Shaolan Li 5

Author: Read the auxiliary chapter in volume 0 first

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Meanwhile, Michi and her husband Ukano were getting ready to go to sleep.

Michi was worried. She was sitting on a long, rectangular chair without a chair back.

When she finished removing all her makeup and thoroughly cleansing her skin, she turned to her husband to say, "Ukano, shouldn't we have that talk? I still think we made a mistake back then… More so after today."

"I don't want to talk about that." Ukano sat on the bed, his back resting on his pillow. When he snapped back at his wife, his eyes didn't move from the document he was reading.

"We can't keep this up. You know it. I think it's time to talk about it." Michi frowned and said, full of regret and guilt. "We've taken it all a bit lightly in the past. If this continues, we risk losing our daughter."

Michi really rued the day she let her husband meet the ancient spirits a few years ago. If she had known it was real, and that her daughter would get sick from it, she would never have agreed to guide him through the forest.

After all, in the village where she came from, the -father of wealth- and his wife, the -mother of fertility-, were just old crazy talks. Just like the sister of the last, but of kinder fame, the -mother of faces-…

Michi never truly believed all the folklore. But more than ten years ago, Ukano's career came to a point of no return and no progress. He was thus lost in drunkenness... Because of that, when she remembered it, Michi tried to believe it one last time. For the good of her marriage and her home.

When they explored the forest near her village, it all turned out to be true.

Her older sister, had warned her well. Not just against the dirty yet entertaining transactions the two spirits loved to make, but against her husband...

Michi, however, was too naive and in love at the time to listen. Because she also had her own problem after birthing Mai, she asked something as well. To the -mother of fertility-...

"Are you really going to blame me?" Ukano closed the book and said with a bored look. "If you still have that on your conscience, you can talk to our daughter about it. But I'm not the only culprit in the story. If I took Shaolan's health, you took away her happiness as a woman."

"I know it all too well, but… I can't stop thinking about it, Ukano. I think we should go back there." Michi scowled. She felt terribly sorrowful. She regretted it.

At the time, they made the wishes of prosperity and fertility they were deceived by the ancient spirits. They didn't tell them what would be taken before they left.

When Shaolan started growing, Michi knew...and helped her keep the secret... She just didn't know if Shaolan knew that she knew...

"Don't say stupid things." Ukano snorted. Getting into the covers and turning off his bedside lamp, he added, "Mura warned you, didn't she? What if they ask for our lives like she told? Who's going to take care of Tomtom?"

"..." Michi didn't know what to reply. Tomtom was a baby. So, even if Shaolan stopped being sick, her and Mai were children who couldn't bend. Both with limited ability to strive in the fire nation.

What kind of superb life could they live? Not the kind of life she wanted for them and that she fought to have…

"Stop thinking nonsense." Seeing his wife's face getting more and more closed, Ukano said as he put away his book. Entering the bed, when he turned off his bedside lamp, he told, "Come to bed."

He moved into the sheets and lay down.

But the lamp on Michi's side was still on.

In the dim bedroom, she looked at him with a dark face. Thinking how hateful he was and how love blind, cockeyed she'd always been.

Not that Ukano had much cock, so she didn't even know how she fell for him... However, with all the letdowns, the love she had for her pushful spouse lessened every year.

She was out of love now.

Getting up to join him, grossed out, she told herself that if not in love, she and her children would at least live a safe and secure life.

She just needed to find ways to make Shaolan a little more cheerful now that she was experiencing a puberty crisis. Michi had her own back in the day, so she knew what it was like.

She didn't want her daughter to self-destruct now that running away from the place she made her hate had become delusive.

Michi comforted herself in that new idea when she turned her bed light off and Ukano spoke about their daughters' potential partners in the next few years.

Despite his embarrassing position after the Agni Kai with his father, and his sacking from home, Prince Zuko was brought up by her husband. Not just for Mai... And exactly due to his sticky predicament.

In the darkness, wondering if her husband had gone mad, she told him, "Ukano, do you want to commit treason? Did you forget what Shaolan is?"

"Hahaha, calm down, I was just joking. You know, I only ever mention dating and marriage to scare her. I'm not crazy." Ukano said. Moments later, he was snoring.

Shaking her head, Michi sighed and closed her eyes. She was thinking how Shaolan was really unfortunate to have parents like them…

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The next day morning, Shaolan woke up.

She had a hard time sleeping after a long talk and new discoveries she made with the system.

Apparently, she had to think for herself with the info the system gave. But then again, she was never smart...

Shaolan was dumb.

She had misunderstood a lot of things concerning worlds and the energies they used.

She could not just become a gamer without creating game culture, she could be different things as long as she thought carefully about it.

Shaolan wasn't a goddess.

In the multiverse, creating game culture to become a gamer didn't make sense according to the system. The world's powers didn't rely on faith or culture, but accessible things themselves.

The explanation somewhat made sense to her. But she still had a big problem. Which was skills and the types of energies they relied on.

As long as the energy/methods involved in the skills weren't identified as different or specific to certain worlds on Earth internet, Shaolan was free to learn anything.

This was good, but with all the research she would do, it also meant she was back to being a weeb just like in her first life.