The resonating echoes from the imperial mausoleum's ley lines had yet to fade from their limbs when the four of them stepped into the legendary Mirror Hall.
The moment the heavy door closed behind them, the entire world seemed to shatter and reassemble under an invisible hand.
Chu Hongying maintained her defensive stance, spear in hand, only to find herself standing in an endless stream of flowing light. There was no solid ground beneath her feet, no sky above—just countless shards of memory floating like luminous jellyfish in the deep sea, slowly colliding, shattering, and coalescing into new forms. Faint sounds came from afar, as if thousands of mirrors were being struck simultaneously, or as if countless voices whispered in their ears.
"What... what is this place?" Gu Changfeng's voice came from the left, tense with rare strain. He tried to slash through the swirling mist of light, but the edge merely sank into it like water, stirring a few ripples before settling back to stillness.
"The Mirror Hall," Shen Yuzhu's voice remained calm, but a keen ear could detect a suppressed tremor. "Not a physical space, but a projection of the mind. Every step we take leads us deeper into our own subconscious." He reached out, his fingertips brushing against a floating memory fragment—one that reflected his childhood training in the Night Crow Division. He immediately withdrew his hand as if scalded.
"So these illusions..." Chu Hongying watched a fragment drift past her, showing the moment she first donned her general's armor.
"Are all our inner demons," Shen Yuzhu concluded, his gaze sweeping across the boundless radiance. "The Emperor has fashioned this place into a vast prison of consciousness."
Deep within the palace, the Emperor stood before the "Myriad Reflections Water Mirror."
The mirror's surface was smooth as a lake, yet it clearly reflected every move of the four in the Mirror Hall, even the subtlest changes in their expressions. Dressed in plain dark robes, hair unbound, the Emperor's demeanor possessed a detachment almost divine in its stillness. He tapped the mirror's surface; the portion of light where Chu Hongying stood rippled faintly.
"The mirror exists not to observe others, but to observe oneself," he murmured, his voice echoing in the empty hall. "Since you insist on seeking truth... let me see if you can bear the weight of reality."
With a thought, he activated the mirror array's trial.
An invisible pressure instantly enveloped the four. The whispers of countless mirrors coalesced into a clear voice that resonated directly in their minds:
"Reflect the forms of your souls."
"Those who break the mirror shall live; those trapped by it shall perish."
The first to be completely swallowed by the mental imagery was Shen Yuzhu.
The surrounding light solidified abruptly, reconstructing a scene he knew all too well, one that haunted his nightmares—the roaring flames of the Lu Manor, the air thick with the stench of blood and scorched earth. But this time, the scene was distorted, digitized. Countless translucent calculation symbols floated in the air, forming icy equations:
[Target: Chu Hongying (Survival Value: Inc calculable)]
[Cost: Northern Frontier Intelligence Network Exposure Risk ↑87.3%, Estimated Casualties: 3000±]
[Conclusion: Rescue Operation Cost-Effectiveness Ratio: -∞, Recommendation: Abort.]
A "Shen Yuzhu" composed of pure cold light emerged from the data stream, its voice mimicking his usual analytical tone but now dripping with cruelty: "Your emotional impulse costs three thousand lives. Is this transaction worthwhile?"
The real Shen Yuzhu stood frozen, his face pale. He tried to construct logical models to counter, but found all formulas utterly useless here. The rationality he prided himself on now revealed its fragile underbelly.
"You built walls with reason, yet now you would tear them down for one person?" the mirror image pressed, stepping closer. "This is not love—it is loss of control, it is folly!"
Shen Yuzhu closed his eyes, but his mind conjured Chu Hongying's face as she turned to look at him on the snowy plain, her eyes reflecting the firelight. He suddenly laughed—a hoarse, broken sound edged with relief. He raised his hand, not to form seals or calculate, but to gather all his strength and slam his fist into the data-constructed "mirror"!
"I cannot calculate her value..." The mirror shattered, countless fragments grazing his cheeks with stinging pain. "...because she is the one variable in all my formulas that defies calculation!"
Before the Water Mirror, the Emperor raised an eyebrow slightly, his fingers unconsciously tapping the armrest. "Reason... can also fall. And where it falls may be closest to truth."
Next, Gu Changfeng's trial commenced.
The surrounding light solidified instantly, reconstructing a solemn and imposing scene—the deliberation hall of the Imperial Privy Council. Sandalwood smoke curled upward. Civil and military officials stood on either side, tablets in hand, faces stern. A metal plaque inscribed with "The Mirror of Justice Hangs High" loomed overhead.
