Chapter 646 --646

Chapter 646: Chapter-646

The room fell silent once more.

The old Marquis wiped his mouth, looking at his granddaughter with deep, unapologetic judgment. "Dear... you literally drink nothing but cheap military wine and herbal painkillers. You do not even like tea!"

"Come on," Heena waved her hand dismissively at her grandfather’s judgment. "It is a highly unique name for my highly unique son!"

On the floor, the thirty-year-old man did not say a word. He simply leaned forward and pressed his forehead flat against the cold stone tiles, his hands sprawling out on either side of his head. He looked exactly like a man who had completely and utterly given up on the concept of living.

The old Marchioness, sipping her tea from behind her wooden fan, let out an amused hum. "Well. It is certainly... a unique name."

"Right?" Heena beamed, puffing out her chest with a deeply proud, completely unrepentant smile.

Samuel could not take it anymore. The genius scholar stepped forward and aggressively snatched the yellow silk edict right out of his wife’s hands. His golden eyes rapidly scanned the intricate imperial calligraphy, searching for the linguistic disaster she had just spoken aloud.

He paused. He read it again.

"Wife," Samuel said, his voice completely flat. "It is written right here in the official registry. His legal name is strictly ’Chijen’."

He looked up, pinning her with a deeply exhausted glare. "Where in the name of the heavens did you get ’Saura’?"

"Oh, come on, don’t be so stiff," Heena rolled her eyes, entirely unbothered by being caught making things up. "It’s a nickname! We can just call him Saura-chan around the house."

Samuel stared at her, the vein in his forehead practically pulsating.

"’Chan’ is an honorific used for small children and infants, Wife!" Samuel hissed, gesturing wildly to the fully grown, bearded man face-planted on their floor. "He is thirty! He is older than both of us combined! He probably has back pain!"

"Come on, Mr. Son-in-law, you are a father now," Heena scolded gently, reaching out to pat Samuel’s chest. "You must learn patience. How can you be so hostile and argue with your precious eldest son on his very first day in the family?"

Samuel completely froze. His jaw locked so tightly his teeth ground together. He squeezed his eyes shut, visibly repeating the word ’’She is my wife, she is my wife, she is my wife’’ like a desperate, life-saving mantra in his head just to stop himself from completely losing his mind.

High up in the shadows of the ceiling rafters, the situation was rapidly deteriorating.

Samuel’s elite shadow guards, trained to withstand torture, starvation, and the most brutal battlefields, were currently facing their greatest challenge yet. They were clamping their hands violently over their own mouths, their shoulders shaking uncontrollably as they forcefully choked back their breathless laughter, absolutely terrified that if they made a single sound, their unhinged master would execute them all.

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’

It wasn’t just Samuel who felt his sanity violently slipping away that morning. The news of the Vanguard Madam’s newest family member hit the capital like a catastrophic political earthquake.

The ancient, fragile civil officials—who hadn’t even fully recovered from the sheer trauma of the veiled scholar and the roof-crashing assassin from the night before—were pushed entirely over the edge.

’ ’’Mass Hysteria:’’ Across the high-noble district, elderly ministers simultaneously clutched their chests, suffering from severe heart palpitations as the gossip spread.

’ ’’Physician Shortage:’’ Every single private clinic and apothecary in the city was completely emptied as frantic servants dragged doctors to the manors of hyperventilating politicians.

But the most violent, physical reaction came directly from the highest seat of power in the empire.

That morning at the Imperial Court, when Heena had aggressively slapped the adoption petition onto his desk, the Emperor hadn’t thought much of it. In fact, he had been highly amused.

He had leaned back on his golden throne, fully prepared to mock her. He had genuinely thought she was legally adopting a war orphan, a newborn baby, or perhaps just a very prestigious hunting dog to name as the Vanguard heir.

’"You just got married last night, what is the rush to be a mother?"’ the Emperor had chuckled internally. Not wanting to argue with the terrifying girl who had just blackmailed him the night before, he casually stamped the petition with the Imperial Seal and let her leave.

It was only after Heena had victoriously marched out of the palace that the Chief Eunuch nervously read the fine print of the registry aloud.

"Your Majesty," the eunuch whispered, his knees trembling. "The adopted child... he is a thirty-year-old man."

The Emperor completely froze. The smug, amused smile vanished from his face.

He leaned forward, the sheer, unadulterated absurdity of the situation completely short-circuiting his royal meridians. The Emperor of the most powerful nation in the world physically choked, violently coughing up a mouthful of blood right onto his pristine golden desk.

"What the hell is wrong with her?!" the Emperor roared, aggressively wiping his mouth as the palace eunuchs erupted into absolute panic around him.

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Back in the Vanguard main hall, entirely oblivious to the fact that she had just sent the entire capital’s medical system into a state of emergency, Heena looked down at her new thirty-year-old son.

"Get off the floor, Saura-chan," Heena ordered briskly, clapping her hands together. "You have work to do."

Chijen slowly peeled his face off the cold stone tiles. He stood up, towering over his new "mother," his bearded face the very picture of profound exhaustion. "What is my task, Mother?" he asked, the word sounding like it was physically burning his tongue.

Heena turned to one of the maidservants. "Bring it."

The maid hurriedly stepped forward and handed Chijen a small, meticulously embroidered silk satchel. It was bright yellow, decorated with little bouncing bunnies—the standard, traditional bookbag used by the capital’s wealthy aristocratic toddlers and young teenagers.

Chijen stared at the bunny bag in his large, calloused hands. "What... what is this?"

"Your school supplies," Heena deadpanned. "As the official heir to the Vanguard household, it is absolutely vital that you receive a proper aristocratic education. Therefore, I have officially enrolled you in the Imperial Youth Academy. Your classes start in an hour."

Samuel, who had been aggressively massaging his temples to stave off a migraine, suddenly stopped.

His golden eyes snapped open, his brilliant, hyper-analytical mind instantly seeing the terrifying, sociopathic trap his wife had just laid.

The Imperial Youth Academy was the most prestigious, heavily guarded educational institution in the empire. It was exclusively filled with the arrogant, sheltered teenage sons of the civil court officials.

By legally registering Chijen as a newly adopted "child" heir, Heena had weaponized his status. If a thirty-year-old cynic with a decade of harsh street smarts and academic grinding was placed into a classroom full of spoiled fifteen-year-old nobles, it wouldn’t be an education. It would be an absolute, psychological bloodbath.

"If their sons try to bully him, they are attacking the Vanguard heir," Samuel whispered, his eyes widening as the tactical beauty of the plan washed over him. "And if he ruthlessly crushes their sons’ self-esteem into dust..."

"He is just a child playing with his peers," Heena finished smoothly, an evil, brilliant smirk touching her lips. "If the civil court ministers try to intervene, they will legally be grown men bullying my precious, innocent son. The Imperial Censors won’t be able to do a single thing about it."