The walk back from Luo Yan's compound was a blur of shadow and shame. Every rustle of leaves sounded like the footsteps of a pursuing elder. Every distant voice was an accusation. The Sun-Moon Pendant, now stored in his System inventory, felt less like a treasure and more like a cursed artifact, its weight poisoning his very soul. He didn't go back to his barracks. He couldn't face the confined space. Instead, he found a secluded outcrop of rock on the mountain's edge, far from the main paths, and collapsed there, staring into the abyss of the night-shrouded valley below.
He took the pendant out again. In the starlight, its gentle pulse was a mockery. He saw the kind eyes of the woman in the portrait. He heard the echo of Luo Yan's letter. A great comfort.
[ The acquisition was successful. Host cultivation speed is projected to increase by 18%. This is a significant milestone. ] the System chimed in, its voice a jarringly cheerful counterpoint to his inner turmoil.
It was for his mother, Lin Feng thought, the words a silent scream in his mind. He was sending it to his sick mother.
[ The intended recipient of an asset does not alter its functional utility. The Host's need for rapid power escalation to ensure survival and complete the Hero's Path remains the primary variable. The artifact's energy-gathering properties are now being utilized for a higher-priority objective. ]
A higher-priority objective? Lin Feng wanted to laugh, a bitter, broken sound. What objective could be higher than a son's love for his mother? The System's logic was a sterile, heartless calculus. It could quantify energy output and cultivation percentages, but it was blind to the value of a smile, the peace of a pain-free breath, the simple, profound act of caring for someone you love.
He had become its instrument. He had let its cold logic override his own morality. He had justified the theft to himself by framing it as a necessity, a means to break Zhang Li's siege. But staring into the void, he knew that was a lie. He had done it because the reward was high and the System had told him to. He had traded a stranger's comfort for his own convenience.
"I have to give it back," he whispered into the night.
[ Analysis: Returning the asset carries a 97.3% probability of severe punitive action, including cultivation crippling or execution. The risk is unacceptably high. The optimal path is utilization. ]
"I don't care about your optimal path!" he snarled aloud, his fists clenching. "This isn't a game! That's a person's life I've messed with!"
[ Correction: The Host's life is the primary strategic concern. The 'Hero's Path' requires difficult choices. This is one of them. ]
Hero. The word now tasted like ash. What kind of hero stole medicine from the sick? What kind of hero found his strength by preying on the filial piety of others?
He thought of Su Lian. Her misty silver eyes seemed to float in his memory, seeing the new, ugly stain on his spirit. "A soul out of balance attracts chaos." He had attracted this chaos. He had created it. And the imbalance was now a chasm inside him.
He couldn't keep it. He knew that with a certainty that went deeper than fear. Using the pendant, feeling its stolen warmth aid his cultivation, would forever be a poison in his foundation. Every breakthrough would be built on this sin. The dissonance would eventually shatter him, just as Old Man Feng had warned.
But returning it directly was, as the System stated, suicide.
His mind, the analytical part that had served him so well, began to work again, not in service of the System, but in rebellion against it. He couldn't return it to the compound. But he couldn't keep it.
An idea, fragile and desperate, began to form.
Luo Yan was away. The pendant was meant for his mother. What if it never went missing? What if it simply… reached its intended destination?
He spent the rest of the night refining the plan, his guilt and fear forging it into a sharp, precise tool. At first light, he went to Xiao Hai. The boy was sweeping the courtyard outside the barracks, his eyes widening when he saw the grim determination on Lin Feng's face.
"Xiao Hai, I need a favor. A discreet one. It involves going to the Outer City."
"Of course, young master! Anything!"
Lin Feng handed him a small, carefully wrapped package and a sealed letter. "Take this to the Cloud-Soaring Courier service in the city. You are to pay them to deliver it to this address." He handed over a slip of paper with an address in a distant province, one he had gotten the System to look up—the location of Luo Yan's mother. "You are to say it is a gift from a 'grateful patient' of Old Man Feng. You know nothing else. If anyone asks, you never saw me this morning. Do you understand?"
Xiao Hai looked at the package and the letter, his young face serious. He understood the gravity. "I understand, young master. It will be done."
Lin Feng had written the letter in the most generic, respectful terms he could manage, praising the woman's son for his virtue and hoping the enclosed gift would bring her comfort. He signed it with a false name. He included every last one of the Low-Grade Spirit Stones from his original sect allocation and the System reward inside the package alongside the pendant. It was all the tangible wealth he had, a paltry sum for a Core Disciple's mother, but it was a penance. A way to pay for the postage, so to speak.
He watched Xiao Hai hurry away, a knot of anxiety tightening in his chest. It was a risk. The boy could be caught. The courier could be questioned. But it was a calculated risk, far better than the certainty of his own moral decay or the near-certainty of execution.
He had not returned the pendant. But he had completed its journey. He had subverted the System's quest. He had taken its "acquisition" and turned it into a delivery.
[ Warning: Host actions are sub-optimal. Asset has been relinquished. Projected cultivation speed increase: 0%. ]
"Go to hell," Lin Feng muttered, a wave of fierce, defiant satisfaction washing over him. For the first time, he had pushed back against the System's will. He had chosen his own path, a path that felt crooked and dangerous, but was, for the first time since his transmigration, uniquely his.
He had lost the pendant. He had lost his spirit stones. He was back to square one, resource-less and blockaded.
But as he stood there, watching the sun rise over the misty peaks, he felt a strange, fragile sense of peace. The chasm within him was still there, but he had built a bridge across it. It was a rickety, precarious thing, but it was a start.
He had failed the System's quest. But in the deeper, more important quest for his own soul, he had just passed his first real test.