Chapter 651 --651

Chapter 651: Chapter-651

"YOUR MAJESTY!" the Head Eunuch screamed in absolute terror.

Remembering Heena’s bizarre command from earlier, the Eunuch squeezed his eyes shut, threw himself in front of the throne, and violently snapped the paper umbrella open like a shield.

The flying iron boot collided with the umbrella.

CLAAAAAANG!

A deafening, massive metallic ring echoed through the upper dais, vibrating so loudly it made the Emperor’s teeth rattle in his skull. The heavy iron boot bounced off the umbrella and clattered harmlessly to the floor, leaving a significant, fist-sized dent in the "paper."

The Emperor completely froze. He slowly lowered his teacup.

He reached out a trembling finger and lightly knocked on the surface of the open umbrella.

Tink. Tink.

It wasn’t made of oiled paper and bamboo. The entire umbrella was forged from a solid, heavy sheet of military-grade reinforced steel, meticulously painted by a master artist to look exactly like fragile wood and paper.

"Oh my god," the Head Eunuch gasped, his arms shaking as he realized why the umbrella had been so incredibly heavy to hold.

The Emperor stared at the steel umbrella, and then slowly looked back out over the chaotic, violent brawl happening in his throne room. He looked at Heena, who was currently chasing a terrified Censor around a marble pillar with her shoe raised high, her generals happily whipping the civil court into submission with their belts.

She had brought a disguised, bulletproof steel shield to a morning assembly. She hadn’t just expected a fight; she had entirely planned for this to turn into an absolute bloodbath.

The most powerful man in the world leaned back against his golden throne, let out a long, deeply exhausted breath, and simply closed his eyes.

"Eunuch," the Emperor mumbled, completely giving up on his empire for the day. "Keep the umbrella up. And wake me when the generals finish beating the Ministry of Rites to death."

The truth was, the Emperor’s reaction wasn’t purely born from shock. It was born from sheer, exhausting familiarity.

This was not the first time the Imperial Court had devolved into a full-scale riot. In fact, this happened all the time. The Grand Hall of Supreme Harmony had seen more brawls than the capital’s worst taverns. It was just that the court had been somewhat peaceful over the last few days due to Heena’s wedding preparations.

Now that the Vanguard Madam was back, the natural ecosystem of the empire had fully restored itself.

Safe behind his disguised, bulletproof steel umbrella, the Emperor simply crossed his legs, sipped his lukewarm ginseng tea, and waited for the chaos to run its natural course.

In the midst of the flying shoes and snapping belts, Heena’s sharp eyes caught a flash of pristine white silk slipping toward the side exits.

It was the Prime Minister. Gu Chen was elegantly and desperately trying to moonwalk out of the warzone before his flawless angelic facade was ruined.

’How can I let him go away so easily?’ Heena thought, a terrifying, predatory smirk curling her lips.

She dropped her shoe, darted through the crowd of wrestling officials, and completely cut off his escape route. Gu Chen froze, his eyes widening slightly as the Vanguard Madam stepped into his personal space. He was a grown man, taller and naturally stronger than her physical body, but Heena had the combat experience of a thousand different lifetimes coursing through her veins.

Before the Prime Minister could even open his mouth to negotiate, Heena struck.

She didn’t aim for his face. Bruises on the face could be proven in court. Instead, she unleashed a devastating, highly surgical combination of close-quarters combat strikes aimed entirely at his nerve clusters and soft tissue.

She delivered a brutal, invisible kidney punch that completely knocked the wind out of him, followed by a sharp kick to the back of his knee that made his leg buckle. As he gasped, doubling over, she drove her elbow hard into his diaphragm.

Gu Chen couldn’t even scream. He was suffocating on sheer agony, his angelic mask shattering into pieces. Heena was hitting him so flawlessly, and with such calculated malice, that he would be feeling this deep, bone-rattling pain for years, yet he wouldn’t have a single visible mark to show the Imperial Physicians.

"Going somewhere, Prime Minister?" Heena whispered cheerfully, twisting his wrist just enough to make him see stars before lightly tossing him into a nearby marble pillar.

Meanwhile, the general faction was experiencing pure, unadulterated euphoria.

They weren’t just fighting; they were beating the scholars senseless with absolute glee. And the reason was two-fold.

First, these arrogant, snobby bureaucrats spent every single day mocking the military, cutting their budgets, and calling them uncultured barbarians. This was decades of built-up frustration finally being released.

Secondly, and more importantly, the generals were bored out of their minds. Living in the capital meant they were married to delicate, aristocratic noble ladies. When they were at home, they had to sit calmly, drink weak tea, listen to poetry, and constantly regulate their immense strength so they didn’t accidentally crush a porcelain teacup or terrify their wives. They had been suppressing their battlefield instincts for months.

This brawl was basically a state-sponsored therapy session.

"Take that, you tax-evading nerds!" Kael roared joyfully, swinging his heavy brass-buckled belt like a lasso. The generals were expertly controlling their power—making absolutely sure they didn’t accidentally kill anyone—but they were still dealing maximum blunt-force trauma to every scholar in reach.

However, to say the civil faction were helpless, innocent victims was a complete and total lie.

General Kael swung his heavy leather belt directly at a seemingly frail, elderly Censor, expecting the man to cower. Instead, the Censor raised his wooden court tablet to block.

CLAAAAANG!

Sparks literally flew through the air. Kael’s eyes bugged out of his head. His heavy brass buckle had struck the tablet, chipping the brown paint away to reveal solid, heavy iron underneath.

"What the hell?!" Kael shouted. "Your wooden planks are made of iron?!"

"Surprise, you military thugs!" the Censor cackled, his fragile demeanor completely vanishing as he swung the heavy iron plank like a broadsword.

The civil officials were incredibly prepared for this. Many of these "righteous" ministers were not born into high nobility. They were originally tough commoners, street-smart hustlers, or lesser nobles who had clawed their way to the top by surviving the grueling, cutthroat world of the imperial exams.

Once they put on their pristine white robes of duty, they were forced to act like elegant, pacifist scholars. They never got the chance to fight anymore. Secretly, they missed the thrill of a good old-fashioned street brawl just as much as the generals did.

All across the Grand Hall, the scholars abandoned their poetic dignity and unleashed their hidden arsenals.

One of the Ministers of Revenue reached deep into his voluminous silk sleeves and aggressively pulled out a massive, cast-iron frying pan. He swung it with a terrifyingly practiced battle cry, deflecting a flying military boot with a loud GONG.

Another scholar whipped out a hidden wooden club from his robes, while a group of junior historians formed a shield wall using iron-plated ledger books.

Heena, having just finished rearranging the Prime Minister’s internal organs, looked at the absolute chaos unfolding around her.

Scholars were dual-wielding frying pans and iron planks against generals wielding brass belts and heavy boots.