Return of Black Lotus system:Taming Cheating Male Leads

Chapter 381 --381

Once Samuel had quietly retreated into his new quarters to unpack, the heavy main doors closed, leaving Heena entirely alone.

Heena let out a long, exhausted sigh. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, but when she opened them, a familiar holographic shimmer materialized in the center of the room. The System—in his usual form of a fluffy little lion—hopped out of the digital ether.

However, instead of his usual cocky or playful attitude, the little lion was looking up at her with an incredibly pitiful, wide-eyed gaze.

Heena’s instincts flared. She knew that look all too well. Whenever this digital ball of fur looked at her with that specific, deeply regretful expression, it meant he had completely messed something up.

She fixed him with a cold, unblinking stare. "What did you do now?"

The little lion instantly avoided her gaze, his fluffy tail tucking between his legs as he looked at the floorboards. "Um... not much, Host."

"How exactly is it ’not much’ if you can’t even look me in the eye?" Heena pressed, her voice dropping into a dangerously low register.

The System swallowed hard, his holographic paws shifting nervously. "Um, actually... about that... there is a slight, tiny problem with this mission."

The moment the words ’"problem"’ and ’"mission"’ hit Heena’s ears together in the same sentence, it felt like an absolute short circuit had just happened inside her brain. She instantly froze, the color draining from her face before a surge of hot rage took over.

She stood up so fast her chair screeched against the floor. She stared down at the little lion in utter, towering disbelief.

"What the hell did you do?!" she hissed, her eyes widening as her temper flared.

This was absolutely not a joke. In her line of work, a "problem with the mission" could mean anything from timeline corruption to absolute failure. If the System had screwed up the parameters, or if she had unintentionally done something that violated the core script, everything she had built toward would crumble. Her hard work, her elaborate revenge, the careful plotting—all of it would be completely finished.

Her mind flashed back to her grueling start in this world. ’’Then what the hell did I take all those beatings and that servant nonsense for?!’’ she screamed internally. If this little furball had ruined her perfect payback against the Marquis family, she was going to turn him into a rug.

The little lion practically shrank into a tiny ball of fluff, his digital ears pinning flat against his head as he hovered a few inches off the ground, desperately trying to keep some distance between himself and Heena’s radiating fury.

’[H-Host, please calm down! Don’t look at me like you’re about to skin me and turn me into a digital coat!]’ the System squeaked, his robotic voice cracking slightly in panic.

"I am giving you exactly three seconds to start talking before I find a way to manually format your database," Heena whispered, her voice dangerously calm, though her hands were tightly clenched into fists at her sides. "One."

’[Okay, okay! I’ll talk!]’ The little lion waved his paws frantically in the air. ’[You know how you were just wondering in the bath why there was absolutely zero cosmic backlash in this world? Why everything felt a little too easy, and why the Guide of this world seemed completely absent?]’

Heena’s eyes narrowed, her analytical mind immediately connecting the dots. "Go on."

The System let out a heavy, simulated sigh, finally looking up at her with a deeply apologetic, miserable expression. ’[Well... it turns out the Guide didn’t just abandon this world or get lazy. The Guide is dead, Host. Or rather, their consciousness was completely fractured and overwritten. And the reason we aren’t facing any cosmic backlash for changing Seera’s fate is because the original plot line we were given... it’s a dummy text. It’s a completely fake script.]’

A profound, suffocating silence descended upon the lavish bedroom. Heena felt a cold sweat break out across the back of her neck.

"A fake script?" she repeated, her voice dripping with sheer venom. "Are you telling me that the Marquis, the Marchioness, the four idiot grooms, and this entire revenge setup... none of it is the actual main storyline of this world?"

’[N-Not exactly,]’ the System stuttered, backing away another inch. ’[The revenge part is real for Seera, yes! Her tragedy happened, and the family is definitely evil. But they aren’t the ’protagonists’ or the center of the world’s consciousness. The real main plot, the one that anchors the entire stability of this universe, is currently unfolding completely outside our radar. We are basically playing a high-stakes side quest while the actual world-ending crisis is brewing somewhere else!]’

Heena closed her eyes, taking a deep, ragged breath to prevent herself from throwing a priceless antique vase directly at the holographic lion. She thought about her aching lower back, the months she spent scrubbing floors as a common servant, the elaborate amnesia lie she had just meticulously spun for the high nobility, and how she had just wrapped the grandmother around her little finger—all to execute a flawless, calculated revenge against the Marquis household.

And now, her idiot System was telling her they were in the wrong theater.

"If we are on a side quest," Heena said, opening her eyes, her gaze piercing through the little lion like a pair of ice picks, "then who the hell is the actual favored child of this world? Who is the real protagonist we are supposed to be tracking?"

The System swallowed hard, his little tail trembling. ’[That’s the worst part, Host. Because the Guide’s consciousness was shattered, the world’s hidden narrative has completely glitched. The true protagonist isn’t a hero saving the kingdom. According to the deep data dive I just managed to pull... the real favored child of this world is currently on a path that will completely collapse the universe’s core. And if they collapse... we get dragged down into the void with them.]’

Heena stood entirely still, the silence in the lavish bedroom turning heavy and suffocating. Her mind, usually a hyper-efficient calculator, took exactly two seconds to process the absolute absurdity of the situation.

"A glitch," she muttered, her voice dropping into a register that made the little holographic lion shiver. "A corrupted protagonist on a path to total annihilation, a dead Guide, and a fake script. And you’re telling me this ’now’? After I just ruined a golden wedding anniversary, brought an imperial prince to a standstill, and successfully gaslit the most terrifying matriarch in the capital?"

The System practically flattened himself onto the floor drapes, his glowing paws covering his eyes. ’[Host, I swear it wasn’t my fault! The data encryption on a fractured world is incredibly dense! I only managed to breach the core mainframe because you successfully shifted the power dynamics of the Marquis estate today. The massive shift in the household’s fate cracked the world’s hidden barrier, allowing me to see the true energy flow!]’

Heena rubbed her temples, feeling a genuine headache forming right behind her eyes. "Fine. Stop whimpering and give me the core data. Who is this so-called favored child, and what exactly are they doing to collapse the world?"