A "Mirror Gu Changfeng," dressed identically in his military inspector uniform but with a face as cold as ice, stood in the center of the hall. In his hands, he held not a military tally, but an unfurled scroll of the "Military Inspector Regulations."
"Inspector Gu," the mirror image spoke, its voice identical to his own yet carrying an unyielding, iron authority, "as the eyes and ears of the Imperial House, Northern Frontier Military Inspector, your duties are to observe, record, and report. Yet, witnessing Chu Hongying defy imperial orders and Shen Yuzhu's suspicious identity, you have not apprehended and reported them immediately. Instead, you travel with them, interfering with the Mirror Array. Do you plead guilty?"
Before the words faded, the surroundings shifted, revealing scenes of his "dereliction of duty" along the journey: him allowing Chu Hongying to investigate the truth, him exchanging information with Shen Yuzhu, him covering for their actions... Beside each scene floated icy clauses from the "Military Inspector Regulations," the red characters marking "Violation" glaringly obvious.
"An observer must be like a clear mirror, untainted by dust, impartial and unbiased. Your heart has strayed; your mirror is clouded." The mirror image stepped closer, its tone growing harsher. "The Gu family's pristine reputation, the Imperial House's trust—all rest upon you. For personal feelings, you betray your duty. Are you worthy of the Gu family's tradition of 'Iron-Faced Inspector'? Are you worthy of His Majesty's commission?"
The real Gu Changfeng felt invisible shackles tightening around him, more suffocating than any blade on the battlefield. Sweat beaded on his forehead. The weight of the law, his family's expectations, the Emperor's trust—it all threatened to crush him.
He closed his eyes. What flashed through his mind were the faces of needlessly dead Northern Frontier soldiers, Chu Hongying's unyielding backbone in desperate situations, the struggling humanity beneath Shen Yuzhu's rational exterior, Lu Wanning's benevolent heart striving to save people even against heaven's will...
What was he truly protecting? The icy clauses of the law, or the 'people' the law was meant to serve?
Gu Changfeng's eyes snapped open, no longer filled with struggle, but with the clarity and resolve of one who has pierced through fog. He stared directly at the mirror image, his voice steady and firm:
"To observe is not to follow blindly! To record is not to distort the truth!"
"If the Emperor's heart has strayed, if the law has become a blade for slaughtering the innocent, then let the human heart be our mirror to reflect reality!"
He raised his hand abruptly, not reaching for the "Military Inspector Regulations" scroll, but drawing the bronze tally that symbolized the military inspector's authority. Gripping it with both hands, under the mirror image's stunned gaze, he snapped it in two with a sharp "Crack!"
"Today, I, Gu Changfeng, will no longer be the Imperial House's mirror!"
"I will be the measure that questions the human heart!"
The crisp sound of the breaking tally was like the death knell for the entire old order. All the legal clauses, the Privy Council illusion, shattered in response.
Before the Water Mirror, the Emperor's gaze truly fell upon Gu Changfeng for the first time. His fingertip lightly tapped the armrest:
"Using the tool of rules to break the cage of rules... Young Gu, you have seen a path I had not considered."
Lu Wanning found herself trapped in a silent field hospital for wounded soldiers.
A plague was spreading, cries of misery filling the air. The mirrored "Rational Self" stood before her, holding silver needles and a medical classic, its voice devoid of fluctuation: "According to Medical Canon, Volume Three, the plague's spread rate has exceeded the critical threshold. Optimal solution: quarantine this area, including... your aunt."
The mirror image pointed to a corner where a woman lay, her face ashen—their aunt, one of the few remaining blood relatives of the Lu family.
"Sacrificing one to save ten thousand is a healer's responsibility. Emotion is a lesion that hinders judgment, the cancer of the medical path." The mirror image's voice was cold as a scalpel.
Lu Wanning trembled as she looked from her dying aunt to the countless soldiers writhing in the camp. All the principles she had believed in since studying medicine clashed violently within her. Finally, she took a deep breath, a determined glint flashing in her eyes.
She raised the silver needle in her hand and, under the Rational Self's gaze, not towards a patient, but with a sharp "Snap!", broke the needle!
"Healers are human, not gods!" Her voice was clear, carrying an unprecedented firmness. "We have no right to decide who should die and who should live. My path is to exert every effort to save every person before me that I can—even if this act defies heaven's will!"
The broken needle fell to the ground, and the entire plague illusion dissipated like smoke. The Emperor, watching Lu Wanning's resolute face in the Water Mirror, sighed softly: "Such benevolence... so pure it borders on perilous. Beautiful, yet fragile."
