The heat in the cavern was different from the volcanic fury outside. It was a suffocating, invasive warmth that seemed to bypass the skin and settle directly into the marrow.
Xiao Mei's hand was trembling so violently that her knuckles ground against Ye Chen's fingers.
"Xiao Mei?" Ye Chen turned to her, his brow furrowing. He had seen her stare down an iron-plated hound and catch a flaming chain with her bare hands. He had never seen her look like a cornered animal. "What is it?"
"We can't," she whispered, her voice uncharacteristically fragile. She tried to pull her hand back, but her grip was locked in a panicked death spasm. "Ye Chen, we can't step in front of it. We have to find another way through the mountain."
"There is no other way," Yue stated calmly, walking gracefully toward the massive red mirror. The ambient light caught the silver lotus pin in her hair. "The Forge of the Heart is an absolute array. It does not test your martial prowess; it tests your spiritual foundation. A dual-cultivation circuit built on lies will inevitably collapse under the pressure of the Celestial Gates. The forge simply burns away the impurities."
"Or it burns the liars to ash," Li Rong added, leaning against the cavern wall with a fascinated smirk, her twin dao resting casually on her hips. "Don't look at me, boy. I'm a rogue. I lie for a living. If I step on that dais, I'll be charcoal in three seconds. This is your trial."
Ye Chen looked back at Xiao Mei. Her dark eyes were wide, brimming with unshed tears. The fierce, untouchable protector who had shielded his back was gone, replaced by a girl terrified of being truly seen.
"What are you afraid of?" Ye Chen asked softly, his voice dropping so only she could hear. He reached up with his free hand, gently brushing a soot-stained lock of hair from her cheek. "You saved my life. You anchored my core. There is nothing you could have done that would make me turn my back on you."
"You don't know that," she choked out, a tear finally spilling over her lashes, instantly vaporizing in the cavern's heat. "Ye Chen, please..."
"I trust you," Ye Chen said with absolute finality.
He didn't pull her. He simply stepped onto the raised obsidian platform leading to the mirror, keeping his hand firmly wrapped around hers. Drawn by his steady, unyielding Yang energy, Xiao Mei squeezed her eyes shut and stepped up beside him.
The moment both their boots touched the dais, the red glass of the mirror rippled like a stone dropped in a pool of blood.
The reflection in the glass blurred. It didn't show the cavern, nor did it show Yue or Li Rong. It showed the wooden porch of Ye Chen's cottage in Willow Creek, drenched in the afternoon sun.
It was the day he found the scroll. The day the Key awoke.
"Look at the breathing steps," the mirror-Ye Chen's voice echoed into the cavern, perfectly replicating that fateful afternoon. "Inhale the morning mist..."
But the perspective in the mirror shifted. It wasn't an objective view; it was showing the memory through Xiao Mei's eyes.
In the reflection, as Ye Chen closed his eyes to meditate, the mirror-Xiao Mei didn't look at the scroll. She looked at his chest. The jade pendant was glowing.
A heavy, suffocating heartbeat echoed from the glass.
The reflection showed Xiao Mei's internal monologue—a frantic, desperate realization.
The Celestial Key... It's real. The legends are real.
In the mirror's vision, Ye Chen's skin began to glow with golden fire. But Xiao Mei didn't look surprised. She looked terrified. Not of the fire, but of what it meant.
If he awakens, he'll ascend, the mirror-Xiao Mei's thoughts broadcast loudly into the cavern, raw and bleeding with possessive desperation. The Grand Sects will take him. The Guardians will claim him. He will leave Willow Creek. He will leave me behind. I'll just be a mortal memory in the dirt.
In the cavern, Xiao Mei let out a ragged sob, trying to pull away from Ye Chen, but the array froze her feet to the stone. She was forced to watch her own absolute darkest truth laid bare.
The mirror showed the moment Xiao Mei reached out to touch Ye Chen's burning hands.
It hadn't been an accident. It hadn't been a desperate attempt to save him from the Yang fire.
The glass zoomed in on her glowing azure fingertips. Embedded within her Yin Qi was a complex, dark crimson rune.
The Soul-Locking Knot, Yue breathed from the sidelines, her violet eyes widening in genuine shock. A forbidden parasitic art...
In the reflection, Xiao Mei slammed her hands over Ye Chen's.
I won't let you leave me, the mirror-Xiao Mei thought with fierce, dark obsession as the crimson rune sank into Ye Chen's meridians, forcefully binding their souls together. If you burn, I burn. If you live, I live. You will never be able to cultivate without me.
The vision in the red glass shattered, returning to the reflection of the cavern.
Dead silence filled the Forge.
Xiao Mei fell to her knees on the obsidian dais. She couldn't look at Ye Chen. She stared at the stone, her shoulders shaking violently.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice entirely hollow. "I knew what the jade was. My grandmother was a rogue cultivator... she told me the stories. When I saw it wake up, I knew they would take you away. I used the knot to bind your core to mine. I forced the Dual Harmony. I made you need me."
She waited for the disgust. She waited for him to sever the connection, to look at her the way one looks at a monster who had stolen their free will.
Instead, Ye Chen stared at the mirror, the emerald light in his chest pulsing steadily.
"A foundation built on deception and parasitic control," the disembodied voice of the Forge boomed, vibrating the very bedrock. "The anchor is tainted with selfish desire. It must be purged."
The red glass of the mirror exploded outward, transforming into a torrential wave of crimson, purifying fire aimed directly at Xiao Mei's kneeling form. It was designed to incinerate the "flaw" in the Key-bearer's circuit.
Yue and Li Rong both shouted warnings, but they were cut off by the array's barrier.
Xiao Mei didn't raise her hands to defend herself. She closed her eyes, accepting the judgment.
A shadow fell over her.
The impact of the fire never came.
Xiao Mei opened her eyes. Ye Chen was standing directly in front of her, his back to the mirror. He had thrown his arms wide, catching the entirety of the Forge's purifying flames against his own chest.
The heat was unimaginable, but Ye Chen didn't scream. His amber eyes looked down at her, blazing with an intensity that eclipsed the fire trying to consume him.
"You think I care how the knot was tied?" Ye Chen roared over the deafening rush of the flames, blood dripping from his chin as he pushed his Yang Qi outward to shield her. "You think I would ever leave you behind?!"