Return of Black Lotus system:Taming Cheating Male Leads

Chapter 507: Chapter-507

”You are an absolute nightmare, Wife,” Samuel whispered, his voice thick with an emotion he was desperately trying to suppress. ”I leave the estate for a few hours to handle a logistical issue, and you decide to spontaneously collapse?”

”My timing... is impeccable,” Heena managed a faint, mocking smirk, though her eyes were heavy with exhaustion.

Samuel let out a humorless, breathless chuckle, his thumb gently stroking her temple. ”I am going to fire every single guard stationed outside your door.”

”Don’t,” Heena murmured, letting her eyes slide shut as the cool energy from Seera pulsed rhythmically in her mind. ”Not their fault. Just... get these needles out of me. I hate being a pincushion.”

Samuel looked up, his gaze instantly snapping back to the terrified physician. The lethal, commanding aura returned in full force.

”You heard the Madam,” Samuel ordered coldly. ”Remove the needles. Carefully. And if she so much as flinches, I will test them all out on you.”

The physician knelt by the side of the bed, his hands shaking so badly that the heavy meridian clamps practically rattled against each other.

Technically, he did not need to follow a single order from the man sitting on the edge of the mattress. The physician was a master of his craft, a highly sought-after medical genius who had treated the most powerful nobles in the empire. He knew the face of every duke, count, and minister in the capital.

He had never seen Samuel before in his entire life.

Logically, Samuel was either a noble of such pitifully low rank that he wasn’t worth remembering, or he was an absolute nobody pulled from the mud. In any normal household, the physician could have easily scoffed, shut the man up, and demanded respect for his medical authority.

But this was not a normal household.

The physician swallowed hard, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck as Samuel’s dark, murderous gaze bored into the side of his head. He was smart enough to look past the surface. The young Madam of this estate was a terrifying, calculating monster who had brought the imperial court to its knees in two days. The old Marquis and his wife were legendary, blood-soaked veterans.

How could the groom personally chosen by that terrifying trio possibly be an ordinary man?

Even if the physician didn’t respect Samuel’s unknown origins, he possessed a deep, primal respect for the sheer, suffocating power standing behind him. And right now, the murderous intent radiating from Samuel felt entirely too similar to the old Marquis on a battlefield.

Trembling, the physician swallowed his pride and carefully reached for the first silver needle embedded in Heena’s neck.

”I... I will remove them now, My Lord,” the physician stammered, holding his breath as he delicately pinched the very tip of the silver needle.

With practiced, agonizingly slow precision, he drew the first needle out. Heena didn’t flinch. Her breathing remained steady, the cool energy from Seera’s soul keeping her nervous system completely calm.

The physician moved to her chest, pulling the next set of needles, and then finally unlocked the heavy meridian clamps on her palms. The moment the metal pinched off her skin, a rush of warm blood visibly flooded back into her pale fingers.

Lastly, he reached for the longest needle lodged directly between her eyebrows. He pulled it out with a swift, clean motion, immediately pressing a sterile piece of cotton against the microscopic drop of blood that welled up.

”The... the immediate danger has passed,” the physician whispered, bowing his head so low it practically touched the mattress. ”Her meridians are flowing. The physical tension is gone. She simply needs rest.”

”Get out,” Samuel ordered, his voice dangerously quiet.

The physician didn’t need to be told twice. He hastily shoved his tools into his wooden medical box, snapped it shut, and scrambled backward toward the door. The terrified maids took the hint as well, bowing frantically before fleeing the bedchamber, pulling the heavy oak doors shut behind them.

The room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence.

Samuel didn’t move. He remained sitting on the edge of the bed, staring down at Heena. The frantic, chaotic energy of the emergency had faded, leaving behind a thick, unresolved tension between them.

Heena let out a long, slow breath and opened her eyes fully. The blurry edges of her vision had sharpened. She tried to push herself up onto her elbows, but her muscles screamed in protest, completely exhausted from the violent spasms.

Before she could even struggle, Samuel’s hand was on her shoulder, gently but firmly pressing her back flat against the pillows.

”Do not move,” he said flatly.

”I am fine,” Heena muttered, batting his hand away with whatever weak strength she could muster. ”The pain is completely gone. I just feel like I was trampled by a herd of horses.”

Samuel didn’t smile. He reached over to a silver basin resting on the bedside table, dipped a clean cloth into the warm water, and wrung it out. He leaned over and began to wipe the cold, dried sweat from her face and neck.

His touch was incredibly gentle, contrasting sharply with the furious storm brewing in his dark eyes.

”You were convulsing on the floor when I arrived at the estate,” Samuel said, his voice dropping into a low, terrifyingly calm register. ”Your jaw was locked so tightly the maids thought your teeth were going to shatter. You were screaming for your mother. Do you want to try looking me in the eye and telling me you are fine again?”

Heena looked away, staring at the heavy silk canopy above her. She hated this. She hated the vulnerability, the exposure, and the absolute lack of control.

”It was a flare-up,” Heena deflected smoothly, forcing her voice to remain indifferent. ”The chemical suppressants I took earlier clashed with my nervous system. It won’t happen again.”

Samuel stopped wiping her face. He tossed the damp cloth back into the basin with a sharp splash and leaned closer, planting his hands on either side of her shoulders, effectively trapping her.

Samuel froze. The frantic, murderous tension in his shoulders suddenly stalled, replaced by a sharp, highly suspicious confusion.

”Chemicals?” Samuel repeated, his dark eyes narrowing dangerously as he analyzed the strange, foreign word she had just used. ”What type of supplement?”

Heena’s internal alarm bells instantly went off. ’Damn it.’

In her exhaustion and the lingering fog of the medical collapse, she had slipped up. She had completely forgotten that she was strictly hiding the terminal nature of her illness, and the word ’chemicals’ didn’t even exist in the standard medical vocabulary of this era.

She forced her expression to remain entirely blank. She looked him dead in the eye, not blinking, and smoothly pivoted her lie.

”It was a tonic,” Heena stated calmly, her voice dripping with practiced nonchalance. ”A highly concentrated herbal tonic to boost my physical strength.”

Samuel stared at her in utter shock. The sheer, absolute disbelief radiated from his face as he processed her excuse.

”Are you a fool?” Samuel demanded, his voice dropping into a harsh, scolding whisper so the grandparents wouldn’t catch the full extent of their conversation. He looked at her as if she had completely lost her mind. ”Why the hell would you take so much aggressive medicine just for ’strength’? If you want physical strength, then eat your meals on time! Sleep on time! You don’t just poison your own body with concentrated herbs to skip a good night’s rest!”