Chapter 465: Chapter-465
Through the deafening chaos of screaming nobility and shouting guards, Heena stood up slowly from her kneeling position. She smoothly dusted off her bloody-red and black robes, her face a perfect mask of bewildered concern for the surrounding crowd.
But beneath the mask, her phoenix eyes were dead and cold.
She watched the Imperial Physicians rush into the hall, desperately trying to stabilize a regressor who had just flawlessly executed himself with his own master-crafted toxin. Heena had spent the entire evening surrounded by hundreds of witnesses, dancing in the center of the room, and securing the Empress’s ultimate favor—the most ironclad, untouchable alibi in the history of the empire.
’[Host,]’ the System whispered, its interface turning a deep, blood-red color as it analyzed the dying prince. ’[Target’s vital signs are dropping critically. The poison is destroying his cardiac system. Do you think he will trigger a regression?]’
Heena turned her back to the dying prince, calmly walking back to her grandfather’s side as the palace fell into screaming ruin behind her.
’’Let him regress,’’ she thought, a dark, lethal smile curling onto her lips as she stepped back into the shadows of the vanguard table. ’’I’ll just kill him again.’’
The Head Imperial Physician rushed onto the dais, dropping to his knees beside the convulsing Seventh Prince. His trembling hands quickly checked the Prince’s pulse, his eyes scanning the horrifying amount of black blood staining the royal silks.
But after only a few tense moments, the physician’s shoulders slumped. He slowly retracted his hands and shook his head, pressing his forehead to the floor in a deep kowtow.
"Your Majesty... I am deeply sorry," the physician choked out. "It is too late. The Prince’s heart has completely given out."
A heavy silence fell over the chaotic hall. The Emperor frowned, his face turning solemn, but beneath the surface, Heena’s sharp eyes caught a fleeting, undeniable glint of absolute coldness in his gaze.
"What happened to him?" the Emperor asked, his voice steady, betraying no panic.
The physician kept his head bowed. "It appears His Highness’s chronic illness finally flared up with fatal severity. The shock to his system was too much for his frail heart to bear."
A wave of murmurs washed over the nobility. ’Not poison? Just his illness?’ Because the Seventh Prince had always been famously sickly, no one in the room found it genuinely shocking that his body had finally collapsed under the stress of such an adrenaline-fueled banquet.
From her spot near the vanguard table, Heena watched with quiet, dark amusement. ’’I have to say, the regressor found a truly brilliant poison,’’ she thought, genuinely impressed. Even after it destroyed his internal organs, the toxin left zero recognizable chemical trace, perfectly mimicking a catastrophic heart failure. In this era, medical knowledge wasn’t advanced enough to realize that real heart attacks didn’t usually cause victims to vomit black blood.
The official verdict was set: the frail Seventh Prince simply couldn’t handle his own failing health, and his heart gave out. The magnificent banquet ended on a grim, abrupt note, and the nobility slowly began to file out of the suffocating palace.
A short while later, the heavy iron wheels of the Marcuset family carriage rumbled smoothly over the capital’s cobblestone streets.
Inside the spacious, velvet-lined cabin, the atmosphere was far more relaxed than the blood-soaked imperial hall. The grandmother was calmly reading a small book under the glow of a mana-lamp, completely unbothered by the royal death they had just witnessed.
Heena sat across from them, her brow slightly furrowed in thought. "Grandpa, I didn’t understand one thing tonight," she began softly. "Would you be angry if I asked?"
The old Marquis let out a heavy sigh, leaning back against the plush cushions. "Just ask, child. Why would I ever be angry with you?"
"Doesn’t a parent normally worry if their son dies right in front of them?" Heena asked, her phoenix eyes sharp and calculating. "The Emperor didn’t even order an investigation. He just let the physician declare it an illness and moved on. Don’t you think it’s strange that he didn’t even suspect poison, or at least pretend to care more?"
The grandfather let out a dark, mocking scoff. "Child, even if every single prince and princess in that palace dropped dead right now, the Emperor wouldn’t even blink—unless they were the children born to the Empress."
Heena tilted her head. "I don’t understand, Grandpa."
The old Marquis reached over and gently snatched the book right out of his wife’s hands. "It’s not good for your eyes in this dim light," he muttered to her, ignoring the terrifying glare she immediately shot him. He then turned his full attention back to Heena, his expression turning unusually serious.
"You see, Seera, there are fifteen princes and three princesses in the palace right now. Out of all of them, only three princes and one princess belong to the Empress. The rest? They are the children of concubines."
Heena nodded. She already knew the basic structure of the imperial harem.
"The Emperor and Empress were childhood sweethearts," the grandfather continued, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly tone. "Just like how I love your grandmother—though maybe a little less fiercely—the Emperor truly loved his wife with all his heart. But back then, he was only the fourth son of the previous Emperor, and his faction was weak. When the current Empress turned fifteen, the previous Emperor—his own father—decided he wanted to marry her as his own concubine to secure her family’s military power."
Heena’s eyes widened slightly at the twisted imperial history.
"That was the breaking point," the Marquis said. "The current Emperor started a bloody rebellion. He slaughtered his brothers, killed his own father, and seized the throne just to protect her. But child, being an Emperor is not a joke. You don’t just sit on a golden chair and suddenly control the world. The throne is a cage of absolute restraint."
The carriage rattled as it crossed a bridge, and the grandfather stared out the window into the dark city.
"After he took the throne, he made her his Empress. But she was only eighteen, and after a year, she still hadn’t gotten pregnant. The powerful nobles who helped him win the rebellion grew restless. They couldn’t control him, so they started sending petition after petition, demanding he take concubines to secure the royal bloodline. The Emperor killed the petitioners at first, refusing to touch another woman."
He sighed heavily, a bitter sound. "But you can’t kill everyone who supports you. The noblewomen and court maids saw the Empress’s empty womb as a golden opportunity. They threw themselves at him. When he refused, they resorted to darker methods. A few times, the Emperor was drugged at banquets, forced into beds he didn’t want. And when those women got pregnant... he wanted to execute them. Literally slaughter them."
"So why didn’t he?" Heena asked.
"Because the Empress stopped him," the grandmother suddenly spoke up, her voice calm and chillingly pragmatic. "She was raised to be a ruler’s wife. She understood the terrifying weight of political stability. Her own family pressured her. To stop the endless rebellions and assassination attempts on her husband, she forced him to accept the concubines."
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