novelnext Chapter 388 --388
Chapter 388 --388
Heena’s eyes darkened slightly beneath her lashes. *’A mole. Terrific.’*
*[ For now, Internal Affairs has granted us an emergency administrative buffer. If the regressor in the north triggers a localized leyline collapse, the System network will attempt to force-deploy a localized stasis field around our immediate sector to buy us escape time. But Host... that field will only hold for exactly three minutes before the universe completely implodes. We still have to solve the root problem. ]*
*’We will solve it,’* Heena thought coldly, her fingers tightening slightly against her grandmother’s velvet sleeve. *’But first, I am going to tear this Marquis house apart piece by piece. My mother wants a game? I’ll give her a war.’*
The small group finally reached the heavy, gilded doors of the secondary dining hall. The attendants outside frantically threw the doors open, bowing so low their noses nearly touched their knees.
As Heena stepped across the threshold, she immediately caught sight of the breakfast spread. Compared to the massive, absurd feast from last night, this was a more private, refined affair—but it was still staggeringly luxurious. Standing near the head of the table, her face tightly twisted into a mask of pure, suppressed rage, was the Marchioness.
Beside her stood Kavien—the eldest, most "useless" groom—his eyes darting nervously between his foster mother and the entrance.
The moment the Marchioness saw Heena walking in, not only completely dressed and radiant but holding the arm of the old matriarch herself, her elegant fingers clamped so hard around her silk handkerchief that the fabric nearly tore. She had sent Nanny Wang to drag Heena to her private courtyard for a severe, isolated interrogation, only for her daughter to return with the ultimate shield.
"Mother..." the Marchioness forced out, her voice straining under the weight of her fake, submissive smile as she bowed toward the grandmother. "I did not know you would be joining us for breakfast. I had sent my maid to fetch Seera so we could have a quiet, mother-daughter chat before the daily affairs began."
The grandmother didn’t even look at her daughter-in-law as she allowed Heena to help her into the grand, cushioned chair at the head of the table. Once she was comfortably seated, she slowly raised her cold, piercing gaze, leveling it straight at the Marchioness’s face.
"A quiet chat?" the old lady sneered, her voice dropping into that terrifyingly forceful tone. "Since when does a biological mother need to ambush her traumatized daughter at five in the morning for a ’chat’? If you have something to say to my granddaughter, you will say it right here, at my table, in front of me."
The Marchioness practically choked on her own breath, her lips trembling as she forced herself to maintain a rigid, deferential posture beneath the old matriarch’s suffocating glare.
The grandmother ignored her daughter-in-law’s distress entirely, turning her attention back to Heena. Her icy expression melted into a warm, doting smile as she gestured toward the lavish breakfast spread. "Here, my dear granddaughter. Eat whatever you like. Fill your plate."
Heena looked down at the table. It was undeniably abundant — fine delicacies, perfectly curated for an aristocratic household. But as her eyes swept over the dishes, a brilliant, wicked idea sparked quietly in her mind.
She slowly lifted her gaze, looking directly across the table at the Marchioness. Her expression was the picture of pure, wide-eyed innocence as she tilted her head. "Mama... are you perhaps suffering from some kind of memory loss? Are you feeling unwell?"
The Marchioness’s composure shattered. Her face flushed with a mixture of shock and raw humiliation. "What on earth are you saying, Seera?!"
Heena didn’t flinch. Instead, she let out a soft, delicate gasp, quickly pressing her silk handkerchief to her lips as her eyes filled with a helpless, misunderstood light. "No! Mama, I didn’t mean to offend you. I wasn’t saying anything bad — I was truly asking out of concern."
Seizing her opportunity, the Marchioness immediately turned to the old lady, her voice rising into a sharp, desperate whine. "Mother! Look at her! You keep accusing me of neglecting my own daughter, but look at how she speaks to me! Is this how a well-bred child addresses her own mother? She has been gone for years, and the moment she returns, she doesn’t spare a thought for my feelings. Now she publicly questions my sanity — and why? Simply because I called her a little early out of motherly affection?"
"Grandma, that is not it at all," Heena turned to the old lady quickly, her voice dropping into a soft, careful whisper.
The grandmother’s brow furrowed as she looked between the two of them. She reached out, patting Heena’s hand gently. "Why do you ask such a thing, my dear? Tell Grandma."
Heena bit her lower lip, her posture slumping slightly as though carrying a quiet, deeply rooted sorrow. She cast a fleeting, melancholic look at the food before lowering her eyes. "Actually, Grandma... even my adoptive parents — people I lived with for a mere two years in the provinces — knew exactly what I liked and what I didn’t. They were so attentive that they quickly learned I cannot eat lotus root. My body simply cannot tolerate it. But the strange thing is..." She gestured vaguely at the table. "...almost every single dish here contains it. That is why I asked whether Mama was perhaps unwell and had forgotten."
The Marchioness froze. Her eyes darted frantically across the breakfast platters, and she realized with a cold jolt of panic that several dishes were indeed garnished heavily with lotus root. "I... I—"
Before she could form a coherent defense, the grandmother’s hand came down flat against the mahogany table.
*Thud.*
The silverware rattled. Every servant in the room dropped their head instantly. The matriarch turned to the Marchioness, her eyes burning with a slow, absolute fury. "You do not even know what your own flesh-and-blood daughter can and cannot eat?! You brought her into this world, yet you are completely ignorant of what poisons her body?!"
The Marchioness scrambled, her face draining to white. "But — she used to eat it as a child, she loved it—"
Heena said nothing. She simply looked up, holding her mother’s gaze with a profoundly quiet, wounded expression before biting her lip once more and looking away. The silence was a masterclass in psychological warfare.
The grandmother’s heart broke at the sight, and her wrath toward the Marchioness doubled. She fixed her daughter-in-law with a long, chilling look. "Just as you have always been a completely inadequate wife to my son, you are the very same failure as a mother. But what can truly be expected? A woman from an insignificant background can never be enough for a house like this."
The words landed like a blade into an old, festering wound.
The Marchioness’s head dropped sharply. Her hands clenched beneath the table until her nails drew blood from her palms. She bit her tongue, unable to utter a single word against the supreme authority of the family matriarch. The dining hall descended into suffocating silence.
And inside? Heena was thoroughly, intensely enjoying every second of it.
The truth was, the original Seera had no aversion to lotus root whatsoever. There was no allergy, no dislike — Heena had fabricated the lie entirely on the spot, partly out of petty mischief, and partly as a calculated test.