The stone corridor behind him sealed shut with a quiet groan. Before the young cultivator stretched a still, moonlit lake — so still, in fact, that it reflected the heavens above like flawless glass. Petals of ghostly white lotuses floated upon its surface, whispering ancient chants in forgotten tongues. The Trial Gate shimmered behind him, now dormant.
A soft wind passed — and with it came a voice. Not a judge's, nor a guardian's.
But his own.
"You know what you've buried," it said.
The lake began to shimmer unnaturally. The ripples were not on the surface, but beneath it — as though memory itself was moving.
He stepped forward, the reflection below not showing his face… but his past.
From the center of the lake rose a silver pedestal bearing a single mirror, encased in black jade vines. Its surface glowed not with light, but memory. Words etched into the pedestal pulsed softly:
— "Speak what you would never say. Face what you could never see." —
This was the Mirror of Regret, now embedded within the Whispering Lotus Lake. It did not test strength. It did not test skill.
It tested the soul.
He stepped into the water.
And the world collapsed.
A thousand shards of sound and color burst around him. He saw a boy kneeling over a charred village, clutching the hand of a mother already gone cold. He saw a brother he abandoned. A master he betrayed in silence. A girl whose last smile he never returned — Yue... no. Not Yue. Not this one. A memory from another life? Or a memory of a possibility?
"No," he whispered. "That's not me anymore."
"But it is," said the reflection in the mirror — now taking his shape. But older. Tired. Eyes filled with endless grief. "Every path you walk leaves a footprint behind. Your strength means nothing if your regrets remain chained."
The reflection stepped forward.
A blade of light in his hand — not real steel, but forged from words unspoken.
"Then speak," the reflection demanded. "Confess."
His breath caught. The lake brightened, the lotus petals spiraling around him like celestial ears. Waiting. Listening.
He closed his eyes.
"I hated her for dying."
Silence.
"I ran from my village not because I wanted to grow stronger… but because I was afraid I'd die weak."
The mirror cracked slightly.
"I let others believe I was kind, but I've stepped over the fallen. More than once."
Crack.
"I blamed the world for what was taken. But part of me always knew… I was just too slow."
Shatter.
The mirror exploded into stardust, its fragments dissolving into the lake. The reflection dissolved with it — no longer an enemy, but a truth acknowledged.
From the lotus petals, a single one turned gold and floated to his hand. Upon touching it, the lake's stillness resumed, but something inside him had shifted forever.
A golden sigil now glowed on his chest — shaped like a lotus mirrored in water.
He had passed.
Not by might. Not by cleverness.
But by honesty.
And as he stepped onto the stone shore again, he felt lighter. And heavier. Both.
Because to k
now oneself — truly — is the greatest burden.
And the greatest power.