Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Fate Luck Plunder System

Granny didn’t stop her.

It watched Lin Zhao complete the full ceremony with a seriousness that made it feel real, then finally spoke.

“But my method may make you suffer,” Granny warned. “You must endure it.”

Lin Zhao lifted her head, eyes steady. “Could it be worse than being abandoned in public on my wedding day?”

Granny’s beak scrunched into a miserable knot. On such a tiny face it should have been funny.

Even Lin Zhao, despite herself, almost laughed.

“That brat didn’t treasure you,” Granny said, dismissive. “That’s his problem. Don’t mind him. After all these years, he’s only at Foundation Establishment perfection.”

Then Granny’s tone shifted, sharper with interest.

“But that little boyfriend of yours—fifteen and already Golden Core. If he didn’t lack Phoenix Fortune, Granny would want to take him as a disciple.”

Lin Zhao blinked. “You mean Su Bai? He’s my brother.”

She shook her head, then froze as the words caught up with her.

“Golden Core?!”

Granny’s smugness was almost audible. “What’s so surprising? Cultivation begins with Qi Refining. Then comes Foundation Establishment, Enlightenment, Golden Core, Fusion, Heart Mind, Nascent Soul, Spirit Transformation, Integration Realm, and Tribulation Transcendence. Golden Core means carving out your own sky.”

Lin Zhao’s mind flashed back to the dying boy she’d once carried home from the battlefield.

She had known he was special. She hadn’t known he was monstrous.

“What a freak,” she muttered, half awed, half stunned.

…

That night, at Ten Thousand Swords Sect—Mount Yun Ding, Cloud Coming Grotto.

Behind layers of gauze curtains, a graceful figure shifted, the pearl light painting her skin like pale jade.

The maiden’s face was delicate and refined, chin pointed enough to make her look fragile. Mist clung to her watery eyes, an inviting softness that begged for protection.

But the hatred in her gaze ruined the illusion.

“System,” Chen Luo Luo demanded, staring at the panel’s missing points, voice trembling with rage. “Wasn’t the mission in this world already done? Why did you send me back?”

The electronic voice answered without emotion.

“Because after you left, the male lead and your clone were completely destroyed by the villain, so it was declared a failure. I warned you long ago: the Fate Luck from plunder was insufficient. The point reward would never be enough for us to enter the next world.”

Chen Luo Luo bit her lip until it whitened. Her hatred for Lin Zhao—and Ji Wan Tang—twisted deeper.

“That bitch Lin Zhao!” she hissed. “Even when she died she refused to hand over that last share of Phoenix Fortune. Without that one share, how could I dare go directly to that madwoman Ji Wan Tang?!”

The system’s voice cut through her like cold metal.

“Wasn’t it because you were blinded by power and romance, and didn’t execute the mission well?”

Chen Luo Luo’s fingers dug into the bedding.

The system continued, indifferent.

“Back then, using the three shares of Phoenix Fortune you stole from Lin Zhao, I helped you control the female lead Lin Zhao and the male lead Shen Yu Han. Yet you only focused on bullying and indulging yourself. Now, I can no longer control the female lead who carries Fate Luck. Control over the male lead is also weakening.”

It paused, then delivered the cruel truth.

“I can only force some control over side characters, and that control cannot be perfect. If you want to win over the male lead like before, it will be very difficult.”

Chen Luo Luo’s eyes narrowed. “Who was the villain who ruined the mission?”

“We only know one thing,” the system said. “He was once called Su Bai, and he was related to the female lead. But which female lead, we don’t know.”

“Then it must be Ji Wan Tang,” Chen Luo Luo snapped, dismissing Lin Zhao without a thought. Losing to Ji Wan Tang was bearable. Losing to Lin Zhao—her subordinate, her defeated enemy—was not.

The system continued, relentless.

“According to analysis, the best method is for you to cultivate seriously, grow stronger, and seize Lin Zhao’s last share of Fate Luck.”

“Cultivate?” Chen Luo Luo shrieked as if stabbed. “I refuse to suffer! I’m a daughter of heaven’s mandate with Fate Luck! I’m a transmigrated protagonist with higher ideas than these rotten fossils. Why should I cultivate like Lin Zhao, that primitive who works like an ox and a horse?!”

The system’s voice remained flat.

“Your Fate Luck is already unstable. Though you have three parts, it only counts as two. If you cannot seize that one part of Fate Luck, you will be eliminated by the human path.”