Finally, the pressure converged upon Chu Hongying.
The mirror images before her were countless Northern Frontier soldiers she knew well, each drenched in blood, their eyes vacant. At their head was the deputy general she had personally trained, the one who had died shielding her breakthrough, pierced by ten thousand arrows.
"General..." the deputy's voice was blurred with bloody foam, "the empire you protect... issued the decree that executed the Lu family... The monarch you serve is the one who slaughtered your kin!"
"Does your loyalty honor us, the souls who died for our country?"
"Are you the empire's general... or the Lu family's orphan?"
Each question was like the sharpest arrow, piercing the deepest conflicts and pains in her heart. Family enmity versus national hatred, loyalty versus betrayal, a general's duty versus an orphan's identity—they tore at her insides. She felt ripped in two, the agony nearly suffocating.
She looked down at her spear-gripping hand, knuckles white from the strain. Dried, blackened blood stained the tassel—relics from some forgotten battle.
Time seemed to freeze.
After a long moment, she slowly raised her head. All the hesitation and pain had been burned away, leaving only purified, tempered resolve. She did not attack the mirror-image souls. Instead, she planted her spear firmly on the formless ground before her, her voice low yet clear, echoing throughout the mental space:
"I am Chu Hongying."
"I am the General of the Northern Frontier, and I am a daughter of the Lu family."
"But I stand here today not to pledge allegiance to any dynasty, nor for narrow blood vengeance."
"I fight for the millions of living beings on this land who are worth protecting!"
"This is my General's Path!"
As her words fell, an invisible shackle around her shoulders seemed to shatter. A purer, more powerful aura surged from within her.
"Boom—!"
The entire Mirror Hall trembled violently, as if unable to withstand the simultaneous eruption of mental strength from the four.
Shen Yuzhu's Mirror of Reason, Gu Changfeng's Shackles of Duty, Lu Wanning's Tribulation of Benevolence, Chu Hongying's Questioning of Identity—the four shattered inner demon shackles transformed into pure streams of light, soaring skyward. They intertwined and spiraled like the phantom forms of the Four Symbols—Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise—finally converging into a dazzling pillar of light that slammed into the intangible "Seal of Fate Lock" at the hall's center.
"Crack..."
A clear shattering sound reverberated through the mental space. The giant lock emblem, covered in cracks, exploded into pieces! Countless mirror fragments fell like a rain of stars, dissolving into motes of light before they could touch the four.
Gu Changfeng leaned on his sword, breathing heavily, but a look of exhilarating triumph was on his face: "Haha... Incredible! Shattering these intangible shackles is a hundred times more satisfying than slaying enemy generals on the battlefield!"
Lu Wanning opened her palm. A new silver needle slowly condensed at her fingertips, glowing with a warm luster. She whispered to herself, "So... the true path of healing lies not in dusty tomes, but within one's original heart."
Before the Deep Palace Water Mirror, the violently fluctuating surface gradually calmed. The Emperor gazed at the reborn four in the mirror, silent for a long time. A fleeting, unidentifiable emotion—something like admiration, or perhaps... anticipation—passed through his deep eyes.
"Moving the mirror with feeling, breaking the lock with heart..." his low voice echoed in the empty hall. "You have won this round."
The light in the Mirror Hall began to fade. Amidst the wreckage, a portal composed of warm radiance silently opened. Beyond it lay a seemingly real passageway, no longer distorted by mental imagery.
Chu Hongying was the first to step forward, spear still tightly gripped, her posture straight as a pine tree. She glanced back at her companions, her gaze finally resting on Shen Yuzhu, the corner of her mouth lifting almost imperceptibly.
"The road ahead will only be harder," she said.
Shen Yuzhu walked to her side. In his heterochromatic eyes, reason and warmth blended strangely, achieving a new balance. He nodded slightly.
"No matter."
"I am contradiction, I am truth."
The light door slowly closed behind them, completely sealing off the shattered Mirror Hall.
The Emperor stood before the Water Mirror, its surface now calm, reflecting only his solitary figure. He raised a hand and gently wiped away the last ripple on the mirror, as if brushing the dust from an era.
"The Seal of Fate is broken; the Blood Lock approaches..."
He gazed at his blurred reflection, and for the first time, a trace of almost-human hesitation colored his whisper:
"Perhaps... the one who truly needs to be reflected—is myself."
He turned and walked into the shadows of the deep palace, leaving only his fading words behind:
"The next act... the stage is yours."
From the corridor's depths, a blood-red mist unfurled.