Chapter 57: Chapter-57

Heena tilted her head, considering. “Wouldn’t ’X’ be a better name?”

Ashton blinked, momentarily thrown off his rhythm. Then he grinned, that wild, unrestrained expression that made him look half-mad. “Oh. Yeah. That. X. Call it whatever you want—I’m sure the bastard has a dozen aliases anyway.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Point is, X is the one propping him up. Without that backing, the Bureau would’ve dragged him in by the scruff ages ago. Probably would’ve dismantled his entire operation and scattered the code to the void.”

Heena tapped the table, her nails clicking a steady rhythm against the lacquered wood. An unregistered heroine system, backed by an even dirtier back-end system that didn’t officially exist. The kind of shadow infrastructure that required serious resources, serious protection, and serious dirt on the right people to keep running.

This was bigger than she’d initially thought.

Ashton’s expression finally turned serious, the manic energy draining from his face like water through a sieve. When he looked like this—focused, intent, almost dangerous—it was easy to remember why the Bureau kept him around despite his countless violations.

“So here’s what I wanted to tell you,” he said, voice dropping to something more businesslike. “One, the white lotus’ favorability isn’t just emotional currency—it’s literally her lifeline. Drop it below a certain threshold, and she breaks. Not metaphorically. Actually breaks. And when she breaks, her system ’suffers’ and can barely function. I’ve seen it happen before in similar setups. The host deteriorates, the system starts glitching, and eventually the whole thing collapses like a house of cards.”

He held up a second finger, and Heena noticed the faint scars across his knuckles—remnants of worlds she didn’t want to know about.

“Two, that criminal system isn’t just freelancing for kicks. He’s hooked into X, and there are ’many’ criminal systems like him currently running around completely open. No registrations, no supervision, no oversight whatsoever. It’s a whole network, Heena. A shadow Bureau operating in parallel, and they’ve got enough backing to stay invisible.”

He met her gaze squarely, and for once there wasn’t a trace of mockery in his silver eyes.

“So you need to be careful, Heena. If you’re going to target Seraphina’s favorability vein, expect X to retaliate. This isn’t just one cockroach you can step on and forget about—it’s a nest. A big one. And they protect their own.” He leaned back in his chair, and the smile returned, thinner this time, sharper at the edges. “Now the real game starts.”

Heena’s lips curved slowly, a expression that would’ve made her five useless husbands flinch and stammer.

’Weak vein. Shared death. Pain feedback. Hidden patron.’

A complete tactical map was already forming in her mind, pieces slotting into place with satisfying precision. Seraphina’s vulnerability, the system’s dependence, X’s investment in keeping the operation running, the potential chain reaction if she pulled the right thread…

Oh, this was going to be fun.

—

The silence stretched between them for a moment, comfortable despite everything. Then Ashton’s attention shifted, and Heena felt the quality of his gaze change.

He looked her over with the practiced eye of someone who’d inhabited dozens of bodies and learned to read the tells of each one. His gaze lingered on the faint flush in her cheeks, barely visible against her pale skin. On the way her fingers trembled just slightly as she gripped the calligraphy brush, the tremor so subtle most people would miss it entirely. On the deliberate control in her breathing, the rigid set of her shoulders.

This body’s infamous “condition” wasn’t exactly a secret. Even he had heard about the Ravencourt bloodline’s ridiculous drive, that inconvenient inheritance that made certain… urges significantly more intense than the average person’s. It was the kind of thing that would’ve been a mere footnote in family history if the bloodline hadn’t been so politically prominent.

And if Heena herself weren’t currently bound to five of the most useless men he’d ever had the misfortune of encountering.

“You already have five husbands, you bastard,” Ashton said bluntly, abandoning all pretense of tact. “Why don’t you use them? Why suffer like this when you’ve got perfectly functional options already installed in your household?”

Heena didn’t even glance up from her work. She just dipped the brush with practiced precision, eyes fixed on the document in front of her, each stroke of ink controlled and perfect despite the tremor in her hands.

“Because,” she said calmly, voice as level as if she were discussing the weather, “I don’t like trash.”

The words were delivered with such casual disdain that Ashton couldn’t help himself—he snorted, the sound inelegant and genuinely amused.

He sauntered closer, boots soft on the carpet, moving with that predatory grace that came from too many lifetimes spent in too many dangerous situations. He stopped only when he was leaning over her desk, his face about half a meter from hers, silver hair falling forward to frame his face. Close enough to see the fine details of her expression, the minute tightening around her eyes, the way her jaw set just slightly.

Close enough to be interesting.

Before he could inch nearer, testing those boundaries the way he always did, Heena’s voice dropped, cold and flat as a blade pressed to skin.

“If you dare come any closer than this, I swear I’ll report your little vacation to the ’main’ system. Let’s see if they don’t throw you into those all-gay worlds permanently this time. I hear they’ve developed some new ones specifically for problem cases. Very… immersive, from what I understand.”

Ashton froze.

The threat hit exactly where it was meant to, and he immediately took a full step back, hands raised in surrender, a nervous smile pulling at his lips. Those worlds weren’t a joke—he’d been sentenced to three consecutive assignments in them after his last major violation, and the experience had been… educational, to say the least.

“Oh my, calm down, calm down. No need for that kind of nuclear option.” He tilted his head, and the grin turned mischievous again, though he stayed well outside her specified radius. “If you want, I can help, you know. I’m flexible. I can be bi. I do men and women. Very equal opportunity, very progressive of me.”

Heena finally looked up from her document, and the movement was slow, deliberate. She gave him a once-over from head to toe, her gaze clinical and assessing, her expression transforming into something that could only be described as pure, distilled disdain.

“I wouldn’t dare gamble on that,” she said dryly, each word articulated with precision. “God knows how many diseases you’re already carrying. Your medical file probably has its own dedicated archive section by now.”

His eye twitched. “Did you just ’mock’ me?”

“Of course not,” Heena replied smoothly, already lowering her gaze back to the scroll, brush moving again in steady strokes. “How could I mock you? I’m just stating facts. Empirical observations based on documented evidence.”

She eyed him coolly over the edge of the paper, pen still scratching across the page in that maddeningly calm rhythm. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but the way you’ve died in some worlds is nothing to be proud of. What kind of idiot host racks up HIV in one life, AIDS in another, then a lovely combo of STDs in the next? Should I keep going, or shall I pull up your full medical history? I’m sure the Bureau would be ’fascinated’ to review it again.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep