Family Stealing System: your wife, mother, sister, all mine now!
Chapter 22: Twin Hearts

Chapter 22: Twin Hearts

The two objects on his desk were unremarkable: a pair of low-grade spirit stones, the kind that barely flickered with residual energy and couldn’t power anything more demanding than a kitchen lantern.

He’d fished them from the bottom of his pouch specifically because they were identical—same size, same weight, same dull milky glow that caught the lamplight like watered-down milk.

If Twin Heart worked the way the system description implied, then two equal things should become one better thing. Simple math. Probably.

He laid them side by side on the desk—a little too perfectly aligned, like he was arranging chess pieces for a game he didn’t fully understand yet—and closed his eyes.

’How do I use the ability again?’

The moment that thought appeared in his head, he received something akin to a revelation. He knew how to do it. It was as if he had always known.

’Direct transmission of knowledge? That’s crazy.’

Kian touched both of the stones and initiated the ability.

Twin Heart.

The sensation wasn’t anything like using Sucking Hero. That ability had felt like a brand, hot and possessive, something that burned outward from him into someone else.

It was passive and worked autonomously.

This was the opposite.

Twin Heart pulled inward, a cold thread winding through his meridians that made the fine hairs on his arms stand up. His Qi stirred sluggishly, still depleted from the afternoon’s activities, but there was enough.

Barely.

The spirit stones began to hum, a frequency so low he felt it in his back teeth before he heard it, and then the air between them shimmered like heat rising off hot pavement.

The two stones didn’t move. They didn’t need to. The space between them moved instead—compressed, folded, collapsed into itself with a soft *pop* that left his ears ringing.

And when the shimmer cleared there was only one stone left on the desk.

Curious, Kian took it up and looked at it.

It was the size of a thumbnail, its surface no longer milky but translucent, shot through with veins of pale blue that pulsed faintly in rhythm with his own heartbeat.

He shook it, noticing some sort of liquid floating inside the small gem.

’What is this?’

He hadn’t even started trying to meditate and absorb it, but the energy inside it kissed his skin with a coolness that made him shiver. What if he actually absorbed it?

He didn’t wait for a second invitation.

His legs folded into a loose cross on the bed, the stone pinched between thumb and forefinger, and he dropped into the shallow trance that was as automatic as breathing.

Most cultivators spent years learning to quiet the mind—he’d spent a week in this body and the body already knew the shortcuts, muscle memory etched into the meridians from the previous body’s owner.

The energy in the stone hit him like a mouthful of ice water.

Not the gradual, grudging seep he had gotten from regular spirit stones when he tried, but a full-body rush, a river pouring into a cup.

It was exhilarating.

The blue veins inside the liquid gem flared bright, then the liquid evaporated into vapor that streamed up his arm through the wrist meridians, a cold torrent that made his teeth ache and his fingers go numb.

Seven minutes later.

He knew it was seven minutes because the lamp wick hadn’t even begun to gutter yet, and the stone in his palm crumbled to a fine ash that slipped through his fingers like powdered bone.

[Qi Sparks +30. Current: 180/1000.]

Kian stared at the ashy smear on his palm, then at the translucent panel, then back at his palm.

Thirty sparks!

From one stone!!!

’Oh my god, Jia truly is my lucky charm!’

A normal low-grade spirit stone, absorbed directly, might yield a single spark if you were lucky and the stone was fresh-mined—and even then, the process took half a day and left you with a headache.

This had taken seven minutes and felt like drinking a cold glass of water after a run.

He pulled up his Qi reserves mentally, feeling the new sparks flickering in his dantian like thirty tiny suns, bright and eager.

The math did itself: if he fused all his remaining stones—seven hundred and thirty of them—that was three hundred and sixty-five of these new gems.

Thirty sparks each.

If he absorbed it all...

Gulp.

His heart kicked against his ribs, the good kind of panic, the kind that made his fingers twitch toward the pouch on his belt. Then, he no longer hesitated.

He dumped the pouch onto the desk.

Low-grade spirit stones scattered everywhere, some rolling under the bed, others clinking into a pile that looked like a small mountain of dirty ice cubes.

He didn’t bother counting them individually—he scooped two at a time, pressed his thumbs to their cool surfaces, and triggered Twin Heart again.

The cold thread wound through his meridians, sharper this time, a little hungrier, and the stones shuddered and collapsed into each other.

A new gem dropped onto the desk with a soft plink.

He grabbed the next pair. Plink.

Next. Plink.

His Qi reserves dipped lower with each fusion, the ability drawing on his internal energy, but the cost was so small—barely noticeable per fusion—that it hardly mattered.

Within twenty minutes, though, he was sweating, not from exertion but from concentration, his fingers moving in a rhythm that felt almost hypnotic.

But with that, all of his remaining spirit stones had become this higher quality version.

Three hundred and sixty of the new gems sat in a neat pyramid on the desk, gleaming like a dragon’s hoard in miniature, each one shimmering with trapped blue lightning.

The remaining ten stones he left unfused; he’d need something to buy breakfast.

Finally, he had 360 higher quality stones and 10 normal spirit stones.

’Now, it’s time to experiment.’

He grabbed two of the more powerful gems.

The two improved gems sat in his palm like captured raindrops, cool and faintly vibrating against his skin.

Would Twin Heart work on this?

He triggered Twin Heart again, and this time the cold thread that wound through his meridians felt like a wire pulled taut—not painful, but close.

The gems didn’t just shimmer; they screamed soundlessly, a high-frequency whine that existed somewhere above hearing but below thought, and the air between them folded with an audible crack that left a scorch mark on the desk’s lacquer.

Uff....

When the light died, a single stone the size of a fingernail lay in his palm, perfectly spherical, its interior swirling with blue-gold liquid that moved like a living thing, like a tiny caged storm.

He held it up to the lantern, watching the liquid churn in slow spirals, and laughed under his breath.

’Fuck me!’

He felt the energy inside it pressing against his skin even without trying to absorb it—just holding it made his fingertips hum and the fine bones in his wrist ache with a dull, pleasant throb.

The thing was practically begging to be absorbed, the way a ripe fruit begged to be eaten. And who was he to refuse it?

Kian closed his eyes and began meditation.