Well, I wasn't Qin Lie, so I was already aware of all these charm and seduction techniques, and the whole category of mental techniques, before I even heard of Song Ting Yu. So it wasn't as if I didn't know about illusions and eye magic.

Fortunately, I was equipped with Snow Aegis and had developed some sort of spiritual defense when learning Heaven and Earth Formula, so I was able to resist Song Ting Yu's seduction techniques. Admittedly, her terrifying charm was relentlessly battering against the mental barriers I had erected (and I was aware of some other part of my body being erect too whenever I stared at her), but for now I could hold her at bay.

Unfortunately, I realized that I wasn't completely immune to Song Ting Yu's terrifying charm. Even as my spiritual defenses, bolstered by Snow Aegis, afforded me a measure of resistance, just a moment's slip in concentration was enough for her to break through my mental barrier. Worse, the invisible ripples from her charm technique were slamming relentlessly against my beleaguered barrier as she approached me.

When Song Ting Yu gazed at me with those loving eyes of hers, I felt as if I was sinking into a depthless abyss, and a wave of passion and desire washed over me. Or would have, but I noticed something weird about it.

"Mister Fei Wu, I simply admire you and wish to get closer to you. Are you so heartless that you refuse to see me even once?" Song Ting Yu's voice held an irresistible quality as it drifted warmly into my ears and pierced my heart.

I frowned. "Uh, you're calling me heartless and wondering why I refuse to see you when you're the one using this weird charm technique to seduce me and trap me within your illusions? Are you sure you don't know why I refuse to see you?"

Song Ting Yu pursed her delicate lips for a moment before she strengthened her illusion technique to overwhelm my buckling defenses. I could feel her irresistible magic worming its way through the chinks in my armor, drifting comfortably into the depths of my heart.

Her melting, gentle voice, and eyes filled with passion and fervor finally took root inside my mind and firmly bloomed there. And I found myself sinking into the warmth of her illusions..

"My dear husband, I have already signed these papers. All it needs is your signature. I can go to the registry for divorce anytime at your convenience."

..wait, what?

Did she just say divorce?

I stared at Song Ting Yu for a moment, confused. Then I looked around. For some reason we were no longer in Wu Ling Academy, but in a high-rise skyscraper. I then understood that we were in an illusion of Song Ting Yu's making.

..okay, I suddenly got an idea of what was going on. There was a setting in this illusion, information that flowed into my brain through hypnotic suggestions. Apparently in this particular scene, I was the powerful and influential heir of some city, a genius CEO of some random corporation. Apparently I had been caught by the paparazzi at a hotel, with a famous movie star of outstanding beauty hanging to my arm.

A woman who wasn't my wife.

My "real" wife, Song Ting Yu, appeared to have enough, and threw divorce papers at me. For some inane reason, I thought she was using reverse psychology on me, got up angry and delusional despite supposedly being a genius who ran a mult-billionaire enterprise, and refused to sign the divorce papers. Instead, I went home and raped her.

What the fuck?

The poor Song Ting Yu went through a ton of abuse, which included me neglecting her, insulting her, telling her stuff like "you don't deserve to bear my child" and then throwing all her branded clothes out of her wardrobe and calling her someone from a dumpster who was wearing trash, openly having affairs with other women, her being treated like trash, being humiliated in front of everyone, had the parapazzi called upon her to inflict further embarrassment on her, got involved in an accident because one of the women I had an affair with pushed her in front of a car – and best of all, because she insisted on a divorce, in order to spite her I refused to pay for her medical treatment and forced her into selling her own blood. Then I caused her friend to lose her job because she wouldn't tell me what I wanted to know about my wife. Despite my wife wanting a divorce, I was delusional enough to think it was one of her tricks and refused to let her go, and became super-possessive, to the point I caused her so much harm through unforgivable actions.

"..seriously? What kind of stupid romance story is this?"

