Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System! - Chapter 579

Chapter 579: Mean Reality

“M looked at this prince—this man her sister had loved quietly for years—and she didn’t think, ‘how sweet.’ She didn’t think, ‘my sister deserves happiness.’ No.” Maya’s eyes flicked toward Bella, slow and deliberate. “She thought: I want him for myself.”

Boom. Verbal grenade under the dinner table. Zero survivors.

“But here’s the thing,” Maya continued, all sugar and venom. “M was clever. She couldn’t just snatch him away—that would make her the villain in her sister’s eyes. The homewrecker. So, she made a plan. One that would make her look noble… while ensuring L never stood a chance.”

Annabelle’s hands were trembling now, her whole body caught between fight, flight, and holy hell, is she talking about us.

And Maya? Maya just leaned back in her chair, like she’d simply opened a storybook. One where someone was about to get dragged through every page.

“So what did M do?” Maya went on, swirling the wine in her glass like she was stirring a storm inside a chalice. “She pretended to help. She told L she’d talk to the prince. Just… feel things out. A gentle nudge, nothing serious.”

Maya chuckled—low, dangerous, and laced with venomous elegance. “But instead of advocating for her sister, M seduced him. Quietly. Subtly. She made herself indispensable, made herself seen. And the prince? He was oblivious to L’s heart, but M… oh, M made sure he couldn’t look away.”

Bella’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t speak. Couldn’t. Every word Maya spoke felt like a match tossed into a field of old memories she’d tried to bury with smiles and silence.

“And here’s the really tragic part,” Maya said, leaning back like she was just now getting to the good bit. “L saw it all happen. She watched as the man she loved—without even knowing it—was gently guided away from her, like a bird coaxed from one perch to another with a prettier song.”

Seraphina’s hands were clenched in her lap. Even the younger ones, who barely understood what was going on, could feel the grief rippling through the room like aftershocks from a quake that hadn’t even finished.

“And M?” Maya said, like she was teeing up the punchline to a joke only she found funny.

“M did not stop here and went to their father,” she continued, swirling her wine like she was narrating a true crime podcast, “with tears in her eyes, whispering about whispers—how to save the kingdom from a coming invasion from a third kingdom an invasion that was going to consume both their and the prince’s kingdom. And wouldn’t it be so wise—so brilliant—to form an alliance? Marry into power. Mix their grain fields with the prince’s gold mines and swords.”

Her voice turned lush with false admiration. “And of course, sweet little M, ever the sacrificial lamb, just happened to volunteer herself for this noble little arrangement.”

Dead. Silence.

The kind of silence that tasted like metal.

“The court lost its mind. Cheers, tears, applause. ‘What a selfless girl!’ they said. ‘So noble! So brave!’ Meanwhile, L—our quiet princess—stood there watching her entire world get hijacked in slow motion by the one person she trusted most.”

Maya leaned forward like she was sharing a secret over coffee, not skinning someone alive in public.

“And here’s where it goes from manipulative to surgical. When the prince finally showed up to meet his new bride-to-be the same princess who’d been giving him signals, he was nervous. Didn’t know her so much. Didn’t love her but wanted to, to make this work so save both kingdoms. But guess who he did feel comfortable talking to?”

Her gaze landed hard. “Yup. L.”

Bella looked like she’d swallowed glass.

“He’d go to her and say, ‘What does M like? How do I talk to her?’ Like she was his dating coach instead of the girl who should’ve been at the altar.”

Maya didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. Her words were clean and precise like she was reading off an autopsy report.

“And L—goddess that she was—helped him. Again and again. Smiling while she bled. Coaching him through courtship like it didn’t cost her every breath. Because she loved him. Because she was good.”

She let that silence hang for a beat. Just long enough to kill something invisible in the air.

“And M?” Her voice dropped to a velvet purr. “She played her role like a seasoned liar. She’d beam whenever L offered advice—drop in little lines like, ‘Oh, my sister knows me so well!'” Maya’s eyes gleamed. “She made L an accomplice in her own heartbreak. Fed off it.”

Annabelle looked like a statue trying not to cry. Bella? Pale and still like someone realizing a murder mystery was actually a biography.

“And the best part?” Maya asked, smiling wide enough to cut the moon. “No one ever saw it. Not the king. Not the court. Not even the prince. M wore her mask so well that everyone applauded her while she stabbed her sister in the back and smiled for the paintings.”

She leaned back. Took another sip of wine. Still smiling. Still glowing.

Like she hadn’t just committed emotional arson with perfect hair and a bedtime voice.

“I always wondered what happened to L in that story,” Maya said, voice low and slow, like she was dropping a ghost into the room. “Whether she ever found the courage to tell the truth. Or if she just… accepted it. Accepted that some people are too selfish to let others have happiness—even their own family.”

The silence that followed wasn’t just silence. It was absolute. Like the air had been sucked out of the world, leaving nothing but the weight of every unspoken truth crushing down.

Annabelle’s chair scraped harshly against the floor as she stood up abruptly—every muscle taut, her face a mask carved from barely contained storm.

“Excuse me,” she whispered, voice cracking like a broken promise, then practically bolted from the dining room.

Bella looked like she wanted to vanish into the floorboards. Her hands clenched so tight in her lap that her knuckles shone white, trembling with everything she wasn’t saying.

Maya just smiled. Sweet. Calm. Unbothered. She kept eating her dinner like the emotional execution she’d just delivered was nothing but a warm appetizer.

“Interesting story,” Cleopatra said, raising her glass with a sardonic tilt. “Very… educational.”

Nyxavere glanced between the empty doorway where Annabelle had disappeared and her mother’s serene satisfaction. “Mom, that was mean.”

Maya’s eyes twinkled with innocent mischief. “Was it?” she asked softly. “I was just sharing an old tale. If it hits close to home, well… that’s not really my problem, is it?”

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