Chapter 680 --670

Chapter 680: Chapter-670

The sudden, high-speed impact slammed straight into Heena’s fragile, deteriorating frame.

For a horrifying fraction of a second, the intracranial pressure spiked so violently that Heena’s vision went completely pitch black. Agony flared behind her eyes. But operating on pure, cold warlord instinct, Heena didn’t panic. With lightning speed, she sharply raised her elbow and drove it straight into the girl’s stomach.

"Ouch!" the Vice Minister’s daughter gasped, stumbling backward and clutching her abdomen with a sharp, wheezing groan of absolute betrayal.

Heena slumped back into her chair, pressing a trembling hand to her temple as she glared at the two women with lethal, exhausted irritation.

"Get away from me," Heena deadpanned, her dark eyes flashing with a final, caustic spark. "You stink of sweat and treason. Stay away from me. Stink."

The Vice Minister’s daughter blinked down at her bruised stomach, rubbing the spot where Heena’s elbow had just introduced her to the realities of military discipline. She looked up with a cheeky grin, entirely unfazed.

"Call her what? Stepdaughter? Adopted child?" the girl chirped brightly, flashing a mischievous smile. "Mother, come on—"

Heena’s eyes narrowed into absolute, murderous slits. She slowly raised a finger, pointing it straight at the girl’s face. "If you call me ’mother’ one more time, I will chop your head off, you ungrateful little bitch."

The girl scoffed, casually brushing a lock of hair from her shoulder. "Well, I figured since you’re already going around adopting half the capital, you might as well add me to the registry. At least I’d get some free estate money out of it."

"At least my other children actually contribute to the destruction of the government, unlike you," Heena fired back, her tone dripping with venomous sarcasm.

The Vice Minister’s daughter gasped, placing a dramatic hand over her heart. "Excuse me?! I spent the last three weeks running circles around the Prime Minister’s inner circle and driving him to an early stroke! You think I didn’t do anything?!"

Annoyed by the chatter, Heena reached out, grabbed Madam Gu by the sleeve of her silk robe, and physically yanked her forward.

Heena pointed an accusing finger straight at the Vice Minister’s daughter. "You. Give her a snappy retort. Show this little pest what a real intellectual assassin sounds like."

Madam Gu blinked, completely stunned. One moment she was rejoicing over her husband’s paralysis, and the next, the Vanguard Madam was treating her like a prize-fighting rooster, demanding she verbally eviscerate a teenager on command.

Struggling to find her footing in this absurd new family dynamic, Madam Gu stared at the grinning girl. She cleared her throat, pulling up whatever leftover aristocratic dignity she had left, and delivered a dry, highly clinical delivery.

"At least my mother is infinitely more useful than your entire bureaucratic lineage," Madam Gu stated flatly. "Though, I suppose your failure to accomplish anything meaningful is entirely genetic."

It sounded less like a devastating insult and more like a stiffly worded phrase copied directly out of a civil court textbook.

The Vice Minister’s daughter paused, tilted her head, and instantly lit up. "Oh my god. Are you serious? So cute!"

Before Madam Gu could even blink, the girl shrieked with absolute delight, threw her arms wide, and rushed forward to trap her in a bone-crushing hug.

"Ah!" Madam Gu screamed in pure, unadulterated terror, flailing backward as she tried to dodge the aggressive affection from her new "sister."

Heena slumped back in her wooden chair, rubbing her throbbing temples as she watched the two women wrestle in the dust of the abandoned chamber.

"Looks like," Heena muttered under her breath, closing her eyes against the rising wave of vertigo, "I adopted the wrong children."

Madam Gu stood there, blinking rapidly as she tried to reconcile the terrifying, cold-blooded Vanguard Madam with the chaotic teenager currently trying to smother her in a hug. Her brain was spinning so fast she felt like she had been hit by a carriage.

Looking back and forth at their casual, chaotic banter, Madam Gu could at least deduce one thing: these two were frighteningly familiar with each other.

"Do you... do you guys know each other?" Madam Gu asked hesitantly, her voice thick with absolute confusion.

Of course, Madam Gu knew the Vice Minister’s daughter by sight; the girl had been flitting around the capital’s high-society banquets for years, constantly causing political earthquakes. But she had never interacted with Heena on this kind of unhinged, domestic level.

The Vice Minister’s daughter flashed a bright, mischievous grin, casually slinging an arm around Heena’s shoulders. "Yeah, we’re cousins!"

Madam Gu froze, her jaw dropping. "Cousins?!"

Before Heena could even react, the girl cheerfully grabbed Heena’s cheeks, aggressively pulling the warlord’s face close to her own. "See? Look at us! We basically look like twins!"

*Smack.*

Heena’s hand lashed out like a striking viper, forcefully shoving the girl’s face away. "No, we don’t, you absolute lunatic," Heena hissed, rubbing her abused cheeks with a murderous glare.

Madam Gu narrowed her eyes, her sharp aristocratic instincts finally kicking back in. She crossed her arms, looking suspiciously between them. "Wait a minute. I’ve lived in the capital for years, and I’ve attended every major banquet. I don’t remember the Vanguard family—or the Vanguards’ extended relatives—ever having a cousin with a face like that."

The Vice Minister’s daughter blinked, her smug grin faltering just a fraction. She quickly let go of Heena and awkwardly cleared her throat, trying to backtrack. "Uh, well, you know... distant branch family! Very distant. So distant we only meet during leap years and political coups."

Madam Gu blinked, her aristocratic mind struggling to process the sheer absurdity of the conversation. She looked back and forth between the deadly Vanguard Madam and the chaotic teenager.

"But... aren’t you the daughter of the Vice Minister?" Madam Gu asked, her voice laced with genuine confusion. "I know the political registries of this capital flawlessly. I do not recall the Vanguard family having any distant relatives placed in the civil bureaucracy." ℯ

The girl let out a loud, highly unladylike snort. "Of course I am not his daughter! If my real father knew I was out here calling some stiff-necked civil bureaucrat ’Father,’ he would literally beat me to death."

Madam Gu stared at her. "So... you are not the Vice Minister’s daughter?"

"Absolutely not," the girl shook her head cheerfully, leaning against the arm of Heena’s chair. "I am the daughter of the wealthiest merchant in the empire. My father is loaded. I mean, ridiculously rich. I basically spent so much of his money causing trouble that he exiled me here to ’reform’ my character. Then my dear sister over here—" she pointed a thumb at Heena "—sent me a letter offering a fun little game, and I couldn’t resist."

Madam Gu was completely lost. "Then how on earth did you become the legally recognized daughter of a sitting Vice Minister?"

The girl scoffed, rolling her eyes as if the answer were the most obvious thing in the world. "’’Money’’, babe. Enough money makes people do whatever you want."

Madam Gu physically recoiled. First, the sheer audacity of bribing a high-ranking official to fake a bloodline was high treason. Second, the casual, utterly brazen tone the girl used was completely devoid of the refined politeness expected in the capital.