Inside Kensington Palace.
In Princess Victoria's room, the atmosphere was so heavy it felt as though the very air might drip from the walls.
Fragments of a shattered white porcelain teacup lay scattered across the floor.
For the first time in her life, Her Royal Highness had erupted in fury in front of her lady-in-waiting.
The baroness Frances, along with several maids, knelt trembling on the ground, scarcely daring to breathe.
Victoria clutched Arthur's letter tightly in one hand and the broken piece of metal machinery in the other.
Her chest rose and fell sharply; her exquisitely beautiful face was flushed with blazing anger.
"Someone… is targeting him."
That short but agonizing sentence in the letter had pierced her heart like a red-hot iron.
Arthur.
Arthur, who had shown her the right path when she was most lost, who had given her boundless courage when she confronted the King; the brilliant, dazzling man who seemed almost perfect in her eyes—
Now he was "asking for help" like a man cornered and wronged.
It made her feel more furious and wounded than if she had been slapped across the face.
Victoria was incredibly intelligent; she understood everything in an instant.
Public attacks, lawsuits, product slander…
Behind all of it, a familiar face emerged — a face she knew intimately and despised with her entire being:
John Conroy.
No one else had both the motive and the audacity to strike at someone so clearly associated with her and the royal family.
"This is outrageous! Absolutely outrageous!"
She trembled with fury. This was no longer a matter of business competition — this was political suppression. Conroy's real goal in attacking Arthur was to attack her. It was his way of telling her that even if she was nearing adulthood, even if she had earned the King's favor, she would still never escape his control.
"He still thinks I'm a little girl he can manipulate at will?!"
A wave of unprecedented rage surged from deep within her.
If her previous resistance still carried a hint of hesitation, now every trace of caution had been cast aside.
Conroy had crossed her bottom line.
He had hurt the man she cared for.
"Frances!" Victoria's voice trembled with anger, yet rang with undeniable authority.
"Here, Your Highness!" the baroness replied immediately.
"Prepare my carriage at once!" Victoria's eyes were cold, resolute, and unwavering. "I am going to see Lord Melbourne. Now. Immediately!"
She knew that sending money to Arthur or dispatching someone to comfort him was now useless. Conroy was striking with political and legal weapons — she needed to retaliate with equal or greater force.
And the current Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, was the sharpest weapon she could wield.
She was not only defending Arthur — she was declaring to the entire Empire that she, Victoria, was severing all ties with Conroy's "Kensington System."
Meanwhile, Arthur was completing his preparations for the upcoming courtroom battle.
He knew that the heart of Conroy's attack lay in that seemingly flawless "production accident." If the court ruled that the defect stemmed from poor manufacturing, all of his efforts — driving off the thugs, earning public sympathy — would crumble instantly.
He would be branded a "heartless profiteer," his reputation destroyed, the King's commission revoked, and the entire Future Industries would collapse.
This was a battle he could only win — losing was not an option.
He shut himself in his office, repeatedly examining the broken connecting rod, along with every production log and worker file.
He needed to find a breakthrough.
"Tom…"
His gaze fell on the missing worker's dossier.
Tom, twenty-five, born in London, skilled and diligent. His only weakness was his elderly mother, gravely ill and in need of long-term, expensive treatment.
"Of course… they started with the weakest link." A cold glint flashed in Arthur's eyes.
Conroy's methods, though cruel, were far from sophisticated — coercion, bribery, blackmail. A vulnerable worker was an easy target.
The problem was that Tom had vanished, leaving no witness behind.
To turn the case around, Arthur needed new evidence — something decisive enough to overturn everything.
He began pacing across the room, reorganizing the fragments of information in his mind.
The broken rod… Tom's disappearance… the sick mother… expensive medicine… expensive medicine…
Wait—
Arthur stopped dead in his tracks. A bold thought struck him like lightning.
He called out sharply:
"Henry!"
Henry appeared almost instantly. "Arthur, what do you need?"
"I need you to investigate something immediately. Use every bit of influence you have."
"Consider it done. What am I looking for?"
"Check every pharmacy and hospital in London. Find out whether, in the past month, a young man named Tom Stones — or his family — purchased a rare and extremely expensive imported medicine used to treat tuberculosis.
"And at the same time, investigate the female worker who was injured during the incident: her family background, her acquaintances, whether she has been in contact with suspicious individuals recently, and whether she suddenly came into possession of an unusually large sum of money."
Although Henry didn't understand how these things were connected, he accepted the order without hesitation and activated his vast network across London's social layers.
Arthur stared out at the grey sky beyond the window, a cold smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
Sir Conroy, do you really think I won't find what you've buried?
In this world, every action leaves a trace.
And if there is anything I excel at, it is uncovering the fox's tail hidden in the shadows.
He had already prepared a very "special gift" for Conroy in court.
A deduction worthy of the twenty-first century, orchestrated by his own hand, was about to unfold in the solemn halls of London's Central Criminal Court.