Emotion Corridor

Countless images flashed past Mu Qian's eyes.

Ancient ancestors clad in animal skins, bizarre and ferocious ancient beasts, towering trees that reached into the clouds, majestic mountain ranges stretching beyond sight...

Even golden giants wielding enormous axes...

The images flew by too quickly for him to make out clearly.

At last, when everything sank into Chaos, all that remained was an endless cyan-gold ocean...

"What is that...?"

Mu Qian strained to make out the cyan-gold ocean, but the space around him twisted once more. His vision returned to reality, to the Divine Temple's gates before him.

He hadn't yet recovered his senses.

In that brief instant, he'd felt as though he'd seen through the currents of history and witnessed a scene from countless ages past.

That fleeting glimpse alone was enough to astonish anyone who saw it.

Mu Qian let out a long breath. He'd tried touching this crystal before, during an earlier visit, and the result had been exactly what one might expect.

Perhaps, just as Snow Maiden had said, the time wasn't right yet...

He didn't know if now was the right moment.

Mu Qian stopped dwelling on it and hurried forward, stepping through the Divine Temple's gates.

As he entered, the countless cyan-gold crystal lamps inside the temple lit up one after another, illuminating the way ahead.

His anxious, conflicted feelings settled, too. It was as if he'd been gathered into his mother's arms, and in an instant, peace and calm returned.

Mu Qian took in the scene before him.

A magnificent, resplendent corridor stretched out before his eyes.

The whole corridor reminded him of an ancient passage leading to the Imperial Palace Hall. A row of strange-looking statues stood before the walls on either side.

They were strange because not one of them wore a solemn, dignified expression. They all looked utterly at ease: some were doubled over with laughter, others glared furiously, and still others wept in grief or sat silent in sorrow...

It seemed as though every emotion in the world could be found in them.

The crystal walls on either side were carved with countless exquisite murals. Though the walls had endured the ravages of countless ages, they still looked as they must have at the beginning. When he touched them lightly, they weren't cold at all; instead, they felt smooth and soft.

The enormous murals spanning both sides of the corridor looked as if they'd been carved only yesterday. Their vivid colors brought the scenes to life, and history had left no trace upon them.

Most remarkable of all, each wall was a single, seamless piece. The murals seemed to have been carved from jade and crystal in various colors, then inlaid into the walls.

In Mu Qian's eyes, the seemingly natural murals appeared to stir. Every figure looked at him, wearing a different expression.

They seemed to be inviting him to join the story depicted in the murals—a story from some unknown time long ago.

He had a strange feeling that everything here was alive, as if each mural were an independent living being.

But how could jade and crystal be alive?

Mu Qian found it hard to believe. He hadn't even awakened his Martial Soul yet, but at that moment, he had absolute faith in his intuition.

Could anyone really have created something like this?

It seemed that only a god could.

Mu Qian had thought he'd find scenes in the murals matching the fleeting vision he'd seen before the Divine Temple's gates.

But that wasn't the case. Every scene depicted something he'd never heard of, yet somehow seemed familiar, as if he'd experienced it himself.

Only it had happened so very long ago—so long that he'd forgotten it all.

Fortunately, Mu Qian noticed one thing: every story in the murals, like the statues in the corridor, was connected to some kind of emotion.

"Emotions... Why is this corridor filled with so many different emotions? What is this place trying to tell me?"

Countless questions welled up in Mu Qian's mind.

He didn't believe this was the Divine Temple of the God of Emotion. The God of Emotion was only a First-Level God, more or less on par with the Sea God.

The Sea God's place of inheritance certainly didn't have this kind of grandeur.

Besides, that one who loved to cook probably hadn't even been born yet, and the previous God of Emotion's inheritance wasn't on Douluo Continent, either.

As he pondered, he reached the end of the corridor.

What puzzled Mu Qian was that the corridor ended at another crystal wall, with no entrance leading anywhere else.

He'd examined everything very carefully. The walls on both sides were entirely covered in murals, and there were no entrances.

Looking back, he saw that the Divine Temple's gates behind him had vanished without a trace.

The corridor wasn't very long. Compared to the Divine Temple he'd seen from outside, it was no more than the tip of an iceberg.

Mu Qian turned around and tried to return the way he'd come, but for some reason, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't reach the end of the not-so-long corridor.

The wall that sealed it off was clearly not far away, right there in plain sight, yet the path beneath his feet seemed bewitched, stretching on and on.

"Something's wrong!" Even Mu Qian realized that something was off.

It seemed he was trapped inside.

A corridor one could reach the end of, but never return to the starting point.

He could see the finish line, but couldn't return to where he'd begun... How much it resembled life.

Suddenly, Mu Qian felt his heartbeat quicken, and his breathing grew ragged.

He'd experienced this before.

The first time he'd learned to swim in his previous life, he'd choked on water and come close to drowning.

That feeling of being on the brink of death had been hard to forget, even after all these years.

"What's going on? This obviously can't be drowning. Could it be... that there isn't much oxygen left in here?"

Mu Qian grew more certain of his guess. He glanced around, then greedily took in one of the few remaining breaths of oxygen and tried to calm himself.

Ever since stepping through the Divine Temple's gates, he'd considered countless possibilities, but he'd never imagined things would turn out like this.

Though he'd long since reached adulthood in mind, his instinct for survival told him that cowardice and fear were useless. Still, he couldn't help feeling tense and uneasy.

Mu Qian kept telling himself that Snow Maiden wouldn't harm him, and that he could handle the situation before him.

If his guess was right, the corridor had only a limited supply of oxygen. It couldn't support his breathing forever.

After checking again and confirming there was no way out, Mu Qian stopped breathing so deeply. He lay down on the floor and did his best to regulate his breathing, conserving oxygen by moving as little as possible.

Time passed slowly. The corridor was terrifyingly quiet; he could hear nothing but his own heartbeat.

The atmosphere was oppressive, too. Although the cyan-gold crystal lamps lit the corridor brightly, Mu Qian still felt as though countless shadows surrounded him.

It was as if something lurked in those shadows, constantly passing before his eyes, twisting and changing shape, making his heart race.

With the tension so thick, Mu Qian couldn't even fall asleep to reduce his oxygen consumption.

Under these circumstances, it seemed as though time itself had ceased to matter...