ushernet Chapter 369 --369
Chapter 369 --369
Heena was too enchanting, too breathtakingly beautiful; any man with eyes would fall for her the second she stepped into the light. The thought of it made Samuel’s blood turn to literal fire.
Heena let him pace and rave, listening to his stubborn tantrum for about ten straight minutes without interrupting. Then, a slow, incredibly wicked smile spread across her face.
She leaned forward, propping her chin in her hands. "Just think about it, hubby."
The word *’hubby’* practically pierced straight through Samuel’s chest like a physical arrow. His entire posture stiffened, his heart hammering at the sudden, sweet title coming from her lips. But a second later, his paranoid instincts kicked back in. *No, she is definitely trying to trick me right now.* He narrowed his eyes, freezing in place as he waited to hear the rest of her words.
"Just think about it, hubby," Heena repeated, her tone dropping into a soft, alluring purr. "What would happen if we did it my way? We are currently stuck in this dull routine. Before we got married, it was nothing but work, work, work. Even after our wedding, it has been entirely about survival and plots. Don’t you think that’s incredibly boring?"
Samuel blinked, momentarily caught off guard.
Heena playfully pouted, her eyes fixed on his. "When I look at other couples, they have so many thrilling, romantic stories to pass down to their children and grandchildren. Do you really want to tell our future children that we just had a dry, transactional contract marriage?"
*Boom.*
It was as if an explosion went off inside Samuel’s brain. The words *children* and *grandchildren* echoed through his mind like a divine revelation, completely obliterating his capacity to process any other logic. His eyes glazed over slightly as his imagination violently derailed into a future of a shared home and a family with her.
Off to the side, the System watched the exact moment the fish took the bait and got securely hooked on the line.
Seeing his defenses crumble, Heena ruthlessly pressed her advantage, continuing her sweet praise. "Just think about how thrilling it will be when we tell our children about how we used to sneak around the Marquis’s estate at night. A dangerous young lady and her rugged personal guard, having a secret, forbidden love affair right under the noses of the entire high society... think of the hidden meetings we’ll have where no one can see us."
She waved her hand dismissively, driving the final nail into the coffin. "Otherwise, the story is just... ’Oh, I was a miserable maid, your father was a lord, and we got married purely to get rid of your evil stepmother.’ How completely uninteresting is that, honey?"
Samuel didn’t hear a single word about the stepmother or the maid. His mind was entirely trapped in a loop of *’our children’* and *’our grandchildren.’* The terrifying scholar who had been throwing a furious, unyielding tantrum just moments ago literally melted into absolute puddle of compliance. He cleared his throat, his flushed face turning away as he silently agreed to the guard uniform.
The System, observing the sheer, terrifying ease with which Heena had just manipulated a dangerous man, shivered in his digital code.
*[You are a really, really disgusting person, Host,]* the System stated flatly in her mind, his digital ears flattening in pure judgment. *[Using hypothetical grandchildren to completely break his brain? That’s low.]*
Heena didn’t even blink. She merely rolled her eyes at the golden lion, responding with a devastatingly casual mental scoff.
*At least I am not a single, floating piece of data like you. Mind your own business.*
.
.
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Back to realty ....
Since she was fully ready by 9:00 a.m. and the banquet didn’t officially start until 1:00 p.m., they had a massive four-hour window of time to kill. Heena used it with absolute pragmatism: she forced Samuel to take her out and buy a massive, luxurious feast, eating everything in sight.
She had no illusions about what was going to happen the moment she stepped onto the Marquis’s grounds. Her arrival was going to cause an absolute, earth-shattering commotion. She was essentially walking in as a living ghost, a red carpet of pure chaos. Once the screaming, the finger-pointing, and the accusations started, she wouldn’t get a single bite of food for the rest of the day—maybe not even the next day. So, she packed herself to the absolute brim with high-quality capital cuisine.
After eating, they boarded a high-end, discreetly booked luxury carriage.
By late morning, the carriage was parked silently in a narrow, shaded alleyway just behind the towering outer walls of the Marquis’s mansion. Hidden from the view of the main gates, they waited in the quiet luxury of the carriage, watching the sun slowly climb toward the noon marker. The pieces were set, the armor was on, and Heena was fully prepared to tear her bloodline apart.
Waiting and waiting inside a stationary carriage was a special kind of torment. Two or three hours might not seem long on paper, but when you have absolutely nothing to entertain yourself with, every tick of the clock feels like an eternity.
The luxury carriage was spacious, but completely devoid of anything amusing. There were a few leather-bound volumes tucked into the side pockets, but the moment Heena flipped one open, she immediately shut it with a look of profound disgust. She wasn’t some deep thinker or a wandering philosopher. If they had been serialized romance web novels or some entertaining comics, she would have devoured them in a heartbeat, but these were dense, dry treatises on ancient philosophy and legal logic. Absolutely not.
To make matters worse, the System was being an active menace. Sensing her intense boredom, the digital cat decided to test her patience by flashing a massive, glowing holographic clock directly in her field of vision every five minutes just to tease her.
’[Host, look, another minute passed. Fascinating, isn’t it?]’ the System mocked.
By the time his digital clock finally hit 2:00 p.m., the main streets surrounding the estate had completely altered. The grand anniversary banquet was officially underway. Through the tiny slits in the wooden carriage blinds, Heena could see the steady stream of aristocratic guests finally arriving in their glittering finery. Still, it would take a long while before the entire crowd assembled inside the main courtyards. But Heena had to stay put and bide her time.
Seeing his wife look increasingly ready to murder either him or the marquise mansion, Samuel decided to intervene. He signaled one of the discreet guards he had stationed around the alleyway. A few minutes later, the guard returned with a highly unexpected peace offering: a fresh bundle of unrooted green gram plants, straight from a local merchant’s cart.
Heena’s eyes lit up slightly. It was raw, rustic, and entirely unsuited for a grand lady in silk, but it was a perfect distraction. Sitting cross-legged on the plush velvet cushions of the luxury carriage, she began meticulously peeling the green pods, popping the fresh, sweet grams into her mouth one by one. She looked like a highly dangerous, intensely focused scientist analyzing microscopic cells under a lens as she shelled them.