CHAPTER 34 — Falling Petal Valley (Part One)
Dawn did not arrive gently.
It came pale and uneasy, like the world itself was afraid to wake.
Zheng Wen Te followed Lian down the mountain path in silence.
Mist clung to the forest.
The trees were too still.
Even the birds seemed unwilling to sing.
Ahead, the valley opened like a wound between peaks.
Falling Petal Valley.
The name sounded soft.
Beautiful.
But the air was wrong.
Petals drifted from unseen branches, red as fading blood, spiraling slowly through the fog.
Zheng Wen Te watched one land on his sleeve.
It was warm.
That should have been impossible.
Lian noticed.
Her hand tightened on her sword.
"This place isn't natural," she murmured.
Zheng Wen Te's voice was hoarse.
"Is she here?"
Lian did not answer immediately.
Then—
"She's supposed to be."
They passed a broken stone marker half-buried in moss.
The words carved into it had been scratched away violently, as if someone had hated even the name.
Further inside the valley, they found the first sign.
A hut.
Small.
Abandoned.
The door hung open.
Lian approached carefully, then pushed it wider.
Inside—
nothing.
No furniture.
No bedding.
Only one object remained.
A single mirror, cracked down the center.
Zheng Wen Te stared at it.
His reflection looked wrong.
Not older.
Not younger.
Just… unfamiliar.
As if someone else was staring back through his eyes.
Lian whispered:
"This was a disciple shelter. Someone lived here."
Zheng Wen Te's throat tightened.
"Where did they go?"
Lian's gaze shifted downward.
The floor was covered in petals.
Too many.
As if they had fallen for years in a single night.
Then—
a sound.
Not footsteps.
Not breathing.
A soft scrape.
Like fingernails across wood.
Lian spun instantly, sword half-drawn.
"Who's there?"
Silence.
Only mist.
Only petals.
Zheng Wen Te felt it then.
That pressure.
The same weight as the scripture.
The same invisible gaze.
He turned slowly.
The mirror.
The crack in the glass was widening.
Not breaking—
opening.
Something moved behind it.
Not a face.
Not yet.
Just a shadow, blurred and feminine, standing too close.
Lian stepped in front of him.
"Show yourself!"
The shadow did not obey.
Instead—
a whisper slid into Zheng Wen Te's ear, intimate as breath:
"You took too long."
His blood turned ice.
He staggered back.
"Who… are you?"
The shadow tilted its head.
Then the mirror shattered—
petals exploded into the air—
and the valley went quiet again.
As if nothing had happened.
Lian's sword was fully drawn now.
Her voice was sharp.
"Zheng Wen Te…"
"…she knows you're here."