The jade gate closed behind them, taking the snow, the lonely child and the unanswered question with it.
Chao Lun Hui remained on the stone platform for several breaths.
The cold from the Trial of Memory still seemed lodged beneath Luo Yanhe’s skin.
『IF YOU REMEMBER, WILL YOU STILL CHOOSE THE SAME PATH?
』
He still did not know who had chosen, what path the trial meant or why Luo Yanhe’s body had reacted as though the question belonged to an old wound.
Luo Yanhe : “Master.”
Shen Yan Ting : “Hm?”
Across the platform, the next stone door began to glow.
Luo Yanhe : “This disciple would like to file a complaint.”
Shen Yan Ting : “Denied.”
Chao Lun Hui turned towards him.
Luo Yanhe : “Master rejected it before hearing the content.”
Shen Yan Ting : “It would not change the result.”
Luo Yanhe placed a hand over his heart.
Luo Yanhe : “This inheritance and Master are working together to bully me.”
Shen Yan Ting : “The inheritance has not started bullying you yet.”
The stone door groaned open, releasing a wave of ancient spiritual pressure.
Luo Yanhe : “Master spoke too soon.”
Beyond the doorway lay a circular arena surrounded by twelve pillars.
A pale boundary divided the fighting ground from a narrow observation platform.
At the centre of the arena, the Luo Clan jade floated above a round formation and pulsed once in greeting.
Chao Lun Hui immediately distrusted it.
Luo Yanhe : “This disciple dislikes that jade.”
Shen Yan Ting : “It has done nothing.”
Luo Yanhe : “It glows suspiciously.”
Shen Yan Ting : “Glowing is not a crime.”
Luo Yanhe : “It should be.”
Shen Yan Ting : “No.”
They entered together.
The boundary admitted Luo Yanhe to the arena but stopped Shen Yan Ting at its edge.
He remained close enough to observe the fighting ground, though the formation clearly intended to prevent him from interfering.
Golden characters appeared above the jade.
『SECOND TRIAL: STRENGTH 』
『HEIR OF LUO, PROVE YOUR STRENGTH 』
Luo Yanhe lifted his head.
Luo Yanhe : “May this heir respectfully refuse?”
No answer came.
『TRIAL OF STRENGTH COMMENCING 』
Luo Yanhe closed his eyes briefly.
Luo Yanhe : “Of course.”
Shen Yan Ting : “You expected otherwise?”
Luo Yanhe : “After the Memory Trial, this disciple hoped the ancestors had exhausted their desire to traumatise people.”
Shen Yan Ting : “Clearly not.”
Luo Yanhe : “Master could have comforted me.”
Shen Yan Ting : “Fight well.”
Luo Yanhe stared at him.
Luo Yanhe : “That is not comfort.
That is a command wearing thin robes.”
The arena shook.
Black stone rose from the floor in twelve separate columns.
Each column split open to reveal a warrior carved with glowing Luo Clan runes.
One carried a sword, another a spear.
The others held a sabre, staff, axe, chain, twin blades, bow, shield, hammer, hooked blade and three-section staff.
All twelve turned towards Luo Yanhe.
Luo Yanhe : “Master.”
Shen Yan Ting : “Hm?”
Luo Yanhe : “This disciple formally withdraws several previous complaints about written examinations.”
Shen Yan Ting : “Fight.”
Luo Yanhe : “Master has no sympathy.”
Shen Yan Ting : “You asked for the inheritance.”
Luo Yanhe : “This disciple was summoned by a jade.”
Shen Yan Ting : “You came willingly.”
Luo Yanhe : “Under emotional pressure.”
Shen Yan Ting : “No.”
Luo Yanhe : “Yes.”
The sword warrior attacked before the argument could continue.
Luo Yanhe drew his blade and turned aside.
Stone struck steel beside his shoulder.
The impact drove him back two steps, directly into the path of the spear warrior advancing from his left.
His conscious mind saw the spear too late.
Luo Yanhe’s body did not.
His weight shifted before Chao Lun Hui could plan the movement.
He dropped beneath the spear, braced one hand against the floor and swept his leg behind the swordsman’s knees.
The stone warrior stumbled.
Luo Yanhe rose inside its guard and struck the rune glowing beneath its ribs.
A crack spread across the warrior’s chest.
Luo Yanhe : “Ancestor, this is family violence!”
Shen Yan Ting : “Focus.”
The archer released an arrow from the far side of the arena.
Luo Yanhe heard the string and moved behind the damaged swordsman.
The arrow buried itself in the warrior’s back and widened the crack.
Luo Yanhe : “This disciple is focusing on the injustice.”
Shen Yan Ting : “Focus on the spear.”
Luo Yanhe : “That too.”
The spear swept towards his knees.
