Return of Black Lotus system:Taming Cheating Male Leads

Chapter 383 --383

She pointed a manicured finger directly at the System, her gaze cold enough to freeze water.

"Do not just file one of your useless standard reports," she commanded. "Connect directly with the high-ranking authorities—specifically that female officer we dealt with during our last evaluation. Contact the specialized containment unit we handed that rogue system over to. Tell them about the situation here, and explicitly state my suspicion." She lowered her voice to a dangerous hum. "Someone deliberately rigged our queue. They dumped us into this cosmic death trap as retaliation for that bust, and I refuse to play along quietly."

Hearing the sheer, unadulterated gravity in her voice, the little golden lion’s playful demeanor completely vanished. He straightened his tiny back, executing a rigid, military-grade nod.

’[Understood, Host. Escalating the trace to the Senior Internal Affairs Officer and transmitting your formal suspicion now. I’ll keep the channel completely hidden from the local world consciousness.]’

’Good.’

.

.

.

Soon, the deep, oppressive weight of the night fell over the sprawling Marquis estate, wrapping the opulent corridors in a heavy, suffocating silence. In her lavish new bed, Heena was resting with one eye open. Not literally, of course, but her consciousness remained hovering right on the razor’s edge of sleep. In a den of vipers like this, sleeping deeply was a luxury reserved exclusively for the dead. Who knew if one of those four treacherous grooms—or her murderous biological mother—would try to slip a knife between her ribs before dawn?

As she lay perfectly still beneath the heavy silk blankets, her trained ears caught it.

The faintest, almost imperceptible whisper of friction.

It wasn’t coming from the heavy main doors. Nor was it from the adjacent room where Samuel was supposed to be sleeping.

It was coming from the terrace window.

’Click.’

The window latch was subtly bypassed. The wooden frame creaked with microscopic slowness, a sound only a veteran surviver would catch. Heena felt the sudden, minute shift in the room’s air pressure as a dark silhouette slipped inside, stepping weightlessly onto the plush carpet.

Without moving a single muscle, Heena slid her hand beneath the goose-down pillow. Her fingers wrapped tightly around the cold, textured hilt of the steel knife she had hidden there—her most trusted bedtime companion. She closed her eyes entirely, tracking the intruder’s movements purely by the shifting shadows and the faint, treacherous rustle of expensive fabric.

The person crept nearer. Step by silent step, they approached the side of the bed.

Heena waited. Her heart rate remained perfectly steady, a cold, rhythmic thud in her chest. She let them close the distance, indulging their false sense of security until they were practically looming over her.

The moment the silhouette leaned down over her sleeping form, Heena’s eyes snapped open—completely alert, sharp, and absolutely lethal.

In one terrifyingly swift, fluid motion, she lunged upward. The heavy silk blankets fell away as she whipped the knife out from beneath the pillow, driving the point directly toward the intruder’s throat. She wasn’t hesitating; she was fully prepared to drive the blade deep into his neck in a split second and ask questions later.

But just as the razor-sharp edge grazed the delicate skin of his Adam’s apple, a frantic, desperate whisper broke the heavy silence.

"Help, my....!"

Heena froze mid-strike.

Her blade hovered exactly a millimeter away from piercing flesh. Hearing that incredibly familiar, utterly dramatic voice, her brain short-circuited for a fraction of a second. She hurriedly tried to scan his face, but the deep shadows of the room offered very little clarity. The faint, dying stubs of a few candles on the nightstand barely illuminated his outline, and the heavy velvet drapes blocked out the moonlight entirely.

Keeping her iron grip firm on the hilt, she kept the intruder pinned as she reached out with her free hand toward the brass lantern resting on the side table. She twisted the dial, powering the wick further up until the bright, warm glow of the flame flooded the entire bedroom.

The sudden light illuminated a sharp jawline, messy dark hair, and a pair of wide, deeply panicked eyes staring at their own reflection in her steel.

’Samuel!’

Heena stared at him. Her chest heaved as she took a few sharp, ragged breaths, forcibly reigning in the sudden rush of adrenaline that had prepared her body for a kill.

Samuel looked cross-eyed down at the lethal piece of steel still practically vibrating against his throat. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing dangerously against the edge of the blade.

"Wife..." he choked out, his voice a pathetic squeak of its usual dramatic self. "Please, I beg of you... lower this knife."

Heena was completely dumbfounded. She slowly lowered the blade, her expression shifting rapidly from that of a cold-blooded assassin to one of absolute, unbridled fury.

"Are you completely crazy or what?!"

Samuel winced slightly and used a single, careful finger to slowly push the tip of the knife away from his throat. He forced a charming, if slightly shaken, smile onto his lips. "Well... I just came to check if you were sleeping or not. And there was a question running through my mind..."

Heena stared at him in utter, breathless disbelief. "Have you completely gone crazy?! If anyone had seen you sneaking in through the window, or if my knife had been just a fraction of a second faster, you would have died right here on this floor, you absolute fool!"

Samuel looked at her with wide, pathetic puppy-dog eyes, rubbing his neck where the steel had just rested. "Well, I didn’t know you’d react like that. Anyway, who on earth sleeps with a lethal knife tucked under their pillow?"

Heena didn’t appreciate the deflection. In a flash, she flipped the blade in her hand and pointed it right back at his throat. "Me. Any problem with that?"

Samuel froze again, his eyes tracking the cold metal. He quickly shook his head, swallowing hard. "No, no. No problem at all, wife."

Heena let out a sharp, irritated breath and lowered the blade. "Come here. Sit down."

As the adrenaline began to fade, her eyes caught a small, crimson trail of blood blooming on his neck where she had pressed the knife a bit too firmly. A sudden pang of guilt hit her, followed immediately by sharp annoyance. She walked over to the grand wooden wardrobe, rummaging through the shelves until she pulled out a small first-aid box. Even in this ancient, non-modern world, high-ranking noble houses kept medical kits. There was no modern hand sanitizer or advanced antibiotics, but there was high-proof alcohol and a jar of soothing herbal salve for scratches and cuts.

She marched back over to him, dipped a clean cotton cloth into the alcohol, and dabbed it directly onto the nick on his neck.

Samuel violently hissed in pain, flinching back. "Ouch—!"

"Hold still!" Heena snapped, completely annoyed. She raised her free hand and smacked him right on top of his head. "I honestly just don’t understand you. Before we got married, you used to be this incredibly cool, collected, and dignified scholar. How the hell did you turn into such a reckless fool in just a matter of days?"