My Mother Has a System but Won't Use It

Liyue walked out of the room in eery, cold fear.

She was walking in the Dream World.

The clouds outside the temple hall were dark and ominous, rain was falling in relentless sheets.

She remembered this day three years ago—storm-filled, rainy, and filled with the mumbling sounds of monks. It had been an ordinary day.

With quick steps, she walked to another room and found Mother Yue Li and Brother Han, they were flirting with each other while watching Wei Yuanfen train.

Mother Yue seemed as innocent as ever; trapped in his tight embrace, she was working hard to move out and train Wei Yuanfen like a cool master but Han Li's hand was too powerful, and no matter how many sweet words she said or not, she couldn't move out of the vice grip.

A slight smile graced Liyue's lips at the nostalgic scenery.

'3 years hadn't changed much,' she thought.

Then, she looked at Wei Yuanfen and this entire situation suddenly made Liyue pause. Dreams… they had rules of their own. In dreams, things that you didn't know of wouldn't happen. Even every person you had ever seen in your dreams would be someone you had passed by in real life.

A dream was made up of one's own experiences. She had heard about this scene before but she had never seen it happen in real time. She walked closer and Han Li's words grew clearer. "Yuanfen, the first thing one does in training is choosing a weapon. What weapon do you want to wield?"

'Wei Yuanfen's weapon choosing,' Liyue contemplated and tried touching Han Li but her hands passed through him like a mirage. She watched silently.

In the end, after trying many different weapons, Yuanfen ended up with a stick. It was not the spear but a stick—a Rod. It was 3 meters long and extremely powerful. Even though it lacked a spear's edge, Han Li's teachings made it every bit dangerous.

Why was this in her dreams?

Liyue thought, looking at her palm. It was a beautiful palm, she knew it was. The callouses faintly visible on her fingertips were even more beautiful, it was no longer clear in sight but it had been clear, it was the manifestation of her diligence in the art of spear. She clenched her hand. "It is said that only things affecting oneself happen in Breakthrough Dreams. So this event affected me?

Unknowingly?"

She remembered. Indeed, she had been a bit jealous when Wei Yuanfen was given a weapon. Due to not knowing the truth behind the girl's indifference to love, she had put a barrier between her. But that was long ago, after knowing the truth, she had apologized.

She and Yuanfen had a friendship between them that Liyue was proud of. She walked again and the surroundings shifted once more. It was another day. In the Grand Temple Hall.

First of all, she focused on herself in the Dream—That Liyue was biting her nails and looking at the events with nervousness. Fear.

She then looked at the center of the room. Han Li was there, Hua Yu was there, Monk Hen Shin was there… and so was Mother Yue. In Mother Yue's lap sat a white-haired girl of stunning beauty with a dazed gaze.

Only in Yue Li's lap was she not nervous, outside of her lap, Ruo would panic. Han Li was trying to feed her something but she refused to do that after a while, and after much soothing from Yue Li, she ate the resource.

Her body became bloody very quickly and she cried, even Han Li's eyes, which she had never seen being anything other than calm were shaking.

There was so much emotion, so much guilt, his trembling hands, his pale face. He was almost… Liyue shook her head. After eating the fruit, Ruo was healed. Her body slowly rebuilt itself and she had no worries of the Fang Clan killing the other Gu from there on.

Liyue smiled, for this girl, she had nothing but admiration. Heartache. She was such a pure thing. After the girl was healed, the entirety of the monastery celebrated and she was fed a bunch of sweet things.

Even she herself had forced Ruo to eat some sweet things and the girl had slowly come around. Only Han Li had never fed her anything.

The scene shifted.

It was in her bedroom.

Two days after the Ruo incident.

Han Li was melancholic, he drank a lot that day. He had become so drunk and he had cried so much, he had even entered the room believing Liyue was his mother. Liyue immediately sighed, "Big Brother, Ruo's event did hurt you a lot."

He fell on the side of the bed and leaned against it, he laughed. "It did hurt but it is a good sort of pain. Guilt, Mom. Guilt. I do have a lot of that simmering within me. Indeed, to Ruo, I don't even deserve her forgiveness.

I didn't even feed her today."

Liyue frowned and carried him to the bed. Han Li seemed like he wanted to talk more but she put her palm on his mouth, closing it. "Keep your secrets to yourself, tell me if you ever feel like it when you are sober."

"Mom?" he asked blurrily, pushing her palm aside, then added, "I don't know Mom, someone is scheming against me, I tried marrying Liyue for the second time and it failed. First, I failed because of the fucking Heaven Rising, now I have failed once more. I even think that the Heaven Rising happened sooner than expected because I tried to marry her. Someone is scheming, or something is scheming.

Something is wrong."

Liyue wanted to hear more about that but she pushed him down on the bed, "Why did you drink so much? What did you even drink Big Brother?" She wanted to get a blanket but she couldn't, he wrapped her hand around her.