He jumped over it, landed on the shaft and ran two steps along the weapon before kicking the spearman in the face.
The movement forced it backwards into the shield warrior.
Chao Lun Hui recognised their pattern after the next exchange.
The shield drove him towards the centre, the chain restricted escape, and the bow punished distance while the sword and spear closed the remaining paths.
The formation wanted him to break a coordinated battlefield, not overpower twelve separate opponents.
Chao Lun Hui changed tactics.
Instead of resisting the chain, he let it wrap around his sword arm.
The chain warrior pulled.
Luo Yanhe ran towards it, using the force to cross the arena faster than the archers expected.
He slid beneath the hammer, planted both feet against the chain warrior’s chest and redirected the pull towards the axe warrior charging behind him.
Chain and axe collided.
He drove spiritual energy through his blade and struck both exposed runes in a single sweep.
Two warriors broke apart.
The fragments had barely touched the floor when the staff struck his shoulder.
Pain flashed down his arm.
The sabre sliced through his outer sleeve, leaving a shallow cut beneath it.
Shen Yan Ting’s hand moved towards the boundary.
He stopped before touching it.
No memory or command accompanied the reaction.
Only a sharp reluctance to watch Luo Yanhe bleed and the practical awareness that interfering would invalidate the trial.
Shen Yan Ting : “Your circulation is rising too quickly.”
Chao Lun Hui felt it then.
Luo Yanhe’s cultivation wanted to answer pressure with overwhelming force.
He could have released more spiritual energy, but the unstable surge carried the same dangerous edge that had frightened the sect after the forbidden-technique incident.
Strength without control would prove every fear attached to Luo Yanhe’s name.
He reduced the flow instead.
The next hammer strike met his sword at an angle.
Rather than contest its weight, he guided it into the arena floor.
Cracks spread beneath the hammer.
Luo Yanhe stepped onto its lowered handle, vaulted over the warrior and struck the rune between its shoulders.
The hammer warrior collapsed.
By the time only the bow and twin-blade warriors remained, Luo Yanhe’s breathing had roughened.
Blood marked his sleeve, and spiritual exhaustion made the sword heavier with every movement.
The archer retreated towards the northern pillar while the twin blades drove him across the centre.
Chao Lun Hui allowed himself to be pushed back.
One step.
Two.
Three.
The archer drew.
Shen Yan Ting : “Right.”
Luo Yanhe turned before the arrow flew.
It passed his cheek and struck one of the twin blades.
The impact disrupted the warrior’s guard.
Luo Yanhe trapped its second weapon against his own blade, twisted the stone arm outwards and drove his palm into the glowing rune at its centre.
The warrior shattered.
He seized one fallen twin blade before it dissolved and threw it across the arena.
The archer fired again.
The arrow met the spinning blade in mid-air.
Both broke apart.
Luo Yanhe crossed the remaining distance, deflected the bow with his sword and struck the final rune.
The archer cracked from chest to shoulder and fell into a heap of dark stone.
The arena became still.
Luo Yanhe remained standing, though only because sitting down in front of an emotionally restrained ancestor would have felt like surrender.
『TRIAL OF STRENGTH PASSED 』
Luo Yanhe straightened.
Luo Yanhe : “Passed?”
No additional message appeared.
Luo Yanhe : “No praise?”
No answer came.
Luo Yanhe turned towards Shen Yan Ting.
Luo Yanhe : “Master, even this disciple’s ancestors are emotionally constipated.”
Shen Yan Ting : “Do not insult your ancestors.”
Luo Yanhe : “It is a medical observation.”
Shen Yan Ting : “It is not medical.”
Luo Yanhe : “A spiritual observation, then.”
Shen Yan Ting : “No.”
Luo Yanhe sighed as the boundary opened and Shen Yan Ting entered the arena.
Luo Yanhe : “The Luo family has terrible communication habits.”
Shen Yan Ting glanced at the unresponsive jade.
Shen Yan Ting : “That may be true.”
Luo Yanhe brightened.
Luo Yanhe : “Master agreed.”
Shen Yan Ting : “I said may.”
Luo Yanhe : “May counts as agreement.”
Shen Yan Ting : “It does not.”
Luo Yanhe : “It does.”
The next stone door opened before they could settle the matter.
『THIRD TRIAL: HEART 』
Chao Lun Hui’s expression sobered.
『TRIAL OF HEART COMMENCING 』
The arena disappeared.
Darkness surrounded him, complete and empty.
Shen Yan Ting was gone.
So were the jade, the stone warriors and the pain in Luo Yanhe’s shoulder.
There was no spiritual energy to follow and no enemy to strike.
The Heart Trial had chosen a quieter weapon.
『YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE 』
Chao Lun Hui stood without answering.
