Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs novel Chapter 96

Chapter 96: Sunday Reset – Family, Roast, and Secrets

Physical exhaustion is a bitch, sure—but mental exhaustion? That’s an entirely different animal. It doesn’t just creep in; it drags you down by the spine and chews on your neurons like bubblegum.

By 8 AM, I was face-first in my keyboard, brain feeling like it had been spun in a Vitamix set to "obliterate."

The last thing I remember was thinking about neural networks. The next? Darkness. Sweet, dreamless oblivion.

Three hours later, I came back online—still in a hoodie I had put on, eyes crusty, back sore, and brain... surprisingly sharp. Like I’d rebooted instead of rested. System Refresh: Complete. Sunday had arrived in full color.

I could already hear the sounds of weekend life drifting up from downstairs—pots clinking, someone yelling about laundry, and the distinct hum of a vacuum cleaner being weaponized.

It was time to pretend I hadn’t just made more money overnight than Mom had in the last six months combined.

I stumbled down the stairs looking like I’d just survived a small explosion, and instantly, every face in the living room turned toward me with that chaotic blend of mockery and maternal concern only blood relatives could pull off.

"Look what the cat dragged in," Sarah declared, raising both arms like she was presenting a Broadway act. "The cave gremlin emerges! Somebody get a camera."

Emma didn’t even glance away from her phone. Just smirked. "I thought you’d fused with your laptop. Like, Matrix-style. One more hour and we were gonna call the Geek Squad to detach you."

Sarah snorted. "No, for real. He looked dead. Like vampire-in-a-coffin dead. We should’ve checked for garlic."

Mom was curled in her usual Sunday spot—coffee in hand, house robe on, and that face. You know the one. The Mom Face. That unique blend of relief, suspicion, and an unspoken promise that I was about to get lovingly roasted to hell and back.

"Peter, honey," she started sweetly, which was always the warning shot. "I found you passed out at your desk this morning. Face-down on the keyboard. You didn’t even twitch when I poked you. So... I took a picture."

Oh, hell no.

"You didn’t," I said, voice cracking like I was twelve again.

"I did," she replied, smiling with way too much satisfaction. "And I sent it to both girls. You looked so peaceful. ’QWERTY’ was printed across your cheek like a stamp."

Sarah had already pulled out her phone, showing it to Emma like she was auctioning off my soul. "New lock screen. Look how angelic he looks. It’s giving Sleeping Beauty, but make it tragic."

"You people are monsters," I said, grinning despite myself. "Legit, certified monsters. There should be laws."

Emma gave a lazy thumbs-up. "Welcome to the family, where privacy goes to die."

And yeah—this was the chaos. This was the noise. This dumb, loud, beautiful mess that kept me anchored to something real.

While I was out there building AI prototype for suicidal billionaires and taking missions from an all-knowing system, this was why I didn’t completely lose my mind. These were my people. Unapologetically annoying. Unrelentingly loyal.

"So," Emma added, tilting her head in mock curiosity, "just out of curiosity—what exactly were you doing that had you drooling on your keyboard like you got tased mid-keystroke?"

"Oh, here we go," I muttered.

Sarah leaned in, shark grin engaged. "Yeah, Pete. Don’t say ’coding.’ That’s not gonna cut it anymore. You looked like you fought a war in your sleep."

If only they knew.

If only they had the faintest clue that while they were watching Netflix, I was entering the kind of territory that could get me labeled a tech god or get me killed in a boardroom elevator. That last night, I accepted a mission to save a suicidal CEO, stop a hostile corporate takeover, and potentially take over a billion-dollar company without ever being seen.

And I couldn’t tell them.

So, I gave them the only truth they’d believe.

"I was coding," I said, deadpan.

Sarah groaned. "Lame."

Emma rolled her eyes. "You impossible proud nerd."

Mom just smiled again—this time softer. Like maybe, just maybe, she saw the exhaustion under my jokes.

"Just don’t burn yourself out, honey," she said. "Whatever it is you’re doing, it’ll still be there after a nap."

If she only knew.

It won’t.

Sarah let out a theatrical gasp. "Oh God, he is a tech and trading mogul. He’s gonna pull out stock charts and say things like ’market sentiment’ and ’price action.’"

Emma didn’t even look up. "I bet he made another crypto fortune while we were watching Real Housewives of Screaming Banshees."

Mom gave me the look—half worry, half judgment. "Peter, you’re sixteen. You should be sleeping in, playing video games, complaining about algebra... not collapsing on your keyboard like some kind of sleep-deprived CEO."

Ethereum: 30 lots, caught the breakout, locked in $89K.

BNB: 25 lots, rode the exchange token surge for $67.5K.

That spicy altcoin: 50 lots, timed the weekend pump like a fortune teller—$42.6K.

Total from those? $199,100. Already baller.

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