The disheveled escape of the tax officer Baroque from Future Industries quietly spread through certain circles.
Everyone was astonished that this upstart—just a young man—had such deep connections that even the future Queen was among his shareholders! At that point, the minor characters who had initially planned to jump on the bandwagon and stir up trouble instantly backed off.
Were they joking? Competing in business against Her Royal Highness? Did they have a death wish?
Arthur's company thus entered a rare period of stable development. The fifty retired soldiers he had recruited and personally organized and trained formed a factory guard unit with strict discipline and strong combat ability. They patrolled in and around the factory every day, and their fierce demeanor intimidated all hoodlums and troublemakers.
Inside the factory, new assembly lines had also been installed. Motivated by the "piece-rate wages" Arthur had introduced, the workers' enthusiasm skyrocketed. New sewing machines, gleaming with metallic lustre, rolled off the production line continuously like hens laying eggs.
Everything seemed to be thriving.
However, Arthur knew very well that this was only the calm before the storm.
That hyena Conroy would never let the matter go so easily. If he couldn't strike openly, he would undoubtedly resort to hidden means.
Kensington Palace, in a dimly lit study.
"Useless! A bunch of useless fools!"
Sir Conroy slammed a report onto the floor, his face twisted with rage. He hadn't expected the tax officer he had sent to be frightened off by a young man who had merely uttered the name of the "Princess"!
"Princess! Princess! Always the Princess!" He paced the room, agitated. "That little brat—her wings have truly hardened now! She dares to openly assert her power!"
Martin, his scarred face lowered, stood silently before him.
"Sir, that boy named Arthur is not easy to deal with," Martin rasped. "Not only does he have the Princess backing him, but he's now guarding his factory like a military camp. Our people can't find any opportunity to get close."
"If you can't find an opportunity, then create one for me!" Conroy suddenly stopped, a sinister gleam lighting his eyes. "Since we can't strike from the outside, we'll tear him apart from within!"
He stepped closer to Martin and lowered his voice. "Go find a breakthrough among his workers. Look for someone with financial trouble at home, or someone greedy, someone who loves to gamble. Drown him in money! Drown him in money until he loses his head! I want you to make him cause an 'accident' on the production line: not too big, not too small—but fatal."
"Remember, it must look like a production accident. No traces left behind!"
"Yes, sir!" A twisted grin spread across Martin's face; he excelled at this kind of dirty work.
A few days later, in the Future Industries assembly workshop.
A young worker named Tom was nervously operating a punch press. Sweat covered his forehead, and his eyes kept drifting toward the workshop supervisor.
Tom's mother was gravely ill and required expensive medicine every day to survive. Although Arthur paid fairly high wages, Tom was still under tremendous pressure.
Just the night before, a mysterious man in black had approached him.
The man had wasted no words—he simply threw a pouch of money in front of him.
A full £100! Enough to pay for his mother's medicine for years!
And the price? He only had to secretly replace a specially treated defective screw with an ordinary one in the batch of sewing machines he was assembling on his shift.
"After you're done, take the money and disappear. We guarantee no one will find you," the man in black had said.
Tom's heart was torn apart by inner conflict.
He knew this was a crime—a betrayal of Arthur, who had treated him well. But the heavy pouch of money, and the painful groans of his mother on her sickbed, eventually crushed what was left of his conscience.
Gritting his teeth, and taking advantage of the supervisor's distraction, he quickly pulled the defective screw from his pocket and replaced it with the normal one beside him in a swift motion.
When it was done, he felt as if his heart would leap from his chest.
He had no idea what kind of uproar his tiny action would unleash.
Several more days passed before terrible news reached Arthur.
In a popular tailor shop in West London, a newly purchased Future Industries sewing machine had suddenly experienced a critical failure: the transmission rod snapped during operation. The metal fragments shot out like bullets, striking a young female worker directly in the eye!
The girl writhed in agony, letting out a heart-piercing scream. Although she was rushed to the hospital, the doctor said she would likely never regain sight in that eye.
