The illusion shattered once more—water and light exploded together, swallowing me into an even deeper abyss. The two-headed monster followed, its shape twisting through the current like a tide of shadows.

  And then I understood.

  It wasn’t Lian.

  It wasn’t my second or fourth elder brother.

  It wasn’t anyone outside me.

  This was my own heart—my weakness I never forgave, my pain over the family I could never let go, my obsession with the one who had already betrayed me.

  “You want me angry, broken, mad—”

  I forced my eyes open. Blood clouded the water around me; my throat was raw, every breath a rasp.

  “Sorry,” I whispered, a crooked smile tugging at my lips. “Turns out I really am a little rebellious.”

  I drew in a slow, painful breath. The words I’d once heard—maybe from her, maybe from my own memory—echoed through my head:

  ‘To live clearly matters more than to live greatly.’

  And finally, I understood.

  This trial wasn’t meant to punish me. It was my own resentment, guilt, and helplessness dragging me down—my refusal to forgive, even myself.

  I raised my hand, reversed my grip, and flung the blade away.

  It scattered into light as it fell.

  In that instant, the water rippled violently. The illusion broke apart like glass struck by wind, and the system’s voice echoed from the void:

  “You have recognized and dispelled the Wrath Trial. Emotional balance restored. Trial complete.”

  I sank to my knees in the empty space, calm for the first time in what felt like centuries.

  A new message glimmered into view:

  “Stage Two – Wrath: Cleared.”

  A faint laugh escaped me. I tilted my head toward the quiet waters above and murmured,

  “Guess this time… I really did come back to life.”

  However -

  “Stage Three: Obsession—initiated.”

  The System’s voice lost its usual edge and took on a still, well of calm that carried no warmth. I blinked. For a moment I expected this “obsession” trial to fling me back into dreams of Lian and warm beds. Instead, mist rose from every direction and the walls became mirrors of water—reflections that weren’t me, and yet were horribly like me.

  I felt invisible, an outsider to the scene, able only to watch. Even my breath sounded thin and uncertain. In the glass stood a man dressed in the dark robes I once favored: sleeves barbed with gold, a tasseled jade belt at his waist, hair neatly arranged—every step a practiced flourish. Youth bright on his face, vanity at full bloom.

  It was the image of me shortly after my coming-of-age ceremony. My elder brothers had already proved themselves at the frontier; their names were well known across the nation. I—spent my days drifting through pleasure houses, the city already buzzing with my “famed romances,” the gossip engine christening me “Capital’s First Young Master.”

  The figure in the mirror lounged against a painted screen, the cup in his hand only half full; one hand held a fan, the other toyed at a zither. Incense burned in three tidy sticks. Two courtesans sat side by side behind him, one singing for flowers, the other for wine—both chosen, of course, by him.

  He sipped slowly, then addressed the crowd on stage with a courtly bow and a crooked smile. “Ladies and gentlemen, judge tonight’s piece—‘The Peach Branch’—is it not a dream in ten years?”

  The audience—half-drunk patrons—roared approval. “Young Master Nangong still has his charm! When he’s not here, the city’s night loses half its light!”

  The mirror-me spread his fan and intoned, languid and theatrical: “Wrong, wrong—ah, youth does not wait on time. Bitter cold, bitter cold—where now the flute’s note?”

  He smiled with the arrogance of a man accustomed to applause. For a second I felt a weird swell of pride: not bad, I thought. Good stage presence, steady posture—who’d say I was ever useless?

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  But as I watched, a heat rose in my chest that wasn’t pride. He smiled too easily, too content. Those cheap jokes, the left embraces and right indulgences—he seemed to cherish them as life’s whole meaning. No shame, no regret. He didn’t know how his reputation would crumble after that day, how his brothers would laugh behind their hands, how the household would murmur.

  I stared until my face burned.

  —What I thought of as “charm” then, others had seen as “depravity.”

  The mirror-me dropped to his knees. Tears soaked his face as he clutched at a statue-like corpse of Lian, wailing, “Why won’t you believe me? I would give up everything—just say you won’t blame me, and I—”

  His voice broke. He bowed his head, face streaked with tears, frantic and ridiculous. He smashed the jade token against his cheek until it splintered, clung to the fragments, then flung himself on top of the corpse, babbling, “I’ll die with you,” while incongruously shrinking away in pitiful little convulsions.

  I choked on a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. Shame bloomed hot and ugly in my throat. Watching that ‘me’—knowing it could not be real—felt like letting someone else stab me a hundred times. Each humiliation in the mirror pricked me like needles.

