Chapter 440: Chapter-440
Jiyoung’s smile remained fixed, cold and entirely detached. "We are lowly ones, My Lady. I have known this truth for a very long time. Our deaths are not important enough to shake the foundations of the empire."
Heena smiled right back, leaning down until her lips almost brushed his ear. "Your life might not be important in your own twisted eyes, boss... but I wouldn’t say the same for the people waiting outside this door."
The brothel master’s expression subtly shifted, a faint, mocking smirk playing on his lips before it faded back into a mask of pure nonchalance. "Do you truly think I am worried about the others outside?"
"You aren’t just worried about them," Heena whispered ruthlessly. "You are crazily, desperately worried about them."
Jiyoung burst into a sudden, loud laugh, the sound entirely empty of genuine mirth. "My Lady, sometimes you really do tell the finest jokes. If I actually cared about their pathetic lives, do you think I would have let them stay in a disgusting, wretched place like this?"
Heena didn’t break eye contact as she delivered the final, crushing blow to his composure.
"Chen Juying," she stated clearly.
The moment the name left her lips, Gu Jiyoung completely froze. The air in the room instantly turned heavy, his amused demeanor shattering into a million pieces as his body went entirely rigid under her boot.
"The name of the child you adopted at the age of twenty, the very second you became the master of this establishment," Heena continued, her voice entirely merciless as she watched his eyes turn dead and hollow. "Three years ago, that bright young man participated in the imperial scholar’s exams. But right before the final results could be published, he suddenly died under highly strange, deeply buried circumstances. The official report states he was tragically run over by a rogue horse on the capital road."
She pressed the dagger a micrometer closer, her smirk sharp enough to bleed. "But we both know the truth about what happened to your precious boy, don’t we, Gu Jiyoung?"
Gu Jiyoung completely calmed down after a tense second. Slowly, deliberately, he used two fingers to push the edge of Heena’s knife away from his throat. The cold, lethal underground king vanished, replaced once more by a mask of smooth, quiet intrigue.
"It looks like you truly do know me quite well, My Lady," Jiyoung said, straightening his robe. "So tell me... why exactly are you here?"
Heena smiled, sliding her dagger back into her sleeve as she casually sat down across from him. "You see, boss, I am quite an angry person myself lately. I absolutely cannot handle injustice. And since I need a specific favor from you, I am more than willing to give you something spectacular in return."
She leaned forward, her eyes locking onto his. "Your adopted son, Chen Juying, was the absolute light of your life. And that year, his name rightfully came out at the very top of the imperial scholar list. Coincidentally, my own husband outside also passed the exams around that time—there were three top scorers in total. But funny enough, the moment your son’s name was mysteriously scrubbed from the records, the participant who magically took his place was none other than the only son of the current Prime Minister. And the poem, the essays, and the legal logic he submitted? They matched your late son’s writing style perfectly."
Jiyoung looked at her, letting out a hollow, bitter laugh. "Well... what can we say? Such is the tragic fate of the wretched in this capital."
"You know, this place is really beautiful," Heena abruptly changed the subject, gesturing to the lavish suite.
Jiyoung stared at her, genuinely caught off guard. "You are likely the only person in this entire empire who would ever look at a den of sin like this and call it ’beautiful’."
"That’s only because no one else truly knows about it," Heena smiled sharply. "No one else can see the absolute masterpiece of engineering and strategy hidden right beneath their feet."
Jiyoung’s eyes narrowed slightly, a trace of a smile returning. "It looks like ’you’ do."
"After all," Heena purred, "this is the single location in the entire capital—the only important hub—that covertly connects to every single vital sector of the nation."
Jiyoung raised his eyebrows, a heavy weight returning to his tone. "My Lady... don’t you think you possess just a little ’too’ much dangerous information?"
Heena merely offered a mysterious, knowing smile. She obviously couldn’t tell him the truth: that she had read all of this in a web novel. In the original plot, she had memorized the name of the tragic scholar Chen Juying even through it was just a name but Heena remember it and The moment she had set foot in this capital , she had secretly ordered her System to run a full-spectrum radar sweep. Utilizing the System’s advanced scanning mechanics, she had discovered a massive, subterranean network of hidden paths and tunnels stretching deep into the bedrock. Culturally, no formal maps of the capital ever acknowledged such a network, but the System’s tracking blueprints easily traced the nexus of all those tunnels right back to this exact brothel.
"We both want something from each other, Gu Jiyoung," Heena stated, getting straight to the point. "You want to ensure that your people stop dying unjustly, and I want a little corporate revenge. Simple as that."
"Oh, really?" Jiyoung raised his eyebrow. "And how exactly do you think a humble brothel master can help the grand daughter of the Marquis?"
"Beneath this very room lies a subterranean military path that directly intersects with the Marquisate’s northern iron-ore convoy route," Heena revealed smoothly. "We both know it’s the ultimate shortcut. It can bypass the main road and lead me straight to the convoy in half a day without a single bottleneck. Because no official or noble knows this route exists, I can use it to ambush the threat completely unnoticed. But you are the warden of this underground highway... so I need your explicit permission to open those gates."
Jiyoung shrugged his shoulders, leaning back against his silk pillows. "And what exactly do I get in return for handing you the keys to my kingdom? As I asked before, my life means nothing to me."
"And as I said, I will personally guarantee the absolute safety of your boys."
Jiyoung let out a dismissive scoff, waving his hand. "Ah. The safety of my own family is something I can handle myself, My Lady."
"Is that so?" Heena nodded slowly, a dangerous, mocking pity entering her voice. "Fine. I just naturally assumed you actually wanted to protect them. After all... every six to seven months, two or three of your top male courtesans mysteriously go missing or turn up dead after leaving this establishment. Usually right after they are purchased or rented out by high-ranking noble customers. But hey, if you’d rather keep burying them, that’s your business."
Jiyoung suddenly went entirely rigid. The dismissive smirk completely vanished from his face. "You... you know what is happening to them?"
Heena smiled, the absolute picture of a corporate executive holding all the cards. "Not only do I know what’s happening to them, Jiyoung, I also know how your operation works. Every time your beautiful men are sold, or when they choose a customer they think they can trust, you hand-pick the buyers yourself to protect them. Yet, despite your best efforts, they never come back in one piece."
Comments