And even after all the abuse I inflicted on poor Song Ting Yu, for some reason, all because I "got better," she ended up forgiving me and the marriage was saved. Even though most of my actions could be constituted as criminal abuse and she had every right to call the police on me (but it would be useless because I was a wealthy and influential CEO who could buy the police out and the authorities couldn't touch me), everything was forgotten and Song Ting Yu had a "happy end" while I was a reformed husband.

No, seriously? What the fuck was with this toxic relationship? This whole marriage was toxic and abusive, that was what it was. The bastard husband shouldn't be forgiven just because he "reformed" and became better. You can't possibly expect the wife to just forget everything and forgive him because he stopped abusing her. The damage was done. She should just drop him like a hot rock (though, to be fair, the husband did his best to prevent the divorce by EVEN MORE ABUSE) and flee as far away as possible. Hell, I admired her tenacity. If I were in her shoes, I would probably kill myself long ago.

That was just how awful the husband's abuse was.

Actually..if I were in her shoes, I would have murdered the husband by any means necessary and laugh as I was sentenced to death, because it would have been worth it. Stabbing him with a kitchen knife, poisoning his food, whatever. Whatever means necessary – I would employ them to avenge my abuse.

Unfortunately, this was a "romance" story, not a revenge or assassin story. Though how anyone could call such a toxic relationship romance, I had no idea. Probably because the whole idea of "reforming the bad guy" appealed to some of the female writers. I might be mistaken, but from what I knew, these sort of stories were penned by female authors for a female audience, and I didn't know whether to be disturbed by that or not.

Then the scene changed.

This time, I was a fucking CEO again (what was with this weird obsession with CEOs being the male main characters in these stories?). This time, I was some guy who wanted to marry the first missy of some family, but she eloped with someone else. I ended up marrying her sister as replacement. Cue neglect, abuse (not physical abuse but emotional abuse) and all sorts of..weird stuff. And what was with this whole cliché "you're not fit to bear my child" bullshit again?! At least this time I wasn't as toxic and violent as the previous CEO, who was a pathetic, delusional, sorry excuse of a human being. At least this time I did appreciate some of the sister's efforts and didn't cheat on her or anything, but honestly, it was still quite jerkish to tell her, "You're only a replacement for your sister."

Dude, if that bitch decides to elope with somebody else, quite clearly she isn't worth your time, so stop pining over her and treat your wife decently. Okay, he was more decent than the last guy, but even so I couldn't stop cringing whenever I see these supposedly "intelligent" CEOs doing stupid things to their poor wives.

At least he realized how important she was later, learned to treat her better and reciprocated her feelings relatively shortly..

Song Ting Yu stood at the kitchen, doing her best to cook. Initially, my CEO character had thrown away all the food she had put in painstaking effort to cook for me, refusing to even taste them, but he was gradually growing to like it.

"My beloved, I have realized my folly!" I cried out dramatically. "The one I love is you, not your sister! I should never have thought of you as a replacement! You're my one true love!" Hugging her while shedding tears, I vowed. "I will repay you for all that I've owed you with a lifetime!"

"Not just this lifetime. For the next life, and the life after that. You must remember what you owe me, and remember to repay me."

Song Ting Yu's words were filled with indescribable magic that worked their way toward the depths of my heart and ensnared me. Her voice lanced straight into my heart and mind, and resonated deeply within my soul. It was as if she was trying to imprint the words in my soul, or sow a seed inside my heart, engraving it into my psyche so deeply that I would never forget them.

Like a deeply rooted seed, the concept began blooming inside my mind and expanded rapidly, lodging itself firmly within my heart.

Or it tried to, anyway.

"You're trying to trick me into believing that I owe you two lifetimes of love?"

..seriously? With this flimsily written illusion? Indulging yourself in delusions of enduring toxic relationships so that you could reform your abusive husband? Coming up with a poor, pathetic excuse of a human being as your husband? Did you think everything would be forgiven as long as he was a rich, powerful CEO? As long as he treated you better in future?

