Chapter 686 --686

Chapter 686: Chapter-686

Samuel offered a faint, exhausted smile. "Well, I would gladly drink it for you, my love, but I am not the one who is currently sick."

It was only then, as the dim evening light shifted across his face, that Heena finally took a good look at him. Beneath his striking, beautiful eyes lay heavy, bruised-looking dark circles. His cheekbones were sharper, his jawline noticeably tighter, and he looked visibly thinner than he had just a week ago. He looked exactly like a man who hadn’t slept a single hour in three days, likely spending every waking second terrorizing the capital’s physicians and burying himself in ancient medical texts.

Heena squinted at him, narrowing her dark eyes. "Did you just not sleep well, or were you out sneaking around and cheating on me, huh?" she accused, trying to deflect from the heavy, suffocating worry radiating off of him.

A flash of half-angry, half-amused disbelief crossed Samuel’s ethereal face. The very idea of him even looking at another woman when he was this deeply, irreversibly obsessed with her was completely absurd. He picked up the porcelain bowl, swirling the pitch-black, bitter sludge, and held it firmly in front of her.

"I haven’t found anyone worth cheating on you with yet," Samuel replied, his tone dripping with dry, scholarly sarcasm. "So, let’s just wait."

Heena paused, her lips curving into a smug, arrogant little smirk. She leaned forward, batting her eyelashes with flawless dramatic flair. "So, what you really mean is that there is absolutely no one as beautiful as me out there?"

Samuel just looked at her. Her face was pale, her body was actively shutting down, and a terminal disease was eating away at her brain—yet her sheer, arrogant audacity was as vibrant and unshakeable as ever.

He let out a low, breathless chuckle. It was a tired, broken sound, but it carried a weight of profound, unconditional devotion.

"Yes," Samuel murmured softly. He reached out, his long fingers gently brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. His dark eyes locked onto hers with a frightening, obsessive intensity that made the rest of the world completely fade away. "There is no one as beautiful. There is no one as infuriating. And there is absolutely no one else on this earth that I would willingly allow to ruin my life."

"Ugh, gag me with a digital spoon," the System grumbled from the dark corners of her mind. "He’s so dramatic. He literally fired the stable boy yesterday just because the kid had nice shoulders. Don’t let him fool you, Host."

Heena ignored the System. She kept her eyes on Samuel as he carefully scooped a spoonful of the terrible, black medicine. He blew on it gently, cooling the steaming liquid before bringing the porcelain spoon directly to her lips.

"Now," Samuel said, his voice dropping into a soft, commanding whisper, "open your mouth, my unparalleled beauty, and drink this poison."

Heena aggressively scrunched up her nose, violently shaking her head and pulling her chin back into her collar. "I am not drinking that. It’s bitter, it’s foul, and it looks like mud. Who on earth would willingly drink this?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know it’s awful," Samuel sighed, his patience worn down to a gentle, desperate nub. He reached out with his free hand and lightly pinched her nose to force her to breathe through her mouth. "Just take it in one big gulp. Drink it fast, and then I will give you a candy."

Heena shook her head again, trying to bat his hand away. "No, no, no! Even after I swallow it, the aftertaste is going to coat my mouth like poison!"

Samuel’s beautiful, exhausted face crumpled into a look of sheer pleading. "Okay, okay, fine. Just drink a little bit of it. Please, baby."

Heena froze. She blinked at the pristine, ethereal scholar sitting on the edge of her bed. "Aren’t you supposed to be a highly educated civil scholar? How the hell did you even pick up a word like that?"

A faint, tired smirk touched the corner of Samuel’s lips. "Company, babe. Bad company. Now, no more stalling. Drink."

He brought the edge of the bowl to her lips. Left with no escape, Heena tightly squeezed her eyes shut and threw it back. She choked down the pitch-black sludge, gagging as the foul, medicinal bitterness burned a path down her throat. The moment the bowl was empty, she opened her eyes and stuck her tongue out with a dramatic, hacking cough.

"Ah! It’s so bitter! I told you it was bitter!" Heena complained loudly, wiping her mouth. "Which quack physician brewed this? Give me his name. I am going to have his hand chopped off!"

"Yeah, yeah, we will chop his hand off first thing in the morning," Samuel agreed instantly, without a single shred of hesitation. Before she could complain again, he quickly popped a sweet, honey-glazed candy directly into her mouth.

Heena rolled the candy over her tongue, the sharp sweetness finally cutting through the foul aftertaste. She let out a contented sigh, looking up at him with a much softer smile. "It’s sweet."

"Well, candy is traditionally supposed to be sweet, my love," Samuel noted dryly.

"No, I want a spicy candy next time," Heena demanded, crossing her arms with a petulant pout.

Samuel looked at her as if she had just asked him to harvest the moon. "I can definitely find you a sour one, but... spicy? That is going to be incredibly difficult to commission, wife."

Heena sniffed dramatically, turning her face away. "So you can’t even get your sick wife a single spicy candy? Oh my God. The romance is dead. My husband doesn’t love me anymore."

Samuel watched her wildly shifting moods—the childish arrogance masking the terminal decay of her mind. His ethereal face slowly lost its tired amusement, shifting into something devastatingly serious and pale.

"Okay, okay, fine. I will have the kitchens invent a spicy candy for you," Samuel promised softly. He set the empty medicine bowl on the nightstand and reached out, gently wrapping both of his hands around hers. "Wife... can I ask you for something?"

Heena looked at him calmly, all the playful arrogance vanishing from her dark eyes. "You can ask for anything."

She wasn’t a fool. The blood clot was actively melting her short-term memory, her body was growing weaker by the hour, and her head was in a constant state of agonizing pressure—but she still knew how to read the board. She knew exactly what Samuel was going through. She knew what her grandparents were hiding.

People who stared death in the face every single day were never fools. The entire Vanguard household had already realized she was dying, and Heena knew that they knew. But no one dared to say the words out loud. Sometimes, dragging the truth into the light and saying a final goodbye was infinitely more painful than simply staying silent and pretending there was a tomorrow. So, Heena just let them have their peace.

She also knew that without Samuel taking total, ruthless control of the estate’s finances and politics, she never would have been able to execute her mission this fast. His brilliant mind was carrying the entire weight of her collapsing empire.