The Void Star Region trembled.
Su Mei, the Ice Empress, was tearing the Immortal Realm apart. Not with war, but with
commerce.
She sat on her Stellar Ice Throne, the System interface open before her. The "Memory Erasure
Pill" still mocked her with its price tag: 10,000 Support Points.
She needed Points. She needed to make the pain stop.
"System," Su Mei commanded, her voice echoing in the vast hall. "Define the parameters for
generating Support Points."
[Definition: Support Points are generated when the Host performs an act of selfless
service, sacrifice, or affection for the Beneficiary.]
Su Mei narrowed her eyes. "I am the User now. I am the Administrator."
[Correct. However, the System's core engine remains unchanged. To generate energy,
there must be a Host (Provider) and a Beneficiary (Receiver). Currently, the Host slot is:
EMPTY.]
"Then assign a new Host," Su Mei said. She waved her hand.
The doors to the palace blew open. Two guards dragged in a prisoner. It was the Young Master
of the Solar Sect, a handsome, talented Immortal she had captured during her conquest of the
neighboring star system. He was powerful, arrogant, and terrified.
"You," Su Mei pointed at him. "Love me."
The Young Master blinked, confused and bleeding. "Empress... I... I respect your power! I
submit!"
"I did not ask for submission. I asked for service. Care for me. Worry about me."
The Young Master trembled. "I... I will bring you the finest wines! I will build you a garden!"
"Do it," Su Mei commanded.
She watched the System counter.
The Young Master scurried to pour her a cup of wine. He offered it to her with shaking hands,
terrified she would kill him.
Su Mei took the cup. She looked at the counter.
[Support Points Gained: 0.]
"Why?" Su Mei slammed the cup down, shattering the table. "He served me!"
[Analysis: The action was motivated by Fear and Self-Preservation. The System filters
out impure intent. Only selfless devotion generates Points.]
Su Mei looked at the Young Master. He was cowering on the floor.
"Useless," she whispered.
She flicked a finger. The Young Master turned into an ice statue.
"Next."
For ten years, Su Mei cycled through "Hosts." She kidnapped the most devoted lovers in the
realm. She captured poets. She captured saints. She forced them to serve her.
[Points: 0.] [Points: 0.] [Points: 0.]
None of them loved her. They feared her. They worshipped her power. They coveted her beauty.
But not a single one looked at her and worried if she was eating enough. Not a single one
looked at her invincible form and thought, 'She looks tired.'
Because she wasn't tired. She was a god. Only Li Wei, who remembered her as a mortal, had Su Mei sat alone in the pile of frozen statues—a graveyard of failed suitors.
"It is impossible," she realized. "The System is dead. It died with him."
She looked at the grayed-out icon of the Resurrection Pill (Divine Grade) in the shop. Cost:
100,000,000 Points.
Even if the System worked, the cost was astronomical. Li Wei had spent a lifetime generating a
few thousand points here and there. To buy a Resurrection Pill would require a love that
spanned eons.
"I cannot buy him back," Su Mei whispered.
The Heartless Sword Sutra pulsed in her mind, trying to sever the despair. "Move on," it urged.
"He is dust. Focus on the Dao."
"No," Su Mei stood up. Her eyes burned with a manic, cold light. "If the System cannot return
him... I will take him back myself."
She looked at the ceiling of the palace, her gaze piercing through the roof, through the stars,
gazing at the fundamental laws of the universe.
"I am an Immortal. I am becoming a Great Emperor. I do not need a shop to defy the Heavens."
She summoned her guards.
"Prepare the fleet," she commanded. "We are going to the Underworld."
"The Underworld, Your Majesty?" a General asked, trembling. "The domain of the Yama Kings?
The dead do not welcome the living."
Su Mei walked past him, her aura flaring so intensely that the fabric of space began to crack
around her.
"I am not going as a guest," she said. "I am going as a raider."
If she couldn't buy his life, she would steal his soul from the cycle of reincarnation before he
drank the soup of forgetfulness.
[System Alert: User logic is unstable.] [Warning: Invading the Cycle of Reincarnation
carries a Karmic Backlash of infinite magnitude.]
"Let it come," Su Mei snarled at the blue screen. "I will freeze the backlash too."