curl around his smirk. "When you woke up, your memory was entirely gone. The mistress of that household was violently jealous of your ethereal beauty, so she treated you like dirt. Constant beatings, starvation, endless labor. Then, just a few months ago, you went to fetch water at the river, slipped, and nearly drowned. That wretched woman fished you out, beat your half-dead body mercilessly, and you fell into a lethal fever. But when you woke up the next morning... your entire personality had completely changed."
Heena’s lips twitched into a tiny, amused smirk. ’’Classic transmigration dossier,’’ she thought.
"With a few clever ups and downs, you managed to marry the scholar son of that very household—the brilliant, terrifying Samuel who is currently standing outside bleeding through his gloves as your ’guard.’ And now, you have mysteriously returned to the capital with a massive, hidden motive. If we’re talking about baseline information, my Lady... yes, I know absolutely everything about you."
Heena genuinely wanted to applaud. For a historical-fantasy setting without digital databases, this man’s intelligence network was top-tier.
"Fascinating," Heena said, her voice dripping with mock respect. "You’ve dug up quite the bedtime story about me."
"It’s nothing impressive," Jiyoung smiled, waving his hand dismissively. "After all, we are the lowliest, most desperate people in the gutter. We need accurate information just to survive the night, you see?"
"Is that so?" Heena smiled back, her eyes flashing with a dangerous, predatory light. "Then tell me, since you know exactly how dangerous the lost daughter of the Marquis family is... why on earth did you let me walk right into your private quarters?"
Jiyoung’s smile widened. "I simply wanted to know what the grand, resurrected heir of the Marquisate could possibly want from a distorted, wretched gutter-like place like this."
Heena suddenly burst into a loud, clear laugh, the sound echoing through the lavish room. "A gutter-like place? Huh! Don’t modesty look ugly on you, boss? Isn’t this establishment the single greatest, most lethal information hub in the entire capital—no, the entire ’nation’? What secret under heaven could possibly escape this roof? And you..."
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