"Magic Resource alcohol!" Han Li said dreamily. "It was useful for cultivation. I'd gain a bunch of Dao Crystals because I am unrestrainedly lustful now. Let me have sex! A lot!"

"Okay, Okay!" Liyue struggled to sleep above him comfortably. "So what is scheming against us anyway?"

Han Li kissed her. She could only comply and even she felt as if she was in a fugue state after kissing him. It was indeed a powerful drug. "Something is. It's… I don't know!"

"So you don't want to marry her?" Liyue felt guilty for asking the question when he was like this but her mouth spoke before she could help it.

Suddenly, Han Li's tone changed, much more melancholic. "I care enough about her to not let her be disappointed, of course, I'd marry her. I became a True demon from an unrighteous cold Demon because I had had enough of running away from my own emotions…"

Then, his eyes closed and he fell asleep.

That was the most vulnerable she had ever seen Han Li. He was not one to be that reckless—only later that day did she learn that it was because of an experiment, that Han Li had to do this.

He had been researching Beasts and a particular Snake Beast equal to Evolved in strength had appeared in a nearby forest. He had subdued it after a fight but it had some kind of weird poison that spread through the air and he had ended up sniffing it. It was deadly.

When he knew he was poisoned, it was too late and he didn't want to lose the Life Type Magical Resources, which she knew he had, for it.

He had killed the snake and there was no better antidote than the snake's own Beast Core but the poison was already too entrenched in his flesh by the time he noticed before the antidote took effect, he'd die, so he had used a recipe he knew and created the alcohol. The alcohol would make him absurdly drugged but it was worth taking the risk not to lose a Life Type Resource.

He had wanted to walk away from the temple till he grew sober but what happened was the opposite luckily, he didn't go to Monk Hen Shin and came to Liyue instead. From then on, Han Li always brought Hua Yu with him when he did anything dangerous.

She smiled at the sight of the dream. It was the first time she had seen Han Li's vulnerable side and honestly speaking, she didn't want to see it again. He was better off being the invincible Big Brother.

Not that she would hesitate to provide it if he wanted a shoulder to cry on.

Again, the memories started to shift with no order.

She walked from one part of her life to the other.

Walking through, she saw Ruo smiling for the first time. All of them, Liyue, Yuanfen, Li Yao, Yue Li, and even Hua Feilan had teared up at the sight. Only Han Li and Hua Yu watched from the side, silent.

She saw how her mother Li Yao had been forced to become a Monk by Han Li. She wore Monk Robes but never cut her hair, she still drank alcohol, and she still had sex with Han Li oftentimes.

She no longer kept their relationship a secret and she had been given a bow and many arrows by Han Li to train with. She was, surprisingly, being taught in a long-range weapon.

Hua Feilan had joined Han Li's tutelage too. The training was fun but the woman seemed to have a story, as Big Brother had once said. She was not just a figure who could be named with a single term "Friend of All Woman." There was a painful story as to how that came to be.

Nobody knew it and nobody asked. Hua Yu knew it but she was the most alien one in their entire family. Even in the last three years, she had rarely ever talked to her.

Liyue witnessed everything once more. She saw her own faults. How she had been so scared of everything and anything. How she had been forced to sing in a Monk Festival by her Big Brother.

That was still a bit… embarrassing.

She wasn't too good at singing.

Then she saw Ruo speaking for the first time. It was to Han Li—she had asked him to make her a Honey Candy.

It was something he no longer had but he bought the materials from Monk Hen Shin and made Ruo a handful of them. That day, Han Li told her something that she still remembered, "Ruo is such a genius. She could see I was guilty of approaching her and she didn't want that, she wanted me to act like everybody else."

He had been happy that day. She had kicked his butt for not feeling happy for her like that but of course, he had dodged and thrown her into an icy pond. She laughed at the sight.

2 years since their arrival here when Ruo turned 16, they held a birthday party and the Ruo then was a different person. She still didn't talk much, she was a very silent person but her eyes had a shine to them. She was being taught in the monastery and the monks were all her teachers.

She even had friends her own age—subordinates would be a better term but still, she was a small sensation around the monastery.

There was a small incident of Han Li confessing to her but she didn't know what had happened on that front. She had forgotten to ask.

Liyue chuckled. "Among us, Ruo is the second-most luckiest after Mother Yue."

She walked again and her dreams shifted once more. It was the Southern Lust City, she was just three or four years old and she was outside her home.

Ice had accumulated in the city ground, kids were already making snowmen in some areas. She took the ice and made a little snowman. Liyue looked at her childish self and couldn't help but smile. She had been a loner since her youth.

Suddenly, she frowned. Liyue dug into the ice on the ground, her little palms red. Then suddenly, something like a dark ball grew visible underneath the ice. Startled and fearful, she touched it.

Everything vanished.

The dream vanished.

Darkness returned.