A ruthless resolve surged within Qing Chen.