Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!

Parker couldn't stop looking at her.

Even as Tessa teased Nyxvare—voice bright with mischief that could light up dead stars—even as Maya leaned in and playfully pinched her daughter's cheeks with fingers that trembled just slightly, even as laughter curled like sunlight through the bedroom air, threading between them like golden silk—he just stood there, watching.

Breathing like he'd forgotten how.

Relief burned quietly through his chest, slow and heavy like honey poured over flame. The kind of relief that hurt because it replaced fear so deep he'd forgotten he was carrying it.

His daughter was here.

Not some fragment of a forgotten god wearing her face like a mask.

Not an ancient being with borrowed memories and counterfeit love.

Not a cosmic puppet moved by hands a billion years old, dancing to music he couldn't hear.

No, she was here. With him. With them. Whole and warm and laughing, her voice exactly the right pitch, her smile carrying that same crooked corner it'd had since she was small enough to sit on his shoulders and demand he touch the stars.

And yet—

Something, deep down in the place his chaos could never touch, refused to settle. Like a stone thrown into still water that never quite found the bottom.

He didn't know what it was. A flicker at the edge of his vision. A weightless whisper that spoke in languages older than sound. Not enough to name. Not enough to doubt. Not enough to poison this moment that tasted like answered prayers.

But Zhang Ruoyun felt it too. That much he knew.

The way her flames had stuttered when Nyxavere first spoke. The way her eyes tracked movements just a fraction too closely. The way she stood like someone waiting for the other shoe to drop from a great height.

Even if she didn't speak it.

Even if she smiled now, slowly stepping closer to the bed with the same grace she wore when balancing galaxies on her fingertips.

She knelt beside Nyxavere like she was approaching something holy and dangerous, reaching out with fingers that glowed faintly gold at the tips—not with power, but with the kind of reverence that made light bend around hope.

Her touch was feather-soft against Nyxavere's cheek, warm as summer morning, careful as if her daughter might dissolve under pressure.

Because no matter what the Phoenix of Balance thought she might've felt stirring in the spaces between heartbeats—

This was still their child.

"Still soft," Zhang whispered, voice barely a breath, barely a prayer.

Nyxavere giggled—the sound like silver bells wrapped in starlight, exactly the way she'd always laughed. "You always said I was a walking pillow."

"You still are," Maya whispered, leaning closer like she could anchor this moment in place through proximity alone.

Tessa propped her chin on Nyxavere's shoulder, grinning like someone who'd just discovered the sun was made of chocolate. "You missed a lot, pillow. Like, a lot lot."

And then, like sunlight breaking through storm clouds, her attention shifted to Tessa with the kind of grin that meant cosmic revelations were coming at light speed.

"Oh? Like what?" Nyxavere's grin sharpened with mischief that could've cut glass, and her eyes—those cosmic galaxies that held the depth of infinite space—sparkled with something that looked almost too knowing. "Like... oh, I don't know... like your baby?"

The words dropped into the room like stones into still water, sending ripples of shock through everyone present.

Tessa flushed instantly, the color rising in her cheeks like spilled wine on white silk. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again like a fish trying to breathe air. "Wh—how did you even—? I haven't told anyone except—"

"Except Daddy, Mom, Aunt Zhang" Nyxavere finished with a sing-song voice that dripped with cosmic smugness. "But come on, Aunt Tess. You're glowing like you swallowed a star and decided to make it permanent. Of course you're pregnant. I could probably see the little soul from three dimensions away."

She tilted her head with that particular expression that meant trouble was coming. "Plus, you keep touching your stomach when you think no one's looking. And your scent changed—there's this little undercurrent of new life that tastes like... hmm... honey and lightning."

Maya blinked rapidly, processing this revelation like her brain was trying to restart. "Wait. Really? You're actually knew before even—?"

Tessa looked frantically between Parker and Maya, her face cycling through about seventeen different shades of red. "I was going to tell everyone properly! At dinner! With cake! And maybe some of those little announcement cards people make!"

Parker just smiled, arms folded as he leaned against the wall like the proudest man in seventeen different realities. Like he was watching his greatest work unfold in real time.

