The next morning, Li Shuang received a message talisman.
It floated silently onto her desk, glowing faintly.
The sender? Ye Zhaozhao.
Uninterested, she tapped it once, allowing the message to play.
"Senior Sister," Zhaozhao's voice said softly, "I visited your mother's memorial this morning. I left fresh incense and flowers. I know she always meant a lot to you…"
Li Shuang's expression didn't change, but her fingers froze over the talisman.
"…I also found something. An old keepsake she left behind—your birth pendant, wasn't it?"
"It's been kept in the ancestral archives of Lingxu Peak all this time. I was surprised no one returned it to you. Would you… like to see it again?"
"If so, come to the rear shrine at dusk."
The message ended.
Silence fell over the room.
Li Shuang stood very still.
For a long time, she didn't move.
Back at Lingxu Peak, Ye Zhaozhao smiled as the talisman dimmed.
"System," she whispered, "what's her current emotional reading?"
"Disturbance detected. Surface state remains calm, but subconscious agitation increasing."
Good.
Zhaozhao tapped her fan against her palm lightly, pacing in her courtyard.
She knew Li Shuang wouldn't be able to ignore this.
The birth pendant had been her mother's last gift—a token Li Shuang once wore day and night until she was forced to give it up for sect identification purposes.
It had never been returned.
And Zhaozhao had just placed that wound back in her path.
"Host intention acknowledged," the system said. "Do you wish to plant a spiritual trigger within the pendant?"
"Of course," Zhaozhao replied. "If she touches it, plant the illusion seed. Let's show her the one thing she thought she buried—the moment her mother died."
Dusk. Rear shrine.
Li Shuang arrived with no fanfare.
The rear shrine was rarely used—only visited during memorial rites. Its stone floor was covered in moss, and old incense ashes lined the offering bowls.
Ye Zhaozhao stood at the far altar, holding a small jade box.
"Senior Sister," she said gently. "You came."
Li Shuang nodded.
Zhaozhao held out the box. "Your mother's keepsake."
Li Shuang took it with a steady hand.
But the moment her fingers touched the box—
The air shifted.
Her surroundings blurred.
She was no longer standing in the shrine.
She was eight years old again.
Kneeling beside a sickbed, watching her mother's frail figure fade.
"Shuang'er," her mother whispered, brushing her cheek weakly. "Live well… never beg others to love you…"
Then her breath stopped.
The warmth vanished.
Li Shuang stared. Paralyzed.
She had never cried that day.
Only clenched her fists and told herself:
"If I become strong enough, no one will ever leave me again."
That memory had been locked deep in her soul.
Now it rose like a storm.
She trembled.
Outside the illusion, Zhaozhao waited, watching closely.
Any moment now, the emotional spike would break the Supreme Forgetting Love Technique's suppression—and then the system could begin full luck extraction.
But—
Something was wrong.
The system buzzed in confusion.
"Alert: Hostile resistance detected."
"Target's spiritual core is rejecting illusion."
"Illusion fracture imminent."
Zhaozhao's eyes widened. "What?!"
Inside the illusion, Li Shuang blinked once.
The image of her mother dissolved like snow.
She stood in the middle of the dream, untouched.
The words of the Supreme Forgetting Love Technique rang in her mind:
"Let pain flow. Let it pass. Let it remain… and yet not rule you."
She opened her hand.
The memory shattered into light.
Back in the shrine, the box in her hands cracked down the center—split clean in two.
The spell was broken.
She looked at Ye Zhaozhao.
Cold. Unblinking.
Zhaozhao stepped back unconsciously.
Li Shuang turned and walked away without a word.
"System error:Emotional stability unbroken.Illusion failed.Target's spiritual resistance has surpassed system parameters."
Zhaozhao stared down at the broken pendant.
This hadn't just failed.
It had backfired.