Chapter 656 --656

Chapter 656: Chapter-656

"Your Majesty!" the Minister wept loudly. "The Vanguard heir is abusing his power! He has caused severe psychological trauma to our children! Does our youth not deserve to live in peace? Please, punish this thirty-year-old man for terrorizing fifteen-year-old boys!"

The Emperor, who already knew exactly what was happening via palace gossip, looked at Heena with deeply exhausted eyes. "What do you have to say, Vanguard Madam?"

Heena stepped forward, took a deep breath, and aggressively threw herself to the floor in a display of profound, heartbreaking grief.

CLANG!

The heavy, metallic thud echoed through the Grand Hall. The civil officials jumped, looking at the floor in confusion. It sounded less like a woman kneeling in sorrow and more like a blacksmith dropping an anvil.

Unlike the weeping Minister beside her, Heena felt absolutely zero pain. Underneath her sweeping military gown, she was wearing custom-forged, combat-grade steel kneecaps heavily stuffed with premium goose down. It looked deeply tragic to the untrained eye, but on the inside, she was basically kneeling on a luxury mattress.

"Your Majesty!" Heena cried out, throwing her hands over her face to hide her absolute lack of tears. "This loyal subject is being horribly wronged! My precious child was just adopted! He is but a fragile, defenseless baby, and they dare to slander his innocence!"

The Minister of General Staff whipped his head around, his jaw practically detaching from his skull. "He has a full beard! He has crow’s feet! He was born before you!"

Heena lowered her hands, her dark eyes piercing the Minister with absolute, sociopathic calmness. She held up her fingers, laying out her flawless, infuriating legal defense to the stunned court:

The Dynasty’s Heir Law: "Imperial Code dictates an appointed heir must undergo three full years of rigorous training before officially coming of age as the household master."

The Vanguard Timeline: "Since Saura Chijen was adopted exactly twenty-four hours ago, his developmental timeline has legally been reset."

The Conclusion: "Therefore, politically, spiritually, and legally, my thirty-year-old son is currently a zero-year-old newborn. He hasn’t even learned how to walk... the treacherous path of estate management yet!"

The entire Imperial Court stared at her. The silence was so absolute you could hear a pin drop.

"Are you even listening to yourself?!" the Minister shrieked, clutching his hair. "He is thirty! He took the imperial exams a decade ago! He terrorized fifteen-year-old children with compound interest!"

"Babies throw tantrums," Heena deadpanned, crossing her arms defensively. "Are you really going to bully a zero-year-old for being a little fussy?"

Sitting on the golden throne, the Emperor slowly reached into his royal robes, pulled out a small porcelain bottle of premium headache pills, and dry-swallowed three of them at once. He looked at the screaming civil minister, and then at the completely unhinged Vanguard Madam.

The Emperor closed his eyes and waited for the premium herbal headache pills to kick in. They didn’t.

He looked down at the Minister of General Staff, whose face was turning a dangerous shade of magenta, and then at Heena, who was looking up at him with the wide, innocent eyes of a deeply concerned mother.

The Emperor knew he had two choices. He could argue with the Vanguard Madam over the biological reality of time and aging, which she would inevitably counter with three hours of exhausting legal loopholes. Or, he could simply accept the madness and get this over with so he could take a nap.

"Fine," the Emperor sighed, his voice echoing with the profound defeat of a man who had completely given up on logic. "Let us legally assume, for the sake of the court’s sanity, that the thirty-year-old bearded man is a zero-year-old infant."

"Your Majesty!" the Minister gasped, clutching his chest as if he had just been stabbed.

"However," the Emperor continued, raising a hand to silence the weeping official. He glared at Heena. "Vanguard Madam. Can you please explain to the throne why your ’infant’ son walked into the Imperial Youth Academy today, handed the Headmaster a Notice of Eviction, and demanded two hundred and fifty thousand gold taels in back-rent?!"

The civil officials in the hall erupted into outraged murmurs. The sheer, unadulterated extortion of the Vanguard family was finally on the official record!

"He brought a five-foot-long ledger!" the Minister of General Staff shrieked, pointing at Heena. "He calculated compound interest! He adjusted for eighty years of inflation! What kind of newborn baby knows how to aggressively weaponize the imperial tax code?!"

Heena didn’t miss a beat. She placed a hand over her heart, looking immensely proud.

"He is simply a very gifted child, Minister," Heena beamed. "My husband, Samuel, is a certified genius scholar. Obviously, our newborn son inherited his father’s brilliant intellect. We taught him his numbers last night, and he just took right to it!"

"He cited Imperial Code Section 4, Sub-clause B!" the Minister roared, stomping his foot on the marble floor.

"They absorb information so quickly at that age," Heena nodded sagely, completely ignoring the Minister’s mental breakdown. She turned back to the throne. "Your Majesty, the facts remain. That land legally belongs to the Vanguard military estate. My baby boy was simply exploring his new property, and he found a bunch of civil scholars trespassing on his playground. Is a mother not supposed to support her child’s early developmental milestones?"

Hovering near the ceiling, the System was projecting a digital white flag of surrender. "Host, you are literally gaslighting the Emperor of the Great Dynasty."

The Emperor stared at Heena. He looked at the flawless, legally binding land deed that the Head Eunuch had placed on his desk earlier. She had the law entirely on her side.

"Minister," the Emperor said slowly, his voice completely flat.

"Yes, Your Majesty?" the Minister sniffled, looking up with desperate hope.

"Does the Imperial Youth Academy have the original deed to the land?"

The Minister froze. "W-Well... no, Your Majesty. It was a temporary lease from the former Duke..."

"Then pay the rent," the Emperor ordered, waving his hand dismissively.

"WHAT?!" the entire civil faction screamed in unison.

"You heard me," the Emperor grumbled, standing up from his golden throne. "The Vanguard family owns the land. If you want your precious aristocratic sons to keep studying poetry in that pavilion, the civil court will pay the Vanguard estate their two hundred and fifty thousand gold taels. If you don’t want to pay it, pack up your scrolls and move the school."

The Emperor turned around, his royal robes swishing behind him as he walked toward the back exit of the hall.

"Court is dismissed!" the Emperor yelled over his shoulder. "And if anyone files another petition about the Vanguard baby today, I am personally sending you to the borders to dig trenches!"

Heena stood up, dusting off her tactical metal kneecaps. She looked at the utterly devastated Minister of General Staff, who was now weeping openly on the floor about the civil court’s bankrupt treasury.

"Cheer up, Minister," Heena smirked, giving him a cheerful wave. "If you need a loan to pay off the rent, my son offers very competitive interest rates."

With the civil court officially extorted and Samuel’s trap flawlessly executed, how will the family celebrate their massive new fortune back at the Vanguard estate?