My Mother Has a System but Won't Use It

"I love Ruo," Han Li said out loud, his face adorned with a chagrined smile.

He touched the Feather of Feelings.

The feelings were akin to icy tendrils, the emotions deep enough that the other man felt as if he was frozen in the abyss until blood oozed from the side of his lips and he stumbled back. Stunned was an understatement.

He was feeling fear.

"The emotions he has for the young woman are filled with guilt and an intense sense of protection, I can't even..." The man coughed blood again. "I can't even come close to grasp its depth. The guilt is so simmering I'd be washed in bitterness if I touched it. This youth, what is he? Can kids in their twenties even feel such intense feelings for others?"

The questioner's gaze had changed. Now, his eyes held an irrepressible fear and respect as he once again showed Han Li the feather.

Han Li looked at him mockingly, amusingly even. Meanwhile, on the side, Monk Hen Shin had a solemn expression.

His claim saying Han Li could only feel emotions for Yue Li had already lost any meaning it held. Han Li could well and truly feel emotions for people other than Yue Li but it was only one person, Ruo.

What about the others?

Was he really not using Shan Liyue and the others for his purposes? Was it not all just mirrors and smoke he uses?

And can those fake feelings be used to turn Han Li into a righteous person? Can he be transformed from this unrighteous, filthy, demonic path?

Han Li was not a person who should walk such a worthless path!

There was no reason for him to walk that path. It was walked by people with zero potential, zero capabilities to their name, and an overall meaningless existence. Who was Han Li?

He was talented. He was handsome. He had people to be cared for.

Why should he walk the Demonic Path?

Once he became a Power Born, he could become a righteous overlord and people would give him anything he so desired. Becoming a Demon was not of any good to him rather than a bad and heinous disadvantage.

His reputation was already stained by the demonic after Li Shuanwei spread Han Li's name as one of the… villain's. Han Li had been clearly and unquestionably named a Demon—the cause of all the troubles in the Starlight City before he left.

Now, he had two choices: either become a Demon whole-throughout and shamelessly move on in his path without caring for anyone's opinions, or become a righteous man in name and heart whom someone like Monk Hen Shin approves—nobody would question his sincerity then.

He would become an enemy to the 4 sects and people might come to kill him otherwise. He was safe now but once his face started to circulate, with a bad reputation and a target on his head, he would be in trouble—at least, as an Evolved that is.

Becoming a Demon was clearly counterproductive. Hen Shin wished he wouldn't be obnoxious and would allow the indoctrination of some basic morality into him. This Feather of Feelings could do that and it had made even the worst demons into forthcoming people before by giving them some basic moral values… forcefully.

Just that the user of the Feather must have a deeper feeling than the opponent for it to work. The current user was a prisoner—after using it, the prisoner would lose his sense of morality himself. Using the feather had a deep fault in that it would also corrupt its user with Monk beliefs.

The user was already a Monk of the Demon Restraining Temple, named the Feather Monk, so there was no issue.

The Feather Monk took a deep breath as Han Li's palm touched the Feather once again. All of Han Li's past thoughts had been more or less immediately dwarfing, in front of all of those emotions, he felt like a firefly against the sun but this one felt smaller but somehow, the more he stood inside this emotion, the more the monk felt as if he would be devoured soon.

"When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back at you," Han Li commented with a smirk. "He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster himself."

With a pale and terror-stricken face, the Feather monk stumbled back. This time, he didn't cough blood. He was just genuinely terrorized. Indeed, the feeling he had was like looking into an untamed abyss.

"What…" He squeaked. "What kind of emotion is that for what?"

Han Li offhandedly asked, "To Life. It is my love towards life, I love life but in the end, I understand it is hollow. I love the hollowness of life. I like the meaninglessness but I don't want to be meaningless, I want to be more than that… I want to be an Immortal. I want to control life and death.

"For I think that the only meaning in life is to enjoy the passage of time. Yet, it is but my curiosity, what if I can control it and live for all time, you see, with my loved ones?"

The Feather Monk trembled in disbelief. He had never been so disgruntled with a mere Evolved. Was wanting to merely live the way one wished Evil?

Was Monk Hen Shin misunderstanding this kid Han Li for a Demon?

He obviously was a straightforward loving individual!

This ambition!

This was an extraordinary man!

Such people brought change to lands and good ones at that.

Regardless, the feather had a reason to exist, it was to give others morals. He shall do that!

