Return of Black Lotus system:Taming Cheating Male Leads

Chapter 416: Chapter-416

They slowly made their way to the grandmother’s courtyard. The Grandfather kept a supportive hand near her, while Samuel—acting as her silent, sturdy anchor—carefully guided her steps.

The Grand Madam was already standing outside. The moment her eyes fell on Heena, her face crumpled with worry. She rushed forward, pulling her into a tight embrace.

”My poor baby! What on earth happened to you?”

She pulled back, her eyes landing squarely on the dark, swelling red handprint fracturing Heena’s pale cheek. In an instant, a terrifying, furious rage ignited in the old woman’s eyes.

”How dare they?! Who did this?!” she bellowed, whipping her head around to glare at her husband with absolute venom.

The Grandfather—the literal god of war who had just casually swatted his own son like a sack of potatoes—visibly shivered under his wife’s murderous glare. He raised his hands defensively. ”It wasn’t me! I swear! He... he actually raised his hand against her!”

”What type of useless person are you?!” the grandmother shrieked, poking him hard in the chest with her finger. ”You call yourself a military general, yet you can’t even protect your own granddaughter in your own home, huh?!”

The Grandfather swallowed hard, looking entirely smaller than his towering frame. ”It was that damn son of mine...”

”You and your terrible genes!” the grandmother snapped back.

The Grandfather just took it all on the chin, nodding pitifully. ’Yeah, it’s all my fault. My genes. I should have beaten him harder,’ his miserable expression seemed to say.

Watching the legendary, terrifying former Marquis get thoroughly dismantled by his wife, Heena suddenly couldn’t hold it in anymore. She covered her face with her hands and burst into genuine, breathless laughter.

The old couple stopped bickering instantly, turning to look at her in surprise.

But Heena couldn’t help it. Seeing a couple spark and fight like this at their age only proved how fiercely they actually loved each other. The Grandfather was a man who could command armies, who held absolute physical and political power, yet he was completely terrified of his wife. It was the kind of fear born out of pure devotion. And the grandmother, though screaming about wanting to throttle him, was still checking him up and down with deep, lingering care in her eyes.

’The original Seera definitely got her real genes from these two,’ Heena thought, her chest warming slightly. ’Not from that useless pair in the main hall.’

The grandmother huffed, crossing her arms. ”What are you looking at, huh? First you get beaten up so badly that your face is ruined, and now you’re standing there laughing?”

The Grandfather chimed in supportively, ”Yes! You should have fought back, sweetheart!”

The grandmother swung around, immediately shooting him down. ”Oh, sure! Now you’re teaching my granddaughter how to fight back, you old bastard? You don’t understand a damn thing!”

Heena pressed her hand to her aching cheek, still giggling. Her face hurt like hell, but the sheer absurdity of the domestic warmth around her was overwhelming.

In reality, she had planned every single detail of this morning. She had orchestrated the absolute wreckage of her parents’ patience, and she had specifically ordered the System to alert her the exact second the Grandfather’s carriage crossed into the estate lines. Everything had gone flawlessly according to her script.

Though, to be honest, the slap had been a gamble.

She had calculated a 70% chance that the Marquis would lose his mind and strike her, and a 30% chance he would hold back. After all, the Marquis was a high-ranking general and a highly educated nobleman. A person with a functioning brain shouldn’t have lost their composure so easily, especially when it was entirely obvious that Heena was baiting them on purpose.

But his fragile, bloated pride had gotten the better of him. He had taken the bait, hooked it, and completely ruined his own standing with the true masters of the house.

Heena smiled through the dull throb in her jaw, letting Samuel steady her as the old couple started bickering again. She had won the psychological warfare, completely alienating her parents from the grandparents. But as she felt the deep, structural tiredness lurking inside Seera’s failing body, a small, ironic thought crossed her mind.

’I won the game completely,’ she thought quietly. ’But at the same time, this body is still losing.’

The grandmother reached out and touched Heena’s uninjured cheek, before giving it a sudden, sharp pinch.

”Shut the heck up!” the old woman scolded, though her eyes were entirely soft. ”Stop bluffing! You think I don’t know you did that on purpose?”

An old nanny standing nearby quickly stepped forward, handing the Grand Madam a warm, freshly boiled egg wrapped in a thin cloth. The grandmother took it and gently pressed it against the swelling handprint. The sudden heat against Heena’s throbbing skin made her wince, her eyes instinctively watering from the sting.

Seeing her flinch, Samuel didn’t even hesitate. Completely bypassing estate etiquette, his massive hand reached out and hurriedly but gently took the egg right out of the Grand Madam’s fingers.

He bent down, bringing his face close to Heena’s. Beneath his wooden cat mask, his breath was incredibly gentle as he softly blew on her bruised cheek, trying to cool the sting before lightly, meticulously rolling the warm egg over the swelling.

Heena looked at him, a helpless smile returning to her lips. Well, the cat was officially out of the bag.

The Grandfather stared at Samuel, his chest puffing out as his protective instincts flared. Just from the sheer glare on his face, you could tell the old general desperately wanted to throw the guard out of the courtyard for being so forward with his granddaughter. But before he could even take a step, the grandmother reached over and pinched his waist so tightly he almost jumped.

”Let the young people do their business, you old man,” she muttered, pulling him back.

The Grandfather couldn’t argue with her, so he just lowered his head, grumbling under his breath.

The grandmother, meanwhile, watched Samuel with deeply testing, calculating eyes. Seeing the sheer urgency and tenderness in the way he had snatched the egg just to stop Heena’s pain, the old woman could easily guess exactly how deeply this young man loved her granddaughter.

Her gaze shifted away, turning incredibly dark as she thought about her own son back in the main hall. ’Look at the absolute garbage I raised,’ she thought bitterly, a heavy sigh escaping her lips.

In front of them, Heena was entirely distracted, giggling as she tried to playfully swat Samuel’s hand away to take the egg herself. Samuel didn’t let her, stubbornly dodging her fingers while continuing to blow on her cheek, completely focused on making the swelling go down.

Watching them, a grim but resolute realization settled into the grandmother’s mind. She and her husband had been seriously planning on retiring, leaving the estate entirely to the next generation. But looking at the spineless, cruel mess her son had made of things, she knew it wasn’t time to step down yet.

’Looks like we need to take back the power completely,’ the grandmother thought, her jaw tightening. She would just have to fix her parenting mistakes by ensuring the estate went directly to Heena—and she would protect her granddaughter’s peace until the girl was ready to take it all.