Chen Luo Luo clenched her teeth so hard her jaw ached.

Outside, the maid trembled. Bruises mottled her arms beneath blue cloth sleeves where Chen Luo Luo had twisted her earlier. She stepped into the cave abode like a woman walking into a grave, bowed, and reported in a small voice:

“Miss, the Holy Son Shen has left with the people of Yao Chi Sacred Land and returned to Yao Chi to recover.”

Chen Luo Luo’s vision went black.

She fainted from rage.

The maid waited a moment, saw no movement, and fled the cave abode as if pardoned.

…

Morning, the Lin Family.

Dawn light pierced the mist. Dew trembled on leaves, and the cold gleam of sword light sliced through shadows as Lin Zhao moved—clean, sharp, relentless.

A quarter hour passed.

She sheathed her sword and used the fresh bite of morning wind to steady her breathing. Even now, she refused to waste time.

Granny’s voice sounded leisurely from within her inner palace.

“The Phoenix Pulse Art I passed to you is a fragment, but it is still a fourth-grade cultivation art. It’s not comparable to ordinary techniques. Without Phoenix Fortune and this resolve, you wouldn’t even open its first level.”

Lin Zhao exhaled slowly, feeling the circulation in her meridians like a stubborn river.

“The spiritual energy of the first level is green,” Granny continued. “When you can cultivate green spiritual energy, you may call Granny.”

Lin Zhao swung her sword once more, letting spiritual energy flow.

It remained colorless.

Colorless spiritual energy was what a cultivator had when they hadn’t cultivated a technique at all. Once a cultivator reached Foundation Establishment and wanted to rise higher, they needed a technique—something that shaped their spiritual energy, refined it, gave it identity.

On Mount Yun Ding, she had refused lesser techniques. The ones she wanted had all been taken by Chen Luo Luo through a thousand excuses. So even at the sixth level of Foundation Establishment, she had still been forced to cultivate without one.

Lin Zhao returned to her room and sat in meditation, running the Phoenix Pulse Art again and again. With a technique, her cultivation speed increased—but not enough.

By noon, she still couldn’t glimpse the seventh level.

Doubt crept in, unwelcome and sharp.

Was her comprehension truly this poor?

If she couldn’t open the first level through swordplay or cultivation alone… what was the trigger?

A knock interrupted her thoughts.

“Third Miss,” a maid said softly outside the barrier, “Yao Chi Sacred Land has sent word. The family head asks you to come to the Clan Great Hall for a talk.”

Had Shen Yu Han agreed to the annulment? Had he returned her token?

After two days, was there finally good news?

Lin Zhao’s spirit lifted—only to sink the moment she entered the hall.

Her father. Her mother. The Old Ancestor. All seven elders.

They were all present, gathered around the round table with faces carved into stone.

And seated above them, as if she belonged there, was a young woman with her face half-veiled, eyes arrogant enough to look down on the whole room.

When the woman saw Lin Zhao, displeasure flickered across her brow like a passing shadow.

“As expected of Yao Chi Sacred Land’s future young madam,” she said, voice honeyed with mockery. “Making elders wait so long.”

Lin Zhao didn’t answer.

She greeted the clan elders properly, then sat beside her mother.

As the Lin Family’s Young Lord, there were rights she usually ignored. That didn’t mean she didn’t have them.

The half-veiled woman’s gaze darkened.

She reached into her sleeve, placed an item on the table, and pushed it forward with deliberate emphasis.

“Now that Third Miss Lin is here,” she said, “take this back. This marriage—our Yao Chi Sacred Land will not annul it.”

The token gleamed on the tabletop.

Lin Zhao stared at it without expression.

Lin Mang’s face sank like iron.

“My daughter waited three days and three nights,” he said, voice low with restrained fury. “Where was your Holy Son? Now you say you won’t annul it because you say so—do you think my daughter can’t live without him? Or do you think the Lin Family is easy to bully?”

Even the elder council—who often clashed with Lin Mang—looked grim. The grand elder’s knuckles tightened around his teacup.

“Your Holy Son already has a beauty at his side,” he said, blunt and cold. “Our Lin Family Young Lord cannot afford to climb so high.”

The young woman—Chen Little Yan—was used to having the final word in Yao Chi Sacred Land.

Lin Zhao refusing to give her face was one thing; Lin Zhao was, after all, the intended future Matriarch.

But these old men?

These “declining” dogs?

How dared they speak back?

Chen Little Yan’s contempt deepened, sharp and poisonous.