Return of Black Lotus system:Taming Cheating Male Leads

Chapter 631: Chapter -631

The grandmother paused beneath one of the ancient trees. She turned to face her husband, her sharp, experienced eyes filled with a terrifying, helpless clarity.

"My dear," the grandmother said in a grave, quiet tone that made the old Marquis’s blood run completely cold. "People do not only die from an enemy’s assassination or a poisoned cup of wine."

The grandfather completely froze.

His massive fists began to tremble violently. The realization hit him like a physical blow to the chest, shattering his armor of denial. He had spent his entire life protecting his family from external threats, completely forgetting that the human body itself could become a fatal battlefield.

"So... you mean..." the grandfather stammered, his voice breaking entirely as tears finally welled up in his fierce, weathered eyes. "She is..."

The grandmother looked away, staring out at the barren garden. A single tear slipped down her powdered cheek, which she quickly wiped away with a steady hand.

"I did not mean anything," the grandmother whispered, though they both knew it was a lie. "Right now, she needs us to plan a wedding. So that is exactly what we are going to do."

The grandfather’s broad shoulders slumped. The legendary warrior, who had never shed a tear on the bloodiest of battlefields, suddenly looked incredibly old and fragile.

"I will tear the empire apart," he whispered, his voice cracking with a desperate, heavy panic. "I will find every physician, every divine monk, every herbalist from here to the northern borders. I won’t let her just... fade away. I can’t."

The grandmother reached out, her wrinkled hand firmly gripping his trembling fist.

"And what if she doesn’t want to spend her final days being prodded by useless doctors?" the grandmother asked softly, her eyes entirely clear and steady. "You saw her eyes. She is a Vanguard. She has already made her peace, and she has drawn her battle lines. If you start dragging physicians into the estate now, you will ruin the one thing she is desperately trying to finish."

The grandfather closed his eyes, a single tear escaping and tracking down his weathered cheek. "Three days," he choked out, the reality of the timeline crushing him. "She wants a wedding in three days."

"Then you will give her a wedding in three days," the grandmother commanded, her own voice thick with unshed tears but absolute in its resolve. "You will make it so grand, so blindingly beautiful, that the entire capital will talk about it for a century. Do not mourn her while she is still breathing. Follow her orders, General."

The grandfather took a deep, shuddering breath. He opened his eyes, the grief still there, but rapidly being eclipsed by a fierce, protective fire. He nodded once, turning toward the estate’s main armory to mobilize his troops for the most aggressive, militarized shopping spree in imperial history.

Meanwhile, the capital was being subjected to the absolute, unhinged terror of a desperate scholar.

Samuel did not politely request services. He didn’t send messengers or negotiate. He personally kicked down the doors of the most exclusive silk merchants in the city, flanked by heavily armed shadow guards. When the head of the Weaver’s Guild stammered that dyeing a hundred bolts of royal red wedding silk would take at least three weeks, Samuel casually dropped a chest of solid gold bars onto the man’s table, followed immediately by a naked, razor-sharp broadsword.

The silk, miraculously, would be ready by tomorrow morning.

He bought out entire markets for the banquet. He commandeered the empire’s best jewelers, forcing them to work through the night under the watchful eyes of assassins to forge a flawless golden phoenix coronet for his bride. The civil officials, who were already panicking over the Ministry of Revenue’s collapse, locked their doors in terror as Samuel’s men tore through the streets, completely ignoring imperial curfews and aristocratic etiquette.

Back in the underground war room, Heena sat wrapped in a thick fur cloak, shivering slightly despite the burning brazier nearby. The heavy dose of painkillers had taken the sharpest edge off the agony in her head, leaving her in a numb, floating state of hyper-focus.

Kael stood before her, dressed entirely in black stealth armor. The elite Vanguard shadow guards were fully prepped and waiting in the dark.

"The capital is in utter chaos, Madam," Kael reported, a rare, highly amused smirk crossing his scarred face. "Lord Samuel has practically declared war on the merchant districts. The Imperial City Guard is too terrified to stop him, and the civil court is entirely distracted trying to figure out why the Vanguard Marquis just bought ten thousand red lanterns."

Heena let out a soft, genuine laugh, though the movement made her head throb in protest.

"Perfect," Heena murmured, leaning her elbows on the map table. "The old foxes are looking at the wedding preparations. They are looking at my grandfather’s ridiculous spending, and they are looking at Samuel’s rampage. No one is looking at the imperial archives."

She tapped her metal-clad finger directly onto the blueprint of the Ministry of Rites.

"Tonight, you break into their central compound," Heena ordered, her dark eyes turning completely dead to mercy. "I don’t just want the forged exams. I want the original, unaltered answer sheets of the brilliant commoner scholars they failed on purpose. I want the secret ledgers showing the exact bribes the noble families paid to secure their idiot sons’ passing grades. Take every single piece of paper."

"And if anyone gets in our way?" Kael asked, his hand resting on the hilt of his dagger. "We leave no witnesses?"

"No," Heena corrected softly, a chilling, sociopathic smile crossing her pale lips. "You leave exactly one witness. Make sure the Minister of Rites himself sees you walking out with his entire legacy. I want him to spend the entire night knowing exactly what is coming for him at tomorrow’s morning court."

The capital of the empire had never seen anything quite like it. In the span of twenty-four hours, the entire economic ecosystem of the city was violently hijacked by two deeply unhinged men: the old Vanguard Marquis and the scholar Samuel.

Normally, aristocratic families would spend months politely bartering and bidding for the finest red wedding silks, the rarest spices, and the most prestigious banquet chefs. Samuel did not barter. He didn’t even negotiate.

He simply dispatched his personal shadow guards to every premium silk pavilion in the capital. They walked in, slammed heavy chests of solid gold onto the wooden counters, and bought every single thread of red silk in the city. When a few wealthy civil officials tried to protest that their own daughters needed the silk for upcoming marriages, Samuel’s guards simply stared at them with dead, murderous eyes until the officials nervously backed away and decided their daughters could wear pink instead.

The Emperor himself received the wedding petition that morning. Sitting on his golden throne, he stared at the document, entirely speechless. The ink was barely dry, and it demanded an imperial blessing for a wedding happening in forty-eight hours. The Emperor rubbed his temples, suddenly realizing exactly why Heena had demanded absolute marital freedom in her five conditions. She was using his own imperial authority to force the civil court to attend her wedding while she simultaneously plotted their destruction.

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