Chapter 250: Chapter-250

The warm feelings, the love, the joy, the pain of leaving—all of it had been carefully extracted by the System’s contract protocols the moment she returned to the Transmigration Bureau between worlds.

So when she looked at Samuel—who had an identical face to someone named Larus from a previous mission—she felt nothing beyond mild surprise at the physical coincidence.

No heartache.

No longing.

No emotional connection whatsoever.

Just a cold, strategic assessment: ’This person looks like someone from a previous world. Interesting. But ultimately irrelevant to my current mission.’

It was exactly what she had wanted when she signed that contract.

Emotional freedom. Professional distance. The ability to move from world to world without being weighed down by accumulated grief and loss.

Some might call it cold. Inhuman, even.

But Heena called it practical.

And it was precisely this practical, emotionally detached approach that had made her one of the most successful transmigration agents in the entire Bureau system.

She could do what needed to be done without hesitation.

She could form relationships, use people, discard them, and move on without guilt.

She could complete missions that would destroy other Hosts emotionally.

Because she simply didn’t ’feel’ the emotional consequences.

The contract had made her efficient. Effective. Unstoppable.

And right now, looking at Samuel’s face—a face that meant nothing to her beyond its potential strategic usefulness—she felt only one thing:

Determination to use whatever tools were available to escape her current situation and complete this mission successfully.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Just as she preferred it.

.

.

[Inside the Dining Room ]’’

Meanwhile, inside the dining room, Samuel was calmly taking bites of the food in front of him, his expression completely neutral.

The old Master looked at him with barely concealed irritation and spoke up sharply:

“You’ve returned home and you haven’t even greeted your mother properly. Where are your manners?”

Samuel looked at him with cool, emotionless eyes and said in a perfectly calm voice:

“Well, I would have greeted her if she were actually my mother.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees.

Maya’s face went pale, her chopsticks freezing halfway to her mouth.

The old Master’s face turned red with anger. “What did you just say?!”

Samuel continued eating calmly, as if he’d just commented on the weather rather than delivering a calculated insult.

“I said what I said, Father. This woman is your wife. She is not my mother. My mother died when I was seven years old. I see no reason to pretend otherwise.”

“You insolent—!” The old man slammed his hand on the table, making the dishes rattle. “How DARE you speak to your elders this way! Maya has been part of this family for years! She has cared for this household—”

“She has cared for ’you’,” Samuel interrupted, his voice still maddeningly calm. “Which is her duty as your wife. But she has no relationship with me beyond being my father’s current spouse.”

He took another bite of food, chewed, swallowed, then continued:

“I greet you as the head of this household because that is proper respect for a father. But I will not perform false affection for someone who means nothing to me.”

Maya, who had been sitting in shocked silence, finally found her voice. Her eyes were filled with tears—whether real or performed, it was hard to tell.

“Samuel, how can you be so cruel? I have always tried to be kind to you—”

“You have been polite,” Samuel corrected, still not looking at her directly. “Which is different from kindness. And I have been equally polite in return. I fail to see the problem.”

The old Master stood up abruptly, his chair scraping loudly against the floor.

“The problem is your ATTITUDE! Your disrespect! You come into this house acting like you’re better than everyone else!”

“I simply act according to the facts,” Samuel said, finally looking up at his father with those cold, serene eyes. “You married this woman three years after my mother’s death. You did not consult me, nor did you need to—it was your right as head of the household. But you cannot force me to view her as a replacement for my actual mother.”

Maya stood as well, her voice taking on a slightly harder edge despite the tears.

“Samuel, I understand you still grieve your mother. But I am the Mistress of this household now. I deserve respect in that role, even if you cannot see me as family.”

She tried to use her authority—the tone of a mother figure speaking to a disobedient child.

“You should apologize to your father for your disrespectful words.”

Samuel looked at her for a long moment, his expression completely unreadable.

Then he stood up calmly, placed his chopsticks down neatly beside his bowl, and said in that same emotionless voice:

“I have finished eating. Thank you for the meal.”

He bowed slightly to his father—perfectly correct protocol, nothing more or less than required.

Then he turned and walked toward the door without another word, completely ignoring Maya’s demand for an apology.

“SAMUEL!” the old man shouted. “We are not finished with this conversation! Get back here!”

But Samuel had already opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.

As the door closed behind him, Heena—who had been standing a respectful distance away in the hallway—suddenly found herself face to face with him.

Their eyes met for a brief moment.

His expression didn’t change at all—he looked at her the same way he might look at any servant, with polite disinterest.

Half an hour later, sitting in front of the fire stove again, Heena was stuffing her face as she literally crammed her mouth full of all the leftovers from the family meal.

Yeah, because the food that always went on the table—well, that old Master didn’t actually eat that much despite ordering so many dishes. And of course, Heena had made the portions generous on purpose.

Whatever was left over was normally eaten by Granny Wang, but now that she was bedridden and had actually gone home to her own family to recuperate (good riddance), all the leftovers now belonged to Heena.

And Heena was NOT going to waste perfectly good food.

Even though the meat was quite fatty—not the lean cuts she preferred—it was still meat, which was a luxury for a servant.

As she was stuffing her mouth with rice, green vegetables, and mostly the fatty pork, the System beside her—who was also nibbling on a piece of meat (his favorite thing)—looked at her and spoke up:

“Host, don’t you think you should give this food to the villain?”

Hearing that, Heena looked at him with raised eyebrows while sticking another large piece of meat in her mouth.

The System continued explaining: “Just think about it, Host. He hasn’t eaten well because of that argument with his father. Right now he’s working on an empty stomach in his study. If you go there and bring him food, wouldn’t his heart be warmed that someone cared for him?”

Hearing that suggestion, Heena—her mouth still completely full of food—looked at the System and said through her chewing: “Do you think he’s dumb enough, or that I’m stupid?”

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