It was a colossal disaster.
A Future Industries product had malfunctioned, causing serious injury to a user!
This news—amplified by several newspapers owned by Sir Conroy—spread across London overnight!
"Shocking scandal! A royal supplier uses inferior materials!"
"Black-hearted factory owner Arthur Lionheart trades girls' blood for money!"
"Sewing machine or killing machine? Can we trust these new industrial products?"
Articles full of incitement and venom exploded like bombs, pushing Arthur and his factory into the center of a raging storm. Public criticism, competitors kicking him while he was down, and the heartbreaking accusations of the victim's family formed a massive wave of opinion threatening to drown this rising star of the business world.
The shop owner, after receiving a hefty "comfort payment" from Conroy, filed a lawsuit against Arthur demanding enormous compensation!
Even the War Department sent staff to investigate, declaring that if there were quality issues with the product, the ten-thousand-pound royal order could be cancelled at any time!
Suddenly, he was under siege from all sides, and the entire structure was about to collapse.
In Arthur's office, the atmosphere was unbearably tense.
The portly manager Henry paced like a cat on a hot tin roof. "Arthur, what should we do? Everyone outside is cursing us, and many customers who already paid deposits want refunds! Our cash flow… it's going to collapse!"
Arthur sat in his chair, his expression still and unreadable, saying nothing.
He had already retrieved the wreckage of the malfunctioning sewing machine. Examining the broken components, he noticed the clearly tampered piece—the clean break line showing deliberate sabotage.
He knew this was a vicious trap set by those who wanted to destroy him.
The move was precise and ruthless, striking directly at his most vulnerable point. For an industrial brand, nothing was deadlier than "quality issues" and "safety incidents."
But now he had no way to defend himself; the worker who had taken the bribe—Tom—had vanished without a trace on the day of the incident. There was no evidence to refute the accusations.
"Arthur, please, think of something!" Henry nearly sobbed.
Arthur slowly lifted his head. There was no panic in his blue eyes—only a sharp, icy glint.
"Why are you panicking?" he asked coolly. "The sky hasn't fallen yet."
He stood, went to the window, and looked at the workers outside, troubled by the rumors.
"Henry, go do two things for me."
"First, reassure all the workers. Tell them wages will be paid as usual, and bonuses will be doubled! If anyone dares to stir up trouble now, have the guard unit throw them out!"
"Second, in my name, visit the injured worker in the hospital. Tell her family we will cover all medical and nutrition expenses. And also, in my name, pay them £500 upfront!"
"What?!" Henry was stunned. "Arthur, we haven't even gone to court yet, and there's no verdict! If we pay them now, won't it look like we're admitting fault?"
"What I'm giving is not compensation," Arthur said, his voice deep and resolute. "What I'm giving is humanitarian aid. This is me, Arthur, as a person, expressing sympathy for an unfortunate girl and her family. This has nothing to do with winning or losing the lawsuit."
"Moreover, I want you to make a great show of it! Notify every newspaper in London! I want everyone to see that I, Arthur Lionheart, am not a heartless capitalist making dirty money!"
In a war of public opinion, moral high ground was always the first battlefield.
Though Henry didn't fully understand, he immediately went to carry out the orders.
Only Arthur remained in the office.
He knew that doing this alone wasn't enough. He needed a stronger external force to help him turn the tide.
He opened a letter and picked up a pen.
This time he wasn't writing business plans or policy suggestions.
Just a single brief line filled with helplessness and grievance:
"Your Royal Highness, Princess Victoria—someone… is targeting me."
He sealed the letter along with the defective machine component and handed it to his most trusted messenger.
He knew that once Victoria saw this letter and the evidence, the future queen—fiercely protective and growing in power—would strike back with the harshest retaliation.
For this time, Conroy hadn't just crossed Arthur's bottom line—
He had trampled on the royal authority and profits of Her Royal Highness, and provoked the dragon's reversed scale as a shareholder!
But more importantly… he had wounded the tender heart of a maiden Princess.