Chapter 18 Transcendent son-in-law

Chapter 18: A Pact Beneath Moonlight

Night draped itself over the Lotus Shrine like a mourning shroud. Lin Ma stood beneath the crooked tree behind the disciple quarters, the boy's face flashing in his mind. Innocent. Oblivious. A lamb being fattened for slaughter.

But this time, Lin Ma wouldn't allow it.

The system panel still hovered faintly in his vision.

> Hidden Task: Save the boy without breaking the seal.

It felt impossible. Like being told to jump without falling.

And yet, he felt... awake. Alive in a way he hadn't been since arriving.

"Stop pacing," Yunhua said from the shadows. "You'll wear a hole in the grass."

He turned. She stood there, arms crossed, moonlight gleaming off her silver hair. She didn't look surprised to see him. In fact, she looked... resigned.

"You're really going to try it," she said.

He nodded. "There has to be a way."

"There isn't."

"You said that seal holds back a demon. Fine. But why a person? Why not reinforce it with energy, with spells?"

"Because the seal was made with blood. Blood sustains it. The old masters were clever but cruel."

"Then we rewrite it."

Yunhua blinked, then laughed bitterly. "Rewrite a blood pact forged a thousand years ago by celestial monks and abyssal warlocks? You think you're the first person who tried?"

"No," Lin Ma said quietly. "But maybe I'm the first who isn't from here."

She looked at him sharply.

"What are you?"

He hesitated. But only for a second. "Not from this world."

She didn't laugh this time. She simply stared.

"I knew it," she whispered. "The way you spoke. The way you noticed things others ignored. The spirit in your eyes… it's not dulled like ours."

"I had another life," he said. "A broken one. But I learned there's more to strength than a blade or a spell. There's strategy. Compassion. Even deceit, if used rightly."

She tilted her head. "You sound like the Sable Lord himself."

"Maybe he just needed someone to listen."

"Or maybe he tricked someone just like you."

Lin Ma let the silence stretch. The stars above pulsed like watching eyes.

Finally, she said, "You want to save that boy. Fine. But if you fail, the seal cracks."

"I won't fail."

She studied him a moment longer, then turned. "There's a forgotten script buried beneath the eastern pillar. They say it contains the conditions of the original pact. No one's dared read it in years."

"Because it's cursed?"

"Because it reveals the truth."

That night, they crept beneath the eastern structure—an old crumbling section of the shrine long overtaken by weeds and vines. Yunhua lit a soft flame between her palms, casting their shadows against the mossy wall.

Lin Ma pried at a loose slab. Beneath it lay a parchment sealed in oilcloth, aged but intact.

As he unwrapped it, words shimmered to life, as though recognizing him.

> In the time of seven moons, to preserve peace, the pure soul shall be fed to the void.

Yet he who wears no birthmark of this world may temper the void with memory.

A heart unbroken, a memory unclaimed, shall renew the pact without blood.

Lin Ma stared, stunned.

"It mentions you," Yunhua whispered.

"No," he said. "It mentions someone like me. A foreign soul."

"Then you might be the loophole."

A heartbeat passed.

"We rewrite the seal," he said, voice firm. "But instead of blood, we offer memory."

"Your memory."

Lin Ma nodded.

"If that's what it takes."

The system chimed.

> Task Update: Sacrifice 1 Core Memory to Stabilize Seal.

Success Rate: 62%

Warning: Core Memory loss may alter identity.

He exhaled slowly.

His memories of Earth weren't perfect—but some were sacred. His mother's face. Her lullabies. The quiet evenings before the crash that took it all.

Would he forget those?

He thought of the boy—the way he looked around the shrine, eyes wide, hopeful. And he thought of his own past, when no one had stood up for him.

"I accept."

A surge of heat coursed through his body. His chest burned, not with pain, but with an overwhelming flood of emotion.

Images flickered.

A kitchen filled with the scent of rice and soup. Laughter under warm blankets. His mother's voice, singing softly on a rainy afternoon.

Then darkness.

Then silence.

He dropped to his knees.

Yunhua caught him before he fell completely. "What did you lose?"

"I don't know," he whispered. "That's how I know it worked."

A golden ripple pulsed through the ground, spreading across the shrine like a heartbeat.

Somewhere far beneath, the seal shimmered—and stabilized.

The next morning, the elders declared the ritual "unnecessary for now," citing a celestial shift. The boy was reassigned to fieldwork. No questions asked.

But Lin Ma felt the absence in his heart.

Something was gone. But in its place, something new had been planted.

Conviction.

Yunhua approached him after breakfast.

"Do you regret it?"

"No," he said.

"But it hurt?"

"Yes."

"Then welcome," she said, "to the real Lotus Sect."

He smiled weakly.

And for the first time since arriving in this world, Lin Ma no longer felt like an intruder.

He felt like someone becoming something more.

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