Honestly, if the male lead wasn't a rich and powerful CEO, but a drunk, penniless husband who abused his wife everyday, she would have kicked him out of the house and called the police on him. To be fair, such cases happened in reality, and many abused wives suffered from the domestic abuse in silence, but those inevitably never ended with happy results or forgiveness. It usually ended with violent death of the wife, and the police would eventually get involved.

But no, if the male lead was a handsome CEO in a romance story, everything will be forgotten and forgiven. Probably so that the female writer or readers can indulge in their fantasy of reforming the bad-boy husband and "taming" him.

What a bunch of absolute bullshit.

Song Ting Yu didn't seem to have sensed my annoyance. She had already reached in front of me, her enchanting eyes staring unbrokenly into mine. She then lifted a single finger and touched my forehead.

"My dear husband, this lifetime has arrived, so you should wake up and take a look now. What you've owed me should be repaid to me in this lifetime.."

"I'm not your husband, lady. And I don't owe you anything."

"..eh?"

Song Ting Yu took a step back, surprised when she discovered that I hadn't fallen under her illusion. I gave her a withering look.

"Really? That's the best you can come up with? Abusive, handsome CEO husbands and toxic relationships? Domestic abuse? Have you been reading too many web novels on Webnovel.com or something?"

"..eh? EH?!"

Suddenly, I understood. This girl..despite her outstanding beauty and extraordinary diplomatic capabilities (though I question how "diplomatic" her skills could be if she resorted to just charming and hypnotizing people), had completely zero actual experience in real romance. All her knowledge about romance was built from reading all those toxic romance novels on Webnovel.com or translated Chinese novels about abusvive CEOs.

To be fair, it wasn't as if I had any experience either. Even in my previous life, I lived for thirty years without being in a relationship, not even once. I never had a girlfriend in my entire llife, whether it was my previous life or this one.

Even so, I knew toxic when I saw one, and putting up with an abusive CEO husband, no matter how rich, powerful or handsome he was, forgiving him because he became "better" later on, was not healthy. And one did not simply forgive and forget.

Not to mention such stories often trivialized ****. The psychological and emotional scars from **** were not something easily forgotten, but the heroines of these stories tend to conveniently forget about them and wash them away, probably because the male leads were devastating handsome, great in bed, and rich to boot.

But **** was ****. And the writers obviously hadn't experienced that in reality, or they wouldn't be trivializing it and relegating them to a brief side mention.

Sighing, I shook my head.

"You want to construct a convincing, realistic illusion about romance that's still somewhat idealistic, but not to the point where it's downright unbelievable and exceedingly stupid? This is how you do it."

I wasn't an expert in writing romance stories, but I did my best to imagine a romantic yet somewhat realistic setting and premise. Sure, I understood that a dash of idealism was necessary, otherwise people wouldn't bother with fiction, but I wanted to make it relatable to the regular readers who were living normal lives aas opposed to fantasies of joining the so-called elite class of the rich, powerful and handsome.

A young man and a young woman were meeting in university. They had interest in the same hobby and joined the same club. The young man, who was from a relatively rich family, and usually had things served to him, was impressed by the passion that the young woman showed in drawing. He would admire her intricately drawn art, and how she was so enthusiastic over it.

That was what drew him closer to her, and allowed him to be attracted toward her. The young woman, however, didn't think she was deserving of his affections, distanced herself, but nonetheless she couldn't deny that she was attracted to him.

However, throughout their university years, the young man supported the young woman's dreams, which often went against her parents, who were more realistic and practical, and with his help, she became a fairly renowned painter. Not world-famous, but she did win some minor awards here and there and could count as successful.

Then tragedy struck. The young man's family fell into bankruptcy during an economic recession. The corporation that belonged to their family collapsed, and they lost everything. Even as fair-weather friends and ex-business partners left the family to their own ruin, the young woman supported the young man. Despite him being penniless, the young woman continued to love him, and they eventually got married. For a time, they lived off the young woman's income from painting, but the young man was determined to set up his own business and succeed.

