Chapter 665 --665

Chapter 665: Chapter-665

"Exactly," Heena nodded seriously, standing back up and pacing in front of the desk. "If you do not have a shoe, you must adapt. Look around this room. The civil court relies on rules. The military relies on the environment. If a corrupt minister attacks you with a thirty-page tax proposal, what do you do?"

The Ninth Prince thought deeply, his tiny brow furrowed. "I... I tell my father?"

"Wrong," Heena snapped her fingers. "You grab that heavy, solid-stone inkwell on your desk, and you hurl it directly at his kneecaps."

The Ninth Prince gasped, a brilliant light of sociopathic enlightenment dawning in his eyes. He slowly reached out and placed his small hands on his heavy inkstone. "I... I aim for the knees?"

"Always the knees," Heena confirmed, nodding approvingly. "Scholars have terrible bone density. Once they are on the floor, you establish absolute psychological dominance."

Behind a beautifully painted silk partition screen at the back of the Royal Study, the Emperor of the Great Dynasty was currently pressing his face into his hands, trying to muffle his own groans of despair.

He had secretly come to the study to observe the lesson, hoping that the Vanguard Madam would at least try to behave in front of the royal heir. Instead, he was actively listening to her teach his ninth son how to permanently cripple the Ministry of Revenue.

"Your Majesty," the Commander of the Imperial Guards whispered nervously, standing beside the Emperor. "Should we... intervene? She is telling the prince to weaponize his school supplies."

"If we intervene now," the Emperor whispered back, his voice trembling with sheer exhaustion, "she is going to use that wooden training sword to hit you, and then she will legally argue that you were interrupting a royal decree. Just let her finish. Maybe she will get bored."

Back in the study, Heena was currently drawing a crude anatomical diagram of a civil official on the chalkboard.

"Now, throwing an inkstone is for immediate self-defense," Heena lectured, tapping the chalk against the board. "But physical violence is messy. If you want to truly destroy an enemy, you must learn from my husband and your new older brother, Saura Chijen."

"The thirty-year-old baby?" the Ninth Prince asked eagerly.

"Yes, my precious infant son," Heena said without a single ounce of shame. "He and his father believe in the ultimate weapon. It is sharper than a sword, heavier than a boot, and it leaves absolutely no physical bruises."

The Ninth Prince leaned forward, completely captivated. "What is it, Master?!"

Heena turned around, her dark eyes flashing with lethal brilliance. She tossed the chalk aside and slammed her hands down on the prince’s desk.

"Compound interest," Heena whispered.

The Ninth Prince blinked. "Com-pound... interest?"

"Physical pain heals, Your Highness," Heena smiled, a dark, terrifying grin spreading across her face. "But crippling financial debt lasts for generations. If a minister disrespects you, do not just hit him. Audit him. Find a loophole in his estate’s land deed, charge him eighty years of back-rent, and force his entire family into bankruptcy. You don’t just break his knees; you break his lineage."

Behind the silk screen, the Emperor completely stopped breathing.

She wasn’t just grooming the boy to be a thug. She was actively teaching the ninth heir to the throne how to ruthlessly extort the aristocracy using legal loopholes. She was weaponizing the prince’s brain.

"I understand, Master!" the Ninth Prince cheered, his eyes shining with pure, unadulterated malice. He grabbed a fresh sheet of paper and his calligraphy brush. "I am going to audit the Prime Minister right now! I bet he hasn’t paid the proper taxes on his water pavilion!"

"Host, you have completely ruined the empire’s future!" the System cried out, watching the ninth prince gleefully draft an extortion letter.

Heena just smirked, casually leaning against the wall. ’Ruined? System, I just secured the Vanguard family’s tax-exempt status for the next fifty years.’

Behind the beautifully painted silk partition, the Emperor’s jaw clenched so hard he nearly cracked a royal molar.

’Tax-exempt status?!’ the Emperor screamed internally, his hands trembling as he gripped the edges of his silk robes. ’In your dreams, you damn woman! You are absolutely not getting any tax-free plan! I will personally audit the Vanguard estate myself before I let you walk away with my treasury!’

The sheer, unadulterated audacity of this warlord was pushing the most powerful man in the world dangerously close to a stress-induced Qi deviation. But as he watched the Ninth Prince aggressively crunching extortion numbers on his little wooden abacus, a sudden, profound wave of relief washed over the Emperor’s exhausted soul.

He slowly turned to look at the Commander of the Imperial Guards, his eyes wide with the terrifying realization of a bullet just barely dodged.

"Thank the heavens," the Emperor whispered, his voice shaking with genuine, absolute dread. "Thank the ancestors I did not let her anywhere near the Crown Prince."

The Commander nodded in solemn, deathly pale agreement.

The Emperor felt a cold sweat break out across his forehead just thinking about it. If he had allowed Heena Vanguard to become the official tutor to the future ruler of the Great Dynasty, the empire would have fallen within a week. She wouldn’t have even needed a rebel army. She would have simply sat the Crown Prince down, offered him a sweet pastry, and mathematically manipulated the boy into signing God knows how many legally binding agreements.

By the time the Crown Prince actually took the throne, the royal family would be completely powerless. The Vanguard estate would legally hold the deed to the Imperial Palace, the royal treasury would be paying ’them’ rent, and the Emperor himself would probably be paying Heena a monthly subscription fee just to sit on his own golden throne.

"Master!" the Ninth Prince’s joyful voice echoed from the study, completely shattering the Emperor’s horrifying daydream. "If the Prime Minister refuses to pay the back-taxes on his water pavilion, can we legally repossess his prized koi fish?"

Heena crossed her arms, looking down at the nine-year-old with profound, sociopathic pride. "Fish are considered liquid assets, Your Highness. If he defaults on his payments, we absolutely take the fish. Then we charge him a daily rental fee if he wants to look at them."

The Emperor desperately clutched his chest, feeling a sharp pain radiating through his left arm. She wasn’t just teaching the boy to be a thug; she was actively turning a royal prince of the bloodline into a ruthless, cold-blooded debt collector.

"Commander," the Emperor wheezed, slowly sinking to the floor behind the silk screen, completely abandoning his imperial dignity. "Send a secret warning to the Prime Minister immediately. Tell him to hide his fish. The Vanguard syndicate is expanding."

Whoever originally coined the phrase "time flies when you are working" was an absolute, irredeemable liar.

​Heena sat slumped behind the grand mahogany desk in the Royal Study, aggressively massaging her temples. In her personal, highly violent opinion, the scholar who invented that ridiculous saying should be dragged out into the Vanguard courtyard and beaten with a heavy leather belt. Time was not flying. Time had completely stalled, died, and was currently decomposing right in front of her.