Return of Black Lotus system:Taming Cheating Male Leads-Chapter 114 --

"Above them?" Heena interrupted, tilting her head. "I was unaware that my consorts held any formal ranking among themselves. Please, enlighten me—which one of the current five is the ’primary’ consort?"

The nobles exchanged glances.

Because there ’wasn’t’ one. The original Celeste had married all five at roughly the same time and had never designated a hierarchy among them.

"Exactly," Heena said when no one answered. "Since there is no existing primary consort, I am free to designate one as I see fit. And I choose Prince Larus."

"But Your Majesty—" someone started.

"Is there a ’law’," Heena asked, voice taking on a sharper edge, "that prevents me from doing this? A specific statute? A constitutional restriction?"

Her secretary, still standing beside her like a dead-eyed sentinel, helpfully opened the file and began flipping through pages.

"According to Imperial Marriage Law, Section Four, Subsection B," he read aloud in a monotone, "the ruling Emperor holds sole authority to designate the hierarchy of their consorts, provided such designation does not violate existing contracts or agreements."

He looked up at the nobles with his soulless panda eyes.

"Prince Larus’s marriage contract contains no such restrictions," he added. "I drafted it myself last night."

Several nobles actually flinched at the reminder that her secretary had somehow produced a complete, legally airtight marriage contract in the span of a few hours.

Heena smiled warmly at the table. "So. Unless any of you can point to a specific legal barrier—which I suspect you cannot, given that my very competent secretary has already checked—then this matter is settled."

She leaned back in her chair.

"Now," she continued, "shall we discuss the actual business of governing the empire? Or did you call this emergency council session solely to complain about my personal life?"

The nobles looked at each other, clearly trying to regroup.

This was not going the way they’d planned.

Lord Something cleared his throat again. "Your Majesty... we simply wish to express our concern that such a... ’sudden’ change might destabilize—"

"Destabilize what?" Heena asked. "Please be specific."

"The... balance of power among the noble houses," he said carefully.

"Ah," Heena said. "So you’re concerned that your families will lose influence because you’re related to consorts who are no longer the highest-ranked."

Direct hit.

Several nobles shifted uncomfortably.

"Let me be very clear," Heena said, her pleasant tone not changing but her words landing like hammers. "The power you have comes from ’me’. Not from my consorts. Not from your family connections. From ’me’—the Empress. If I choose to redistribute that power, that is my prerogative."

She looked around the table.

"If any of your families are relying solely on consort connections to maintain your positions," she continued, "then perhaps you should reconsider your strategies. Because clearly, those connections are not as secure as you thought."

Dead silence.

Her secretary turned another page in the file, the ’rustle’ unnaturally loud.

"Now," Heena said briskly, "if there are no further objections—and I suspect there are not, since none of you have presented any actual legal grounds—let’s move on to the trade agreements that need reviewing."

She gestured at her secretary, who immediately began distributing documents around the table with mechanical efficiency despite looking like he might collapse at any second.

The nobles took their copies, clearly still reeling from being shut down so thoroughly.

Heena picked up her own copy and began reading, effectively ending the discussion about her marriage.

The message was clear: ’This decision is final. Argue if you want, but you’ve already lost.’

The council meeting proceeded.

The nobles tried—several times—to circle back to the marriage issue from different angles, but Heena and her zombie secretary blocked every attempt with either legal citations, procedural rules, or simple refusal to engage.

By the end of the two-hour session, the nobles filed out looking frustrated and impotent.

Heena waited until the door closed behind the last of them.

Then she slumped forward, face hitting the table with a soft ’thunk’.

"I hate this," she mumbled into the polished wood.

"You did very well, Your Majesty," her secretary said, his dead monotone somehow conveying approval.

"I want to set this entire council on fire," Heena said, not lifting her head.

"That would be counterproductive, Your Majesty."

"I know," Heena groaned. "That’s the only reason I haven’t done it yet."

She sat up slowly, rubbing her face.

Her secretary was already organizing the documents, his movements mechanical but efficient.

"How much sleep did you get last night?" Heena asked, actually concerned now that she was looking at him properly.

"Sleep is for people without deadlines, Your Majesty," he said without looking up.

"That’s not an answer."

"Forty-five minutes, Your Majesty."

Heena stared at him. "You’re going to die."

"Perhaps, Your Majesty. But the marriage contracts will be filed correctly."

She couldn’t even argue with that.

"Go rest," she said. "That’s an order."

"After I finish—"

"’Now’," Heena said firmly. "I’m increasing your salary again, and you’re taking the rest of the day off. Go sleep before you actually collapse."

Her secretary looked at her, those panda eyes somehow conveying surprise despite his dead expression.

"...Thank you, Your Majesty," he said quietly.

He gathered his files and left, still moving like an automaton but perhaps slightly less likely to spontaneously die.

Heena sat alone in the council chamber, surrounded by papers and political bullshit, and sighed.

One crisis down.

Several hundred more to go.

Being Empress was ’exhausting’.

.

.

At night,

When night fell, Heena was sitting in her office. How romantic.

She was writing, writing, writing—signing document after document, her hand cramping, her eyes burning from reading tiny legal text by candlelight—when suddenly she threw her pen across the room.

It hit the wall with a satisfying ’thunk’.

"Damn it!" she shouted to the empty room. "If I had known I needed to work ’this hard’, why would I have chosen to be a transmigrator or whatever the hell this is?"

She looked at the pile of documents in front of her with pure hatred.

Like, literally—before the council meeting this morning, the documents had been manageable. On the desk. Maybe a stack on the floor beside the desk. Still a lot, but that much.

But right now? ’Right now?’

Half the room was filled with documents. Stacks and stacks of them, piled so high they were starting to look like a paper avalanche waiting to happen.

Why?

Because those noble ’bastards’ had decided to take revenge on her. And apparently, their revenge involved suddenly remembering that they needed to submit reports for tax investigations from ’five years ago’. And trade disputes from seven years ago. And property assessments from a decade ago. And every other piece of bureaucratic nonsense they could dig up from the archives and dump on her desk.

Heena looked at the sea of documents and knew—even in her next life, she could not finish all of this.

Now she understood. ’Now’ she finally understood why the previous emperors and empresses never dared to oppose the nobles so easily.

It wasn’t because they were scared of the nobles’ power. It wasn’t because they feared rebellion or assassination.

It was because they were scared of ’this’.

The ’paperwork’.

The endless, soul-crushing, mind-numbing mountain of documents that appeared the moment you made an enemy of someone with administrative authority.

Heena looked at the stacks and stacks of files and literally—’literally’—regretted giving her secretary a vacation. And kicking the system out earlier.