Chapter 705 --705

Chapter 705: Chapter-705

Heena casually gestured to the cell and glanced at the empty space beside her. "Meet our transporter or reborn bug."

"WHAT?!" the System screamed in her mind.

The former Empress slowly raised her head. The benevolent mother of the empire was gone. Her eyes were hollow, feral, and burning with a toxic, venomous hatred as they locked onto Heena.

"So..." the Empress rasped, her voice a broken, agonizing croak through her dislocated jaw. "You know who I am."

Heena leaned casually against the cold iron bars, entirely unfazed by the killing intent radiating from the woman inside. She shrugged her shoulders, a picture of effortless, mocking superiority.

"Well," Heena smiled, her dark eyes flashing in the lamplight. "You are not exactly some brilliant, infallible genius. So finding you wasn’t really that hard, you know."

"So... how did you find me out?" the Empress rasped, the words slurring painfully through her shattered, bandaged jaw. Her eyes, however, were razor-sharp, burning with a desperate need to know how her perfect, twenty-year masquerade had been dismantled by a dying Vanguard.

"Well," Heena said, casually shrugging her shoulders. "It wasn’t that strange, after all. You were able to ride perfectly on the Emperor’s heart for so long, manipulating the most paranoid man in the empire without a single misstep."

The Empress sneered, a grotesque expression on her ruined face. "Just with that? You guessed I was a regressor just because I was a good wife?"

"Well, not just that," Heena corrected mildly. "I simply did a little research into your past. You see, I don’t believe that people just magically change their entire core personality overnight without a very specific catalyst. So... here it is."

Heena reached into the plunging neckline of her fitted black top, her fingers slipping into the hidden lining over her bodice, and pulled out a small, tightly folded slip of parchment.

The Empress stared at her, her brow furrowing in confusion at the makeshift hiding spot.

Heena caught the look and offered a dry, unapologetic smirk. "What? It’s an old way of carrying things. But it is undeniably the safest place to keep a secret in a palace full of pickpockets."

She unfolded the slip of paper with one hand, holding it up to the flickering light of the oil lamp.

"Let us review your timeline," Heena read, her voice echoing coldly down the damp prison corridor. "At the age of fourteen, you were known across the capital as a profoundly silent, simple, and notoriously timid girl. But then, you suddenly changed. You aggressively took up horse riding. You were obsessed with it. But exactly three months later, you completely abandoned it. Then, you suddenly became fanatically devoted to studying medicine. Three months later? You dropped it. Then, you suddenly fell madly in love with some random, low-born bastard. And three months after that, you abandoned him without a second glance."

Heena lowered the paper, her dark eyes locking onto the Empress.

"Horse riding, medicine, a doomed romance, merchant trading... there are exactly thirteen documented instances in your youth where you violently changed your life’s trajectory, only to completely abandon the route three months later."

"Oh my god," the System gasped in Heena’s mind, its digital interface lighting up with sudden realization. "Host... she was trial-and-erroring! She kept dying or failing her routes after three months, and resetting!"

Inside the cell, the Empress let out a harsh, wet scoff. "So? Do you think it is strange for a young woman to like different things? Is it a crime to want to learn about the world and then change my mind?"

"No, having hobbies is not wrong," Heena agreed smoothly, folding the parchment back up. "But the pattern of your ’awakenings’ is a dead giveaway. Every single time you started a new hobby, it happened immediately after a minor accident. A sudden fever, a slip on the stairs, a faint in the garden."

Heena leaned closer to the iron bars, her voice dropping into a chilling, knowing whisper that made the Empress’s blood run cold.

"And every single time you woke up from that fever, the very first thing you did was grab your maid by the collar and frantically ask her what the date was. You didn’t ask how you fell. You didn’t ask for water. You asked for the exact year and month." Heena smiled, a terrifying predator recognizing her prey. "So, you could just say I guessed. But I know a respawn point when I see one."

Heena looked at the ruined woman calmly, the flickering lamplight casting long, dancing shadows across her face.

"And you want to know something truly funny?" Heena asked, her voice dropping into a conversational, almost friendly tone. "Despite everything, not a single imperial prince actually hates you."

The Empress let out a harsh, wet cough, a mocking sneer pulling at her bandaged jaw. "What absolute nonsense—"

"Let me finish, old lady," Heena interrupted, her voice suddenly cracking like a Vanguard whip.

The Empress’s jaw clicked shut, her eyes flashing with pure indignity at the insult.

"As I was saying," Heena continued smoothly, "I found it incredibly strange that no prince harbors any resentment toward you. Which is, frankly, the most absurd thing in this entire palace, considering you murdered every single one of their mothers."

Heena tilted her head, her dark eyes locking onto the Empress’s pale face.

"Consort Sue. Consort Boo. Consort Jao. Consort Ron," Heena listed, the names falling from her lips like heavy stones. "Do you remember these names? No? Let me refresh your memory. These were the consorts who, at various times, managed to draw the Emperor’s favor. And strangely, they all died in tragically ’accidental’ or entirely different, untraceable ways. In the imperial palace, a dead concubine isn’t shocking. It is the norm."

Heena took a step closer to the iron bars, her voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "But the true comedy of it all, my dear, sweet Empress... is how a woman who supposedly stayed so quiet and secluded in the inner palace managed to know that a pathetic, penniless scholar was destined to become the Prime Minister, long before he even started his career?"

The Empress’s breath hitched, though she desperately tried to maintain her glare.

"You see, when I was tearing your Prime Minister’s faction apart recently, I found something very interesting," Heena said casually. "I grabbed a few of his elite shadow guards. And it turns out, the men protecting the highest civil official in the court possessed the exact training instincts of your maiden family."

Without breaking eye contact, Heena reached a hand back into the plunging neckline of her fitted black top.

"Host," the System’s voice chimed in her mind, sounding utterly bewildered. "Exactly how much space do you have in there?"

"Enough to stuff you in there too if you don’t shut up," Heena snapped back mentally, her face remaining a mask of flawless intimidation.

She withdrew her hand, pulling out a small, heavy bronze badge. She held it up to the lamplight.

"Do you recognize this?" Heena asked.

The Empress’s eyes widened a fraction of a millimeter—a microscopic fracture in her composure—before she forcefully smoothed her expression into a mask of cold indifference.

"What does a piece of metal prove?" the Empress rasped, turning her head away dismissively. "It’s not mine."