  Then it hit me: I wasn’t watching some alien madness. That had been me. I had been that foolish. So indiscriminate, so reckless—mistaking frantic closeness for love, throwing away dignity as if it were pocket change. I had once believed that if I forced myself close enough, some answer would come.

  Silence in my throat. My voice felt thin and small. “Was I really that stupid?” I whispered.

  “You were,” the System answered, then as gentle as reflected light. No blame, only cold clarity.

  I lowered my gaze for the first time, unable to meet the mirror’s eyes. It wasn’t anger or grievance—just shame. I had offered love as a wager and spent my dignity like coin. In that moment I felt like a tower struck by lightning—crumbling inward, a ruin worth nothing even as dust.

  Just as I was about to close my eyes, the mirror shattered. Water and light inverted and the mirage dissolved.

  “Obsession trial—broken.”

  I looked up, stunned. “Just that?” I wheezed. No swords, no blood—only humiliation and I was cleared?

  Was the System suddenly compassionate? I puffed a breath and sniffed, half proud, half incredulous. “So I pass by shame? Lucky me—my talent for self-destruction finally pays off.”

  “Loading next stage,” the System announced.

  I straightened. “Ha! See? I was right—my instinct finally woke up. I—” I cut myself off.

  The scene did not fade.

  The mirror-man rose, smoothed his sleeve and put on a new smile—polished, condescending. “Who really understands me?” he asked the empty air. “They call me foolish; but if I am foolish, who could outwit me?”

  Around him, guests bowed and bowed. Lian stood behind him, alive and demure, head bowed in submission. The mirror-me lifted his cup with a languid laugh. “See? They bend to me in the end. I am Nangong Gong. I have fallen into mud—but I will make the world know: I deserve Lian, I deserve the beauty of the brothel, I deserve this age’s splendor.”

  A chill ran up my spine. The words twined wrong on my tongue. “System—didn’t we already pass ‘obsession’?”

  “‘Obsession’ and ‘arrogance’ are a linked trial,” the System said. “Current stage: the Illusion of Arrogance.”

  “…Arrogance?”

  “It refers to haughtiness, sloth, and entitlement. Thinking oneself superior—believing one deserves everything.”

  My head snapped. Obsession wasn’t the endgame at all; it was merely the first stitch. If I failed to feel shame, it twisted into pride. I had nearly congratulated myself on victory a moment ago.

  I slapped my palm to my forehead. “Nearly idiot again.”

  A bell tolled somewhere, long and hollow. Smoke cleared and I found myself in the middle of a jubilant crowd—drums, banners, red cloth flung around like a festival. A middle-aged man bowed low. “Lord Gong has arrived!” he cried. “I am Li, we have been respectfully awaiting you for a while. The Eastern Ridge is beset by calamity—flood and fire. The people beg you, Young Master, to descend and save them.”

  My mouth went dry. “You have the wrong man. I don’t know martial arts. I can’t do sorcery. And I’m balding.”

  Li’s eyes filled with tears. “Sir, how can you doubt yourself? Word says you have an innate root of wisdom—your fan breaks formations, your steps chase souls. You alone know the ‘Nangong Thirteen Moves’—no one dares attempt the seventh!”

  He produced a sword with all the pomp of a stage magician. The blade was ink-black, faintly shimmering, certainly impressive. “This relic is called ‘Broken Water’—an ancient treasure. Only the fated may wield it.”

  “Am I still dreaming?” I gripped the hilt. It felt real enough.

  “If you are a dream,” Li proclaimed, “then the world has no heroes!”

  His rhetoric was a blur. The old man’s passion stirred the crowd: children wailing, elders weeping, women on their knees. My conscience pricked. If I didn’t act, I’d be a coward among them.

  “Fine.” I shrugged, swung my cloak, and mounted the cart with as much dignity as I could muster. “Consider me a wandering knight doing good deeds for our ancestors’ merit.”

  We rode west. On the way, Li and I spun tall tales until my fabricated “Nangong Thirteen Moves” grew from one to fifteen, each more ludicrous than the last.

  The so-called Eastern Ridge fort was a mountain hamlet with a broken gate. Villagers knelt in the dirt—children crying from hunger, the old half-clothed and shivering. In the center, tied and gagged, were a dozen hostages. One woman pounded at her ropes and screamed, “Hero, please save us!”

  I bit my lip, held the “Broken Water,” and preened for the seventh move—Nangong’s Signature Kick—then lunged.

  The sword snapped in my hand.

  Not cleaving an enemy—my sword split with a loud crack, the tip flying off and thunking against a wall like a ladle dropping into porridge.

  I stared at the useless hilt and the fallen blade piece, my face heating with humiliation again.