The accusation was familiar.
He had asked it himself whenever Luo Yanhe’s body recognised something he did not, whenever an artefact accepted him too easily, whenever grief arrived for people he had never consciously known.
『YOU ARE BORROWING LUO YANHE’S NAME 』
He could not deny it with certainty.
Chao Lun Hui remembered twenty-three genuine years beneath another name.
He remembered ordinary streets, electric lights, the weight of a phone in his hand and a world without spiritual veins.
Those memories had not faded into a false dream.
They remained his, as real as the sword calluses on Luo Yanhe’s hands and the bruises earned in the arena.
Luo Yanhe : “Perhaps I am.”
The darkness stirred.
『IF THE NAME IS NOT YOURS, WHY DO YOU DEFEND IT?
』
Images formed around him.
Disciples stepping away when he approached.
A junior servant lowering his eyes too quickly.
Elders recording every unusual reaction.
The forbidden-technique incident written beside Luo Yanhe’s name like a warning.
The trial showed angry words, damaged trust, reckless isolation and people who had learnt to expect harm.
It also showed how fear could become permission, until every new choice was interpreted as evidence of the villain people already expected.
Chao Lun Hui refused both convenient answers.
He would not declare Luo Yanhe innocent of every debt.
He would not let those debts become a licence for anyone to cause new harm.
『WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH THE NAME YOU CARRY?
』
He thought of the ruined clan waiting beneath forgotten time.
He thought of the child in the snow and the question no one could answer.
He thought of Shen Yan Ting protecting him without pretending trust had already been earned.
Luo Yanhe : “I remember being Chao Lun Hui.”
The darkness listened.
Luo Yanhe : “I believe I entered Luo Yanhe’s body and life.
I do not have his memories, and I will not claim a past I cannot remember.”
Luo Yanhe : “But I am the one making choices beneath this name now.”
His voice steadied.
Luo Yanhe : “I will answer for those choices.
I will not use another man’s name to escape responsibility, and I will not pretend the harm attached to it never happened.”
The ruined mountain appeared beside the faces of disciples who still watched him cautiously.
Luo Yanhe : “I will earn whatever trust can still be earned.
I will protect people even when they expect the worst from me.
I will not allow fear of the villain in that novel to decide what I become.”
Golden light gathered beneath his feet.
Luo Yanhe : “Until I know the truth, I will protect Luo Yanhe’s name.
Not because I can prove it has always been mine, but because I am carrying it now.”
He lifted his gaze into the darkness.
Luo Yanhe : “No one, including me, will use that name as permission for further cruelty.”
The Heart Trial answered.
『ANSWER ACCEPTED 』
『TRIAL OF HEART PASSED 』
The darkness broke into golden fragments.
Chao Lun Hui returned to the arena with his balance already failing.
A hand closed around his arm before he could reach the floor.
Shen Yan Ting : “Are you injured?”
Luo Yanhe looked down at the steady grip holding him upright.
Luo Yanhe : “Only spiritually criticised.”
Shen Yan Ting : “That is not an injury.”
Luo Yanhe : “The criticism was very thorough.”
Shen Yan Ting waited until he could stand unaided before releasing him.
Shen Yan Ting : “Did you answer?”
Luo Yanhe : “Reluctantly.”
Shen Yan Ting : “That is still an answer.”
Luo Yanhe : “Master has used that argument before.”
Shen Yan Ting : “Effective arguments should be reused.”
Chao Lun Hui stared at him.
Above them, the final stone door illuminated.
The pressure that spread across the arena was neither violent nor heavy.
It felt vast, arranged from countless possibilities that remained beyond sight.
『FOURTH TRIAL: FATE 』
Chao Lun Hui’s humour retreated to a safer distance.
The platform trembled.
A crack opened between him and the final gate, then spread in a widening circle beneath both men.
Luo Yanhe : “Master.”
Shen Yan Ting : “Hm?”
Luo Yanhe : “This disciple would like to formally withdraw again every complaint about written examinations.”
Shen Yan Ting glanced at the darkness opening beneath their feet.
Shen Yan Ting : “Too late.”
Luo Yanhe sighed.
Luo Yanhe : “The ancestors truly enjoy unreasonable entrances.”
The platform collapsed.
Shen Yan Ting reached for him as they fell, but the Fate boundary caught them first.
Golden light vanished above, and the inheritance delivered its final announcement.
『TRIAL OF FATE COMMENCING 』
Darkness swallowed them before either could see where the trial intended to place them.
The chapter has now been updated to the latest revised version.
I truly appreciate everyone who waited and continued supporting this story while I worked on improving it.
I hope this updated version gives you a smoother and more enjoyable reading experience.
Thank you for staying with me.
Happy reading!