The fiftieth step.
The instant Chen Yan's foot landed on the step, the view before him suddenly opened up.
Instead of more stone steps leading upward, there was a broad platform.
It floated in the void, with no railing around its edge and a bottomless darkness beneath it.
Yet as soon as he stepped onto it, the oppressive force that had been surging up from the black mist below his feet vanished.
It was as if someone had hit a mute button beside his ear. The roars, the illusions, the stiffness in his body—all of it faded away completely.
Strangely, when he had looked up at the Cloud Ladder in the hall, he had never seen this platform.
Before Chen Yan could think it over, the surroundings abruptly changed.
The darkness receded like a tide, replaced by a warm glow.
He found himself lying on a large bed. The sheets were soft, the blanket light, and a faint, elusive fragrance drifted through the air.
Soothing music flowed from some corner, unhurried, like a hand gently massaging his temples.
Several bottles of essential oil sat on the bedside table. They had elegant packaging, with labels in foreign writing he could barely understand.
He wore nothing but a thin bathrobe.
It hung open at the chest, and the sash was tied so loosely it barely held anything in place.
"This..." Chen Yan's gaze swept from the bedside table to the curtains, then from the curtains to the carpet. An absurd thought came to him. "Isn't this one of those foot massage parlors from my previous life?"
He remembered places like this.
The warm lighting, the incense, the soft beds, and the masseuses in matching uniforms.
Now that he was in the middle of one, the familiar yet strange incongruity left him momentarily