Return of Black Lotus system:Taming Cheating Male Leads

Chapter 355 --355

The System finally shut up.

It wasn’t because it was satisfied, and it certainly wasn’t because it had won the argument. It shut up because it suddenly remembered that arguing with Heena was like trying to argue with a brick wall that could actively punch you back. At the end of the day, the System was just a cosmic employee, and Heena was the terrifying boss calling the shots.

Grumbling, he decided to let go of his missed soap opera moment and focus on the actual mission.

He padded across the inn table with the particular dignity of a small creature who had decided that every surface it walked upon was its own personal throne, and settled beside Heena’s teacup. He was small enough to fit in the gap between the cup and the bread basket — a translucent lion no bigger than a house cat, his mane a faint shimmer of gold that caught no light because it produced its own. His tail flicked once against the wood, the last physical evidence of his sulk, and then he looked up at her.

Around them, the inn moved through its ordinary afternoon. The innkeeper’s wife crossed the room with a tray of soup. Samuel stood at a respectful distance, hands clasped, professionally elsewhere in his mind. A merchant at the far table was locked in passionate debate with his travel partner over what appeared to be a very disputed invoice. Nobody saw the lion. Nobody heard him. He existed entirely for Heena, a secret tucked into the corner of her vision, and she had long since stopped finding that strange.

"So," the System said, his voice arriving directly inside her head — casual, conversational, carrying the particular warmth of someone who had been her companion long enough to drop all pretense of professionalism. "What do we do next? The capital is huge, and the mission is still sitting there giving us the look. Are we doing this now or shelving it?"

He studied her face, the way he always did when he was genuinely curious rather than just filling silence.

"You look way too calm, by the way. You’re not worried at all, are you."

It wasn’t quite a question.

"Because I’m not," Heena replied smoothly, lifting her tea.

To Samuel she presumably looked like a composed noblewoman in quiet contemplation. In reality she was having a conversation with a glowing miniature lion parked next to her bread roll.

"Okay but do you have an actual plan," the System asked, "or are you going to rush inside their house like a maniac?"

Heena set her teacup down with a sharp ’clink’ and shot a withering look at the empty air just above his head — the closest she could manage without making it obvious to the room that she was glaring at something invisible.

"Why the hell," she said, voice low and crisp, "would I rush into a Marquis’s heavily guarded estate without a plan? Do you think I’m an idiot?"

"Oh, so you do have a plan."

"Do you think I act without a plan ’all’ the time?"

The System didn’t answer.

He just looked at her. Still, patient, his pale gold eyes carrying the weight of everything he had personally witnessed over the course of their time together. His tail, which had been resting quietly, gave one slow, deliberate swish.

He didn’t need to say a word. The silence said it plainly enough: ’Yes. Genuinely, with love, yes you do.’

Heena took a very deep, very measured breath.

Across the room, Samuel’s expression flickered for half a second with something that might have been concern before resettling into professional blankness.

"Whatever," Heena said, with a smile that was doing a lot of heavy lifting in the sincerity department. "Let me educate you. Simple question, System — do you think that no matter how badly behaved your own dog is, you would kill it just to save some random stray off the street?"

The System blinked. "What? No. Obviously not. You take care of your own dog. That’s just basic sense."

"Exactly." She leaned back, fingers tapping a slow rhythm against the table. "Even the most ruthless businessmen understand this. You prioritize your own assets, your own blood. You don’t burn your empire down for a stranger."

She let that sit for a beat, watching him.

"So." Her eyes darkened, the calculating edge sliding back into her gaze like a blade being drawn quietly. "Does it make any logical sense for a mother to brutally murder her own biological child just to protect an adopted son?"

The System tilted his head, ears forward. "I mean — maybe? If the attachment was strong enough. She raised him as a groom. Maybe it became genuinely maternal over the years. People form deep bonds with children they raise, blood or not."

Heena looked at him.

She looked at him the way one looks at a very confident student who has just answered a question with tremendous energy and complete wrongness.

"You’re an AI," she said, with something that managed to be fond and pitying at the same time, "and it shows. You really don’t understand the ugly side of human emotions."

"Okay, rude—"

"First." She held up a finger. "Even if attachment forms, it forms because that person has a quality the mother values. The four adopted grooms are handsome, yes, but they aren’t exceptional. They aren’t irreplaceable."

A second finger joined the first. "Second — why would a mother kill her ’own’ child just because the daughter discovered the adopted son was stealing from their house? That defies every aristocratic instinct. You cover it up. You manage it quietly. You don’t murder your heir over theft. That’s not desperation, that’s catastrophic overreaction."

"Okay," the System said slowly, following the thread. "I’m with you. Keep going."

He had stopped looking merely curious. His tail had gone still. She knew that stillness — it was the one that meant he was genuinely engaged, chasing something alongside her rather than just listening.

She leaned forward slightly, dropping her voice into the register she used when the room needed to stay ignorant.

"Out of the four adopted grooms, three were chosen by the Marquis. The eldest — the one who pushed Seera off the mountain — was chosen specifically by the mother."

"Wait." The System’s ears shot up. "What does that change?"

"Everything." The cold smile came back, slow and satisfied. "Because the three boys the father chose have actual merit. One is an excellent scholar, one manages the estate with real competence, the third is a natural at social navigation. They have value. They would survive without the Marquis’s name behind them."

She let out a soft, precise scoff. "But the one the ’mother’ chose? Painfully average. Strip away the silk robes and the borrowed title and he is an entirely unremarkable commoner. No exceptional talent. No outstanding quality. Nothing."

The System stared at her. "So why did she pick him."

"That," Heena said, "is exactly the right question." She held his gaze, her voice dropping quieter still, silk over something much colder. "Why would an aristocratic mother push her exceptionally capable biological daughter off a mountain to elevate an aggressively mediocre boy with no blood connection to her whatsoever?"