He eventually achieved what he wanted, and set up a small family-run café. Though he would never reach the heights of his family's corporation from years ago, he was happy and earned a comfortable enough income. While serving coffee and pastries, he would place his wife's paintings up the walls of his café for his customers to appreciate. Even though they no longer lived the rich, luxurious lives of the wealthy elite of CEOs, the couple were happy, and they ended up having children. Children who were brought up with love, rather than just being there as plot devices to tie a couple in conflict together and create stupid drama.

And so the couple grew old together, watched their children grow up, continued to run their café and lived happily ever after.

"..that's how you should write a romance story." I finished my tale with a flourish. Okay, the plot wasn't perfect, but I did my best to add difficulties and challenges for the couple to overcome – obstacles that did not involved idiotic love affairs with famous movie stars, NTR, or jealous family members/friends trying to plot the downfall of the main characters over the most inane reasons ever. I had tried to come up with a sweet, heartwarming romantic tale that everyone could enjoy without gnashing their teeth over what an awful piece of shit the male lead was.

To my surprise, Song Ting Yu's eyes were glazed over. Surprise flashed across her beautiful eyes and a hint of fear appeared deep within her brilliant pupils.

"Er.." I began, not knowing what had just occurred.

Apparently, when I seized control of her illusion and began to forcibly rewrite the narrative to fit my tastes (come on, do you readers beyond the fourth wall honestly enjoy reading about toxic relationships and abusive CEO male leads?), the torrent of memories that she had imprinted in my head by way of illusion and reversed their flow and poured back into her head.

Those vivid memories imprinted themselves into her mind, becoming seeds that would blossom into fruits of love. Initially they were a product that she had cultivated with much effort, and something she had originally planned to implant deep inside my mind, but it seemed that my action was akin to me plucking the seeds out of her hand and casually tossing them into the fertile soil that was her mind instead. Whoops.

At this moment, she was experiencing the rewritten illusion that I had crafted, the images of the tale I had woven flooding her heart and soul.

Suddenly, she was immersed in the story I had created.

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She was the university student in the art room, carefully painting on the canvas and sighing when she remembered her parents' words.

"Why are you wasting your time with art? You should be focusing on medicine instead! You're such a bright, talented child! Go be a doctor! You'll definitely find a job as a doctor!"

"But I don't want to be a doctor," she grumbled under her breath. Flicking her brush, she swiped at the canvas, splashing it with a riotous colors of ink. A flower bloomed on the formerly white surface, its petals curling back to display her defiance.

"Wow..that looks really beautiful!"

Song Ting Yu whirled around. I had just stepped into the room, and was staring at her artwork, mesmerized by the heart and fiery passion she put into it.

"Did you draw this?"

Even as I asked that question, I realized how stupid it sounded. Of ourse she did. She was holding a brush and sitting in front of the half-completed painting.

"It's amazing," I hastily added, trying to cover up my stupidity.

Song Ting Yu giggled at my clumsiness. "Yes. Sorry, it's far from done, but.."

"Amazing," I repeated as I stared at the painting. "It's not done yet and it's already this good? I look forward to seeing the completed product."

Song Ting Yu blushed. "No, uh..well..it's nothing, really."

"You're too modest." I laughed. Then I stepped back. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I hope you don't mind if I watch."

"No, uh.." she glanced at me, and I understood that she was wondering who I was.

"I'm Fei Wu," I introduced myself.

Song Ting Yu's eyes widened. "Um..Fei? You are that Fei Wu? From the Fei family? Who runs the Fei Corporation? Uh..?"

"..is that what they say about me? It's true that my family runs a business." I shifted uncomfortably. As usual, my family's reputation preceded me. I just wanted to keep a low profile in this university, but it seemed that it was still difficult to do so. Especially when my family ran a corporation that was famous nation-wide for its pharmaceutical products.

Song Ting Yu was bobbing her head up and down timidly, not sure how to respond.

"It's an honor..I mean..! I..I.."

"Relax." I offered a smile in a manner that I hoped was disarming. "I won't bite. What about you? What's your name?"

