Chapter 29 – The Heart of the Valley

Mist pressed against the shallow cave like an eager intruder. It drifted around their meager fire in slow coils, turning orange under the embers' glow. Zhao Qilin hadn't slept. His eyes were bloodshot, his hands trembling from overexertion as he worked the formation sketches in silence.

Li Yuan Tian rose early. His shirt remained off as he rotated his qi slowly through his limbs, the motion now smoother, more grounded. The valley had changed something in him—and he could feel it in the rhythm of his breath and the dull hum in his marrow.

Even without full Qi refinement, his body resonated with something ancient and weighty.

Zhao rubbed his eyes. "You slept like a stone."

"I slept like someone who trusts their back isn't about to be stabbed," Yuan Tian replied without sarcasm.

Zhao barked a short laugh. "Fair enough."

The Echo Gate

By noon, they stood once more before the stone gate. Zhao's latest glyphs shimmered faintly across its surface. The entire structure pulsed slowly now, in rhythm with something beneath it—something that wasn't dead, even after all these years.

Li Yuan Tian exhaled and stepped forward again. When his hand pressed against the stone, a pulse rippled outward—not one of rejection, but of recognition.

Zhao stared. "Every time you touch it, it reacts more strongly."

Li Yuan Tian said nothing, but inside, he could feel something tug at him—like a scent from childhood, or a memory glimpsed from the corner of an eye.

Something wanted him to step through.

A breath. Then two. On the third, the mist around the gate parted.

Just slightly.

Enough for one man to enter.

Zhao's jaw dropped. "You—you actually opened it."

"I didn't open anything," Yuan Tian murmured. "It let me in."

The Crimson Flame Lotus Trial

He stepped into the temple alone.

The world inside was not made of stone.

It was made of memory.

Darkness enveloped him, only to give way to an endless lotus field, each flower shaped from crimson light. A blood-red moon hung low overhead, casting a dim glow across the spectral field.

He stepped forward once—and the flowers trembled.

Then, the world shattered.

Pain.

A spear through the chest. Blades cleaving into his arms. Burning in his bones. Drowning in boiling blood.

It was not real. Yet it was.

The Trial of the Crimson Flame had begun.

Not with riddles.

But with suffering.

Vision of the Sleeper

As his body was wracked with phantom pain, Li Yuan Tian remained upright. His flesh peeled in illusion, his marrow cracked in dream. And yet he endured.

He had trained under falling stones, had swallowed mud and poison, had rebuilt his strength after bones shattered.

This was no different.

Only deeper.

At the apex of pain, something changed.

The world stilled.

A stone altar rose from the lotus field, soaked in starlight. Upon it sat a figure, motionless and eternal—clad in black robes, lotus sigils embroidered in shimmering crimson threads.

Its eyes opened.

And Li Yuan Tian fell to his knees, not from submission—but from the sheer weight of that presence.

"You have not yet birthed Qi," the figure intoned. "And yet your marrow sings the old songs. You are not ready."

"I don't care," Yuan Tian growled, blood dripping from his nose. "I will take it. I'll carve the path open myself."

The figure leaned forward. Its lips curled into something like amusement.

"Then I will leave the door ajar."

A lotus petal, glowing with internal crimson light, drifted toward him.

When it touched his chest, it vanished into his body.

And just like that—

He was back in the temple.

On his knees.

Gasping.

Alive.

Aftermath

Zhao Qilin rushed toward him, worry and disbelief etched into every line of his face. "What the hell just happened?! You've been in there for a day and a half!"

Li Yuan Tian didn't answer right away.

He stood slowly, flexing his hands.

Something had changed.

A brand now shimmered faintly just beneath the surface of his chest—a petal of glowing crimson.

He couldn't cultivate the technique yet.

But the inheritance had accepted him.

Not fully.

Not yet.

But the first gate had opened.

And now... he would forge himself in the days to come.

Even if it meant dragging his body and will to the very threshold of death.