Tessa whirled on him, pointing an accusatory finger that practically sparked with indignation. "You knew! You absolutely knew that she would know everything and you didn't say anything!"

He gave her a lazy nod that somehow managed to contain universes of smug satisfaction. "She knows everything that matters."

His voice softened, eyes gleaming with something that might've been divinity or might've been simple fatherly pride.

"She's me," he added, quiet as falling snow. "But better most. Smarter than others. More observant. Definitely more tactful."

"Tactful?" Nyxavere burst out laughing. "I just announced her pregnancy to the room before she could do her cute little surprise reveal to the rest. I'm just me...!"

"Exactly," Parker said with a grin that could've powered small suns. "Tactful."

Tessa turned back to Nyxavere, trying to look stern but failing spectacularly as her lips kept twitching toward a smile. "You could've at least let me tell you myself before you broadcasted it across the cosmic web. I had plans! Romantic plans!"

"Oh, please," Nyxavere said, waving a hand dismissively. "Like I need romance to know his wife is carrying his child. I sensed it the moment of conception. Probably felt the exact second the souls chose their vessel."

Parker's grin turned absolutely wicked. "Actually, I think she knew three days before it happened." Theyb all didn't pay attention that she said souls not soul.

"PARKER!" Tessa shrieked, grabbing a pillow and launching it at his head with deadly accuracy.

He caught it mid-air without even looking, still grinning. "What? She can see probability threads. It was practically inevitable."

"You are the worst," Tessa groaned, but she was laughing now, the sound bright and free. "The absolute worst. Here I was thinking I had this beautiful secret, and you cosmic entity was just... what? Taking bets on when I'd figure it out?"

"I wasn't taking bets," Nyxavere said with mock innocence that fooled absolutely no one. "I was just excited. I've always wanted a little sister. Someone to corrupt. Someone to teach all the things you're not supposed to know until you're at least eighteen. Or eighteen hundred."

Tessa's eyes sparkled like captured lightning, and for a moment she looked exactly like the young woman she was instead of the powerful being she'd become. "...You're not mad? About the baby? About me and your dad? About the whole... situation?"

Nyxavere's expression softened, and suddenly she looked less like a cosmic entity and more like the daughter they remembered. "Mad? Aunt Tess, are you kidding? This family needs more chaos goblins. You're doing holy work. Sacred duty. Someone has to carry on the tradition of driving Maya insane and making Daddy question his life choices."

"Hey! It's mom..." Maya protested, but she was laughing too, the sound clear and free like someone had finally lifted a blade off her chest.

"Besides," Nyxavere continued, her grin turning absolutely diabolical, "now I get to be the cool big sister who teaches the baby how to bend reality before they can walk. It's going to be fantastic."

"Oh gods," Maya groaned, burying her face in her hands. "There's going to be two of them. Two reality-bending chaos entities running around the palace. I'm going to go gray before I hit thirty."

"Too late," Parker said helpfully. "I can see the first silver hair forming in about six months."

Tessa grabbed another pillow and hurled it at him with the force of a small meteor. "I HATE YOU ALL!"

But she was laughing as she said it, tears of joy streaming down her face as she watched her family come back together like puzzle pieces finding their perfect fit.

That broke whatever tension might've remained in the air like sunlight burning through morning fog.

They collapsed into laughter—real, honest, belly-deep laughter that made the room itself seem brighter. Nyxavere was giggling so hard she snorted, which made Tessa laugh even harder, which set Maya off into helpless peals of mirth.

Zhang Ruoyun watched them from her position near the window. The way they folded into each other like origami made of light.

The way old scars softened when they were near, the way their souls synchronized like instruments finding harmony. It wasn't an act. Not a script. The warmth was real—bone-deep, star-bright, the kind of love that could rebuild broken realities.

But sometimes, real warmth could still come from a fire lit by someone else's hand.

And that's what gnawed at her. That's what made her flames flicker cold despite the joy radiating from the bed like heat from a forge.

"So," Nyxavere said, voice dripping with that particular smugness that came from seeing things others couldn't, "how are you feeling about the twins?"

The words hit the room like lightning striking still water.

Tessa blinked. Once. Twice. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again like she was trying to catch words that had fled for their lives. "What... what do you mean twins?"