Chapter 679 --679

Chapter 679: Chapter-679

She looked down at her hysterical, trembling mother-in-law with absolute, freezing indifference.

"Yes, Mother," Madam Gu said, her voice steady, clear, and dripping with quiet authority as she officially claimed her new lineage. "You heard my mother correctly. Now... step away from the bed. I have estate business to attend to."

The luxury of a carefully staged, multi-layered political conspiracy was a luxury Heena no longer possessed.

Normally, a move this seismic—paralyzing the sitting Prime Minister, publicly claiming his wife as her adopted daughter, and hijacking the civil court—would require days of meticulous theater. She should have laid the groundwork, planted false rumors, and waited for the optimal moment to strike. She ’could’ have done it. Under normal circumstances, her tactical mind was a well-oiled machine.

But not today. Not with her failing body.

God only knew if she would even remember what happened today by tomorrow morning.

The rapid, terrifying descent of her health was accelerating at a breakneck pace. Just from the simple conversation she had shared with Madam Gu in the water pavilion, massive blank spaces had already eaten away at her short-term memory. She couldn’t even remember how the conversation had started, let alone construct a reliable blueprint for the days ahead. If she waited for the "perfect moment," her brain would deteriorate to the point where she couldn’t recognize her own name, let alone execute an empire.

Right now, she could still string the pieces together through sheer, raw instinct. Tomorrow, she might not even have that.

She had to finish the entire board before her own mind completely went dark.

Standing in the opulent, tense silence of the Prime Minister’s bedchamber, Heena felt a sudden, sharp spike of vertigo. Her vision blurred at the edges, a dizzying wave of nausea rising in her throat as the intracranial pressure throbbed violently behind her eyes. She discreetly clenched her fist, digging her fingernails into her palm just enough to shock herself back into focus.

’Not yet,’ she fiercely commanded her failing body. ’Hold together just a little longer.’

She turned her dark, unblinking eyes away from the hysterical mother-in-law and focused entirely on her newly claimed "daughter."

Madam Gu was standing tall, her spine straight, radiating a cold, unexpected authority that had been buried under years of abuse. The transformation was instantaneous—the battered bird had finally put on armor.

"Daughter," Heena said, her voice cutting cleanly through the quiet hum of the room, steady and absolute.

Madam Gu turned her head, meeting the warlord’s gaze. "Yes, Mother?" ,

"Follow me out."

With those calm, absolute words, Heena extended her hand. Madam Gu paused, staring at the slender, pale fingers offered to her before her hand slipped into grasp. With the newly minted daughter supporting her weight—balancing the heavy, silent strain of her failing body—Heena turned her back on the stunned, weeping mother-in-law and the paralyzed monster on the bed.

They walked, and walked, winding through the labyrinthine corridors of the Gu estate until they reached a desolate, abandoned inner chamber where no one had lived for decades.

The heavy doors shut behind them with a muffled thud. Outside, Heena’s elite shadow guards materialized from the shadows, locking down the perimeter with ruthless, suffocating precision. No servant could approach; no whisper could escape.

Inside the dusty, quiet room, Heena took a single step forward, her legs trembling slightly under the strain. She sank into an old wooden chair, crossing one leg over the other with calculated elegance, and leaned her heavy head into the palm of her hand to fight off the dizziness.

She looked up at the woman standing before her, a soft, exhausted smile touching her lips.

"So..." Heena murmured, her voice laced with quiet triumph. "How do you like your gift?"

Madam Gu stared at her. Just for a single, fleeting second, the terrifying weight of the past ten years hung in the air.

And then, the dam shattered.

Her eyes welled with hot, shimmering tears, but instead of sorrow, they sparked with a feral, electrifying burst of pure, unadulterated madness. She threw her head back and burst into laughter.

"Ha! Hahahahaha! HAHAHAHA!"

It was a laugh so loud, so violently explosive, that it shook the dust from the rafters. Tears streamed down her face, carving through her pearl powder, as she doubled over, clutching her stomach. Heena had never seen anything like it. She wasn’t just laughing—she was jumping, spinning in circles, and stumbling across the floorboards like a woman who had just clawed her way out of a burning crypt. Anyone outside would have sworn she had lost her mind.

Instead, Heena sat in absolute silence, watching the magnificent, terrifying release. This wasn’t insanity. This was the first breath of clean air after a decade underwater.

"He looks so funny, Mother!" Madam Gu shrieked between gasps of breathless, hysterical laughter, dropping heavily to her knees right in front of Heena’s chair. She clutched her face, rocking back and forth as fresh tears poured down. "Did you see his hand?! Did you see his mouth?! That... that damn hand! That man—he used it to hit me every single day!"

She scrambled back to her feet, spinning around the room, high on the absolute venom of her total liberation.

"Mother! Mother, mother, mother!" she cried out, her voice cracking with wild, manic ecstasy. "Did you see his face?! He looked so pathetic! He looked like a cornered, drooling dog!"

Suddenly, she stopped spinning, sobbing violently as she threw herself forward. She slammed onto her knees and buried her face into Heena’s lap, wrapping her arms tightly around the warlord’s waist. She shook from head to toe, sobbing and laughing all at once.

"Thank you!" Madam Gu choked out, pressing her forehead against Heena’s heavy cloak. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so, so, so, so, so much!"

Heena remained completely calm. Slowly, deliberately, she raised a steady hand and gently patted the shaking woman’s back.

"Are you happy?" Heena asked softly, cutting through the emotional storm.

Madam Gu froze. She slowly lifted her head, her face flushed, her eyes burning with an intense, blazing devotion.

"I have never, never been this happy in my entire life, Mother! Mother, mother, mother, mother!"

A faint, amused smirk touched Heena’s lips. "Who was it just a few minutes ago swearing they weren’t going to call me mother?"

Madam Gu let out a wet, breathless laugh, wiping her cheeks with the back of her sleeve. "No. You are Mother. You knew what your daughter was going through in the dark, and you solved it. You actually did it!"

Heena chuckled quietly, resting a hand on her head. "Well, it looks like I officially got myself a daughter, huh? So, how about you start pulling your weight and take care of your great-grandparents?"

"Of course, Mother," Madam Gu beamed, her spine straightening with fierce, absolute loyalty.

Bang.

The heavy double doors of the chamber suddenly flew open.

Before either of them could react, a blur of motion cut through the stillness. It was the Vice Minister’s brilliant, sharp-tongued daughter—the very same political thorn who had spent weeks running circles around the Prime Minister’s inner circle. Seeing Madam Gu standing triumphantly beside the Vanguard Madam, she didn’t hesitate for a second.

She bolted forward, threw her arms around Heena in a reckless, breathless tackle, and shrieked with pure adrenaline, "I did it! Mother, I actually did it!"