Chapter 678 --678

Chapter 678: Chapter-678

"Give the couple a moment," Heena ordered gently, her voice dripping with fake, aristocratic empathy. "It is a terrible medical tragedy. Let the wife be with her husband."

Madam Gu stumbled past Heena and stepped into the room alone.

The sight that greeted her completely shattered her reality. The frantic physicians had already crowded around the grand canopy bed, but they parted just enough for her to see the man lying on the silk sheets.

The Prime Minister of the Great Dynasty—the handsome, charismatic, and terrifying lord of the Gu estate—was completely gone. In his place was a pathetic, ruined husk. He was alive, his eyes blinking rapidly in sheer panic, but his face had collapsed. His mouth was horribly crooked, a thick line of white drool spilling over his chin and pooling into his pristine silk collar.

Most jarring of all were his hands. The heavy right hand—the merciless hand that had battered her face, cracked her ribs, and terrorized her for years—was violently curled inward against his chest, the fingers bent backward in a grotesque, unnatural posture.

He was entirely paralyzed.

The moment Madam Gu stepped into his line of sight, his panicked eyes locked onto her. His throat convulsed as he desperately tried to bark an order, but all that escaped his crooked mouth was a wet, guttural half-sound.

Madam Gu froze. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t blink. Her mind simply ceased to function. The sheer, incomprehensible reality that her invincible abuser had been reduced to a drooling invalid in the span of a single cup of tea completely short-circuited her brain. She stood rooted to the floorboards, as motionless as a hollow porcelain doll.

The head physician rushed to her side, bowing deeply. "Madam... please, accept my deepest condolences. It happened incredibly fast. The Master has suffered a catastrophic block. He is completely paralyzed."

She didn’t answer. She didn’t even register his words.

Suddenly, a hysterical shriek tore through the corridor outside. The Prime Minister’s mother shoved past Heena at the door and rushed blindly into the room. Seeing her precious, golden son reduced to a twisted invalid, the old woman let out a wail of absolute agony.

She lunged toward the bed, violently shoving Madam Gu out of the way to get to him.

The forceful push sent Madam Gu crashing hard onto the wooden floorboards. Her knees and palms slammed into the ground, but not a single groan of pain escaped her lips. She simply stayed there, propped up on her hands, her hollow eyes still glued to the paralyzed man on the bed.

"My son! My lovely, perfect son!" the mother wailed, gripping the Prime Minister’s twisted fingers and weeping hysterically onto his chest.

But the old woman’s grief quickly curdled into rage. She whipped her head around, her tear-streaked face twisting into a mask of pure, venomous hatred. She glared at the daughter-in-law sitting silently on the floor.

"You! You cursed bitch!" the mother screamed, her voice echoing off the chamber walls. "This is all your fault! You bring nothing but bad luck and ruin to this house!"

The old woman scrambled off the bed, raised her hand, and slapped Madam Gu across the face with all the furious strength she possessed. The vicious ’crack’ echoed through the room, aggravating the deep, dark bruises already hidden beneath the pearl powder.

But Madam Gu did not flinch.

She didn’t raise a hand to protect her face. She didn’t cry out in pain. Her head simply snapped to the side from the force of the blow, and then slowly, mechanically, she turned her face back toward the bed. Her bruised, unblinking eyes bypassed the screaming mother-in-law entirely, locking once more onto the terrified, trapped eyes of the monster who could no longer hurt her.

Before the Prime Minister’s mother could raise her hand for a second blow, a sharp, heavy ’thud’ echoed against the oak floorboards.

Heena stepped fully into the bedchamber.

The heavy thud wasn’t a warning; it was the chilling, unmistakable sound of the Vanguard Madam’s custom-forged iron cane hitting the ground. The entire room instantly fell dead silent. The physicians froze, the weeping servants cowered, and even the hysterical mother paused, her hand hovering mid-air.

Heena slowly walked over, her dark military cloak dragging behind her like a shroud of bad omen. She didn’t look at the paralyzed Prime Minister. She didn’t look at the frantic mother. She walked straight past them, stopped directly in front of the kneeling Madam Gu, and casually reached down.

With firm, unyielding strength, Heena grabbed Madam Gu by the elbow and hoisted her up to her feet, casually dusting off the older woman’s silk skirts as if she were a precious porcelain vase.

Then, Heena turned her cold, dead-eyed stare onto the Prime Minister’s mother.

"Old woman," Heena’s voice dropped into a terrifying, lethal hum that vibrated through the quiet room. "You have precisely three seconds to lower your hand, before I decide that your family has committed enough treason to warrant executing everyone in this hallway."

The mother’s face drained of what little color it had left. She recognized the iron cane. She recognized the ruthless, sociopathic glare of the Vanguard Madam. Her hand slowly, tremblingly dropped back to her side.

"M-Madam Vanguard," the mother stammered, backing away from the bed in sheer terror. "This... this is a family matter! She brought ruin upon my son—"

"A family matter?" Heena interrupted, letting out a sharp, mocking scoff. She gently tucked Madam Gu behind her, shielding the battered woman with her own slight frame. "Oh, you want to talk about family? Perfect. Because I am here to formally announce a family expansion."

The entire room of physicians and servants stared at her in utter bewilderment. ’Expansion? In the middle of a medical catastrophe?’

Heena raised her voice, ensuring every single person in the chamber heard her next words with crystal-clear precision.

"The Prime Minister is currently incapacitated, utterly unable to manage his household, his estate, or his political duties," Heena announced, her tone ringing with absolute authority. "Therefore, to ensure the stability of the civil court and the protection of this grieving household, I have officially adopted his legally wedded wife, Madam Gu, as my own daughter."

Silence swallowed the room. You could hear a pin drop.

The mother clutched her chest, her eyes bulging out of her skull. "You... you did ’what’?!"

"You heard me," Heena smiled, a dark, deeply unhinged expression curving her lips. She turned her head slightly, looking back at the woman standing behind her. "Right, ’daughter’?"

Madam Gu stared at the back of the Vanguard Madam’s head. The ringing from the slap was still echoing in her ears, her cheek burned, and her husband was currently drooling on a silk pillow just a few feet away. But as she looked at the absolute, untouchable wall of protection the young warlord had just erected around her, a profound, irreversible shift occurred in her chest.

She took a slow, steady breath. The fear, the trauma, and the decades of submission finally burned away, leaving behind a cold, sharp clarity.

Slowly, deliberately, Madam Gu stepped out from behind Heena’s shield. She raised her chin, her bruised face settling into an expression of chilling, aristocratic poise that mirrored the Vanguard Madam herself.