Once again, Han Li's fist gently wrapped around the feather. The temple steps fell quiet as another, more unfamiliar emotions began to emanate from the feather and enter the monk's mind. Would he be finally able to surpass Han Li's defenses over his psyche?

From Han Li's embrace, Liyue's eyes fluttered open and she absentmindedly gazed at Han Li. What had happened in her Breakthrough Dream?

What was that dark orb that she saw at the end?

The Feather Monk's constant frown suddenly eased. His brows became unfurrowed. He became a sort of meditative calm.

This particular feeling from Han Li was like a young flower. It was vibrant. It felt as if he had walked away from the lands of bloodshed and everything to a young paradise. This was a long stretch of land filled with faint smells of laughter—if that made any sense.

This was a particularly long session of emotional resonance before the Feather Monk woke up, as if from a daze. Opening his eyes, tears leaked down them, his heartbeat had become extremely filled with melancholy. The monk cried with genuine sadness.

"Who is this Liyue woman?" He asked, almost croaked.

Liyue was alarmed. She raise her hand from Han Li's lap, saying, "It's me. Who the hell are you?"

The monk looked at her. "This is like I am looking into a garden of infinity. It is just born, fresh and young and it hadn't had the time to bloom but for an ignorant and useless Monk like me, this feeling is like an enormous gorge.

"This person in itself has a heart deep enough that other people's most intense love feels like a snowflake to his obsessions. He doesn't love for no reason but if he does, it is a well so deep… a million would drown in the fire before someone could see it doused."

"No matter how long I try, there is no breaking or destroying those feelings. It had been born and it had stabilized, there is only a raise to it, no fall."

"What… are you talking about?" Liyue was obviously clueless.

Sitting on his lap was obviously disrespectful, she walked out and looked at them with a frown. Yet, his rap around her waist was obvious and his eyes were obviously amused rather than clueless.

Han Li's amusement was obvious. Of course, even if a 500-year-old person wanted to act to themselves that they love someone, it would be shallow. Love was hard to be born and it was harder for it to become a fire in the heart. In his own words, he would put his own love for Liyue as shallow but for them, it would be deeper than the biggest well they had seen.

They hadn't seen the depth of human feelings.

He knew he liked Liyue. He loved her in fact.

He had decided to love her when he became a True Demon after facing a person with similar looks to himself—using that mirror left behind by the Spirit years ago. It was a budding affection and in some more years, it would probably become intense.

"Now your issue is solved, right?" Han Li asked, his slightly irritant gaze focusing on Liyue's. "You were the only one among all of you who always complained I don't love you enough. Here, proof for you that I indeed do love you.

Let me tell you, this bastard monk with the feather had been trying so hard to get one emotion out of me that is more shallow than himself in ANY department so that he could make me a 'good person' by using Magic. It revealed that my love for you is deeper than him as a person in all factors. Happy?"

There was no reason to play by their rules anymore.

Liyue's gaze snapped towards the Feather Monk and she seemed to spit fire. Her beautiful face almost contorted in anger. Her brownish-black eyes almost seemed golden as she looked at them.

Han Li smilingly added a bit of his Heart Qi to induce fear in the Feather Monk. He could focus on who he made afraid now.

Like a shivering kitten, the monk felt his heart… stop.

Han Li immediately laughed as the connection with that monk and the whole process of communication Hen Shin used broke down, and the Feather Monk vanished.

He rose to his foot and then took Liyue into a princess carry. "It's time for celebrations, my Liyue has become an Evolved!" he said. Proud.

But her gaze was not on him, nor was she looking into her Empty Space, she was glaring at Monk Hen Shin and the man was uncomfortably squirming under her gaze—he didn't even know Han Li had him figured out… till now. Shame became a bitter potion.

Yet, she didn't say anything.

Just that her glare became intensely unfriendly the more she looked.

Han Li walked up the temple steps, his steps airy, and passed by the monk, from the side, he recited a poem in his passing:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.

"A poem by a poet named Rumi. I'd say, it fits well for you, Hen Shin."

"..."

Even after he walked up to the cobblestoned temple grounds and vanished into the temple, the Monk was silent and Liyue's gaze was spitting venomous hatred.

Yet, Han Li was calm and collected, almost refreshed. Even teasing Liyue as he went.

He had been promised that Hen Shin's teleportation this year would be given to him, after all.

That was nice to have.