Zhao Lu’s Tale

  “The Demon Blood Prophecy is the founding legend of our clan."

  “Even before I arrived in this world. The myth said that when the imperial line weakened, a plague would arise, and our family would be the first to fall.”

  “I didn’t believe in prophecies. Not at first. When I was alive on the other side—Earth—I was an accountant. Which meant I believed in three things: entropy, the time value of money, and the certainty that you could always predict the future if you had enough data.”

  “When I died, I reincarnated into the Zhao clan. I was old, then I was young. I was alone, then surrounded by siblings and cousins, all of us fighting for position in a hierarchy so dense you could choke on it. But I thought, if I played the game perfectly, I would win. I always win games.”

  “My world’s system is called the ‘Ancestral Clan,’ and it assigned me an interface. Like this...” she gestured, and a faint, blue-white overlay shimmered into view, visible even to the living. “It was elegant. You monitored your own Strength, but also Clan Stability, Prosperity, and... " she paused, “Reputation. It updated in real time, with notifications for every major event: marriages, deaths, alliances, betrayals.”

  A ghost of pride haunted her smile. “I rose quickly. I hit Level 30 by the age of twenty-three. The 'God' tier begins at Level 45 or so the legends say."

  "That’s when I entered my first loop.”

  She let the words hang, waiting for the question. It was Briar, of course, who broke first.

  “Sorry, but what do you mean by loop?” Briar asked, hugging her knees to her chest. “Like, a time loop?”

  Zhao Lu nodded. “Exactly that. Only, it wasn’t just my life. The entire world reset. Everything except for me, and, sometimes, a few others. At first, I believed it was punishment. Later, I realized it was just… the system at work, refining the story until it was perfect.”

  Calanthe raised her chin. “That’s a standard protagonist correction cycle,” she said. “You keep running the scenario until the intended outcome is achieved, or you break the narrative.” She looked at Briar. “It’s a popular progression path in narratives from my time. Most people never notice. But if you have enough self-awareness... "

  “She’s right,” Zhao Lu’s mouth twitched at the corner. “I failed five times during the first loop. Each time, the scenario reiterated itself. I learned faster, optimized my approach, anticipated every crisis before it happened, improved my levels.”

  ***

  <1. The Loop of the Quarantine>

  “During the first loop,” Zhao Lu began, “I treated the prophecy like any other audit risk. I set up controls. I minimized uncertainty.”

  She sat straighter as she spoke “The Zhao clan at that time ran five counties and held an imperial concession on the only saltpeter mine in the region. We had five generations of accumulated enemies, all of whom hated each other only slightly less than they hated us.”

  “My strategy was simple: Zero tolerance, total quarantine. I convinced the council to close the city walls, then expanded to every outer post. I ordered guards to screen every entry and exit, personally debriefed all traders. For three months, not a single outsider set foot in the Zhao compound without my say-so.”

  “I failed five times because I was less assiduous with my quarantine measures. The system rewarded me when I struck the right balance.”

  [CLAN ENFORCER – Level 32.]

  “Despite the measures, I could sense the Plague’s narrative weight. Every morning, I checked for symptoms among the staff. Every night, I logged the Status of each household. I slept in two-hour increments, convinced I could catch the anomaly in the act.”

  Tanith interrupted, “Didn’t that breed resentment?”

  “It did. The guards, especially, began to view me as an occupying power. The inner circle grew insular and stopped reporting.” Zhao Lu’s mouth tightened. “But I considered that a necessary cost.”

  “The key event came in week eleven: a second cousin tried to smuggle a sealed relic into the compound, claiming it was a tribute for the ancestral altar. I intercepted him at the south gate and personally unwrapped the parcel. Inside was an artifact bound in crimson silk. A Blood Bell.”

  “You killed him?” Tanith asked.

  “I had to,” Zhao Lu said. “It was the only way to set precedent. I dragged him in front of the entire extended family and presented the evidence. The artifact’s resonance alone nearly triggered the event.” She grimaced. “My own grandmother begged for mercy, but I ordered the execution.”

  Callie’s jaw tensed. “Did it work?”

  “Of course,” Zhao Lu sat back. “I escaped the first loop with that one single measure. The prophecy event was suppressed, and the system gave me a massive experience boost.”

  She looked down at her hands. “But when you suppress a threat with brute force, you don’t destroy it. You only force it underground. The household began to fracture along old lines. Elders whispered that I was possessed by a demon. Cousins stopped trusting each other. The bloodline, once tight as a drum, split open.”

  “A few weeks later, the second loop started.”

  ***

  <2.The Loop of the Web>

  “By the time the next loop started, I was the acting head of the Inner Council, responsible for all internal affairs. I knew from the start that brute force would not work again, so I adopted another method: soft power, indirect control. I mapped every interpersonal tie in the Zhao compound: who ate with whom, who owed whom favors, who had cause to hate the next cousin over.”

  Briar interjected, “Like a detective story?”

  Zhao Lu smiled. “More like a compliance audit crossed with a reality show. But yes.”