"Song Ting Yu." The girl was so nervous that she could only utter her name, and her face was flaming red. My smile widened and I turned on the charm that only a future CEO would be capable of (except that I was doomed to never be a CEO thanks to my family's corporation collapsing in a few years).

"That's a nice name." I then turned to look at the painting. "Ting Yu, you like painting?"

Song Ting Yu beamed when I directed her attention back toward the subject she had a keen passion in, and nodded in delight.

"That's right!"

That was how we first met, and how our relationship began. And the illusion of love continued to stream across Song Ting Yu's mind as she experienced everything I had crafted in the narrative, receiving my support as she became a fairly famous painter, stood by my side even as my family's corporation fell apart and was willing to marry me even though I had lost everything, and how the two of us worked together so that I could pull through the crisis and set up a café of my own. And then how we had kids, and grew old happily, continuing to serve in our beloved café filled with my wife's splendid paintings..

Slowly pulling out of the illusion, Song Ting Yu blinked and stared at me, who was right in front of her.

"Are you all right?" I asked somewhat hesitantly.

Song Ting Yu remained quiet, realizing that my figure had been deeply imprinted in her heart, becoming something she could never forget.

She suddenly understood that her charm technique had backfired, and that she had suffered a backlash.

This was the first time throughout her whole life that she had failed in casting her technique.

Blood trickled from the corner of her lips. Her illusion and charm technique had shattered violently and she seemed to have taken some damage.

"You're hurt!" I cried out in worry, and reached out for her. In Song Ting Yu's mind, she was suddenly reminded of an illusion, an artificial memory of me, being her husband, reaching out in concern when she was ill, and trying to help her.

She stared deeply at me, impossibly complex colors flitting inside her eyes. Just before I could help her, she cried out softly and backed away.

"..what?"

I blinked and froze, uncertain of how to proceed. In any case, it was academic. Song Ting Yu was rapidly retreating.

The brilliant figure of the Flowing Cloud Rainbow Butterfly suddenly swooped down from out of nowhere and descended like a rainbow-colored meteor. The moment it was within reach, Song Ting Yu jumped up and landed on top of the Flowing Cloud Rainbow Butterfly. The magical beast then wheeled gracefully in the air before flying away at high speed.

As if they had just woken up, the men in suits and sunglasses suddenly stirred, and they departed, following their mistress. As they left the crowd of dazed students behind, they called in their helicopters and began to embark onto them.

Song Ting Yu didn't care about them and left them behind, her Flowing Cloud Rainbow Butterfly shooting off at incredible speeds. While she was deep within the clouds, unseen by everyone else (except my omniscient eye), she took out an expensively embroidered handkerchief and gently wiped the blood away from her mouth.

As she put away her handkerchief, she shook her head and laughed.

"I can't believe I actually failed!" she cried. "My technique actually backfired on me, and I'm the one who had that guy's figure imprinted deep inside my heart."

No. Just no. Please, no..not this stupid cliché development. All I wanted to do was teach her how to write a proper romance story, not get her to stupidly fall in love with me. Not that you could call such a stupid thing love, but hey..that was how xianxia stories worked.

Fortunately, all was not lost. Song Ting Yu knew very well that the moment her technique had backfired on her, she had to erase the other party's imprint from the bottom of her heart as soon as possible. Otherwise it would affect her perception of illusion and reality, as well as destabilize her emotions whenever she was dealing with me. It would also have an adverse effect on her rational judgement as well.

As long as my image inside her head was not eliminated, she would treat me as her most intimate lover, and continue to experience the delusion that I was her beloved husband. I hoped it didn't turn her into a yandere. That would suck.

Song Ting Yu, who had never failed before, was terrified for the first time ever. That was why she was fleeing from me at top speed without another word.

Watching her, I shook my head in disbelief. I cocked my head in Song Ting Yu's direction and shrugged nonchalantly.

"Tsk, tsk. Sorry, lady, but if you're gonna employ mind control, you're going to fuck up eventually."