  “I started with the malcontents. The ones who’d fanned discontent after the last cycle. I didn’t confront them; instead, I offered them minor victories. I promoted a junior cousin to head of supplies. I let the matriarch’s favorite granddaughter organize the spring festival. Each time, I logged the changes, watching the interface adjust in real time:”

  [Clan Stability: +12. Harmony: Moderate. Reputation: Restored.]

  She let the others see the window as it flickered and ticked upward, column by column. “With each small gift, the resistance softened. But I never stopped surveilling them. I assigned personal guards as ‘bodymen,’ reporting every word and gesture. I installed a new scribe in the archive. Her real job was copying the council minutes, especially those I was excluded from, and sending them to me.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Tanith’s pen slowed, her eyes hungry. “Did anyone notice?”

  “Oh, yes.” Zhao Lu made a gesture of irritation. “But it didn’t matter. I had preempted the worst troublemakers by creating enough distractions; enough little prizes that the old grievances never found purchase.”

  “I detected the new Plague narrative days before it had any chance of developing. I had it solved on only my second run. I called a secret council meeting, four days before the expected outbreak event. I had evidence. Handwritten confessions, intercepted letters; linking the three most vocal elders to a foreign merchant who’d been planting artifacts in the clan for a decade. I confronted them, not publicly, but in private, each one in their own room, each certain she was the only traitor caught.”

  “By the end of the night, two had confessed fully, and the third hanged herself in the garden. No open revolt. No violence. The morning after, I promoted their juniors, and the interface flashed:

  [CLAN LEADER – Level 35. Trait Unlocked: Persuasive Authority. Vision: Expanded. Insight: +6.]

  Callie looked sideways at her. “From executioner to political backstabber.”

  Zhao Lu shrugged. “It was a solved game. I only needed to stay ahead of the narrative.”

  ***

  <3. The Loop of the Fortress>

  “The third loop was nothing like the previous two.”

  Zhao Lu folded her hands over her knees. “By now, I had quelled all internal strife and any enemies now lay without not within. I didn’t realize this at first of course, I was still looking for clan traitors harboring artifacts, seeking to trigger the prophecy for some unfathomable reason.”

  “I was killed two weeks into the third loop when my clan hall was sacked by enemies.”

  “I woke up in my bedroom, skin till tingling from the sensation of being burnt alive by my enemies.” Zhao Lu sighed. “I embraced the logic of it all. From the first morning, I pushed every resource into defenses. I built watchtowers along the border, doubled patrols, cut the trade routes to a single choke point. I conscripted three hundred laborers and trained them as irregular militia. For the first time, the clan acted as one. The interface lit up in gold, updating every night as the fortifications spread:”

  [Clan Strength: +22. Security: Superior. Readiness: Maximal.]

  She looked at Calanthe. “This time, I didn’t try to keep everyone happy. I made examples of the weak and the hesitant.”

  Tanith interrupted, “That must have been hell on morale.”

  “It was,” Zhao Lu agreed. “But it was nothing compared to what happened next. The Plague didn’t come as a disease; it came as an army with the invader’s faces covered in the blood of our people.”

  Her voice turned hard. “The entire southern river valley fell in a week. When the refugees appeared at the gates, I had the guards let in only the youngest and strongest, then ordered the gates barricaded behind them.”

  She said it without apology. “I knew the enemy would come next, and I needed every hand.”

  Briar’s face had gone pale. “Were you scared?”

  “I was exhilarated,” Zhao Lu said. “For once, the story made sense. I could see the lines of cause and effect, and I could predict every next move.” She paused, relishing the memory. “I held the city for two months. Every day, I reviewed the battle maps, updated supply flows, rotated the garrisons. When the enemy broke through the outer wall, I led the counter-attack myself.”

  “It only took me two tries to complete the loop.” Her eyes narrowed, gleaming with remembered violence. “I killed the general of the opposing force in single combat. The system awarded me another achievement:”

  [Clan Matriarch – Level 40. Title Unlocked: Heroine of the Border.]

  Zhao Lu smiled. “For three days, I waited for the world to reset. But it didn’t. The clan flourished. The city grew. My people, my children started to forget the terror that had shaped us. It was… almost peaceful.”

  Zhao Lu fell silent.

  Callie was the first to break the silence. “You won?”

  “No.”

  ***

  <4. The Loop of the Silent Bell>

  “The last loop was the same but different. A massed final gathering of our enemies, stronger individual antagonists. I failed it five times; took notes, ground levels, and prepared. Failure here would have meant the complete annihilation of the Zhao clan. Not a single man, woman, or child would have been allowed to live.”

  “The sixth time round, I was ready for all of it.”

  “The enemy army, three times the size this time, arrived exactly on schedule. We met them outside the walls, in the marshlands where their horses would be useless. The fighting lasted for a day and a night, but it was never in doubt. The Zhao clan’s line had never been stronger, or more unified.”

  “I slaughtered them all.”

  She shivered, reliving the moment. “I remember standing in the mud, the sky red with dawn and smoke, the enemy banners broken. The interface blinked at the edge of my vision. I expected the usual achievement notification. Instead, I saw something new.”

  Her mouth twisted. “It started with a red mist. I thought it was a trick of the light, or exhaustion. But then my own warriors began to change. Their skin split, and black claws pushed through. Their eyes turned red, their teeth grew long. They tore off their own armor and fell on the wounded; ours and theirs alike.”

  Briar’s voice, a bare whisper: “You didn’t know?”

  “I never saw it coming,” Zhao Lu said. “The prophecy wasn’t about an enemy, or a disease. It was about a bloodline. We were the Plague. The system had been holding it in check, suppressing the transformation until the moment of ultimate victory. Then it let go.”

  She closed her eyes. “I watched as my cousins, my children, even my own mother, turned into monsters. They rampaged through the battlefield, then the city, then the countryside. Every survivor they caught was infected or consumed.”

  She inhaled, the sound ragged. “The last interface message I ever got in that world was this:”

  [PROPHECY FULFILLED: DEMON BLOODLINE AWAKENED.]

  [CLAN ZHAO STATUS: PATIENT ZERO.]

  [MANDATE OF HEAVEN: RESCINDED.]

  [LOOP 1 of 2.]

  “The system gave me one more try and then locked me out after that.

  No more loops, no more third chances. It was completely arbitrary. The result was the same whatever I did.” Zhao Lu laughed. “The real joke is, every time I think about it, I want to try again. I keep thinking, if I just made one different move, maybe the world wouldn’t end.”

  Zhao Lu let the silence hang. “I’ve spent the last year hunting down members of my own family before they devoured the world.” Her mouth trembled as she spoke. “My children… “

  Tanith had stopped writing. Briar was crying. Even Callie’s face had gone blank, a mask to cover whatever horror the story had woken in her.

  ***

  Zhao Lu looked around the pavilion, eyes alight with unmoored energy. “That’s the story. The prophecy never mattered. The world just wanted to see how far I’d go before I broke.”

  She fell silent, lost in memory.

  After a long moment, Zhao Tong stepped forward. “You did what you had to do.”

  Zhao Lu looked at him. “You always say that. But you’re the only one who gets to believe it.”

  Callie could tell there was nothing left but the exhausted relief of someone who had finally confessed everything.

  ***

  After Zhao Lu finished her story, she seemed to shrink into herself. The transformation was literal: the scales on her arms faded, replaced by delicate white skin; her jawline softened; even her posture collapsed, so that for a moment she was just a young woman in a borrowed blue robe, not a living vector for the end of worlds.

  Callie waited. She had long ago learned that silence could be its own form of care, especially for survivors of unwinnable games.

  Zhao Lu found her voice. “You want to know the worst part?” she asked.

  Briar wiped her eyes. “What?”

  “The loop never really ended... in my dreams. For a hundred lifetimes, I’ve watched the world loop, again and again. I would send my children away and they would die at the enemies' hands; kept them close but far from the battlefield, and nothing would change. Sometimes I was alive, sometimes a ghost warning anyone foolish enough to try again. You’d be amazed how many people think they can solve a time loop with brute force. Or love.”

  Callie frowned. “What about Zhao Tong?”

  Zhao Lu fixed her eyes on Zhao Tong. “You want to know why you’re here?” she asked. “It’s because I exiled you. In my final cycle, I couldn’t take the chance that I would fail. So when I saw the chance, I made you the scapegoat for a failed campaign. I told the world you were a coward, a traitor. I had all the accumulated power and prestige to do so, and I used it.“

  “Do you understand, little brother?” Zhao Lu said, her gaze unwavering. “I’m the reason why everyone despises you.”

  Zhao Tong opened his mouth, then closed it. He stared at his sister, face stricken.

  Zhao Lu reached for him, her hand trembling. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t bear to see you become... ”

  He took her hand, and for a moment, there was no monster at all; just two siblings holding on for dear life.

  ***

  The air in the Pavilion thickened with the weight of all the stories that had never been told, or never ended well.

  Briar asked, “Do you think the loop is really over now?”

  Zhao Lu managed a smile. “It is for me. It’s the end of my story but I won’t leave. The system doesn’t care about closure but I’ll fight it till my very last breath.”

  She looked at Callie. “You’re not like the others, are you? Someone in my dreams told me that her ‘grouchy supervisor’ [脾气暴躁的主管] might be paying me a visit.”

  “That would be me,” Callie replied, owning the description completely.

  She stood, facing Zhao Lu. “I promise you this: If I ever meet the one who wrote your story, I’ll tell them what I think of their narrative design.”

  “And what would you say?”

  Callie didn’t hesitate. “That it’s utter fucking shite! Complete bullshit! Only Belus could have come up with such nonsense.”

  The Pavilion echoed with her voice, then fell silent once more.

  And in that silence, something shifted: not a reset, not a loop, but the smallest possibility of grace, flickering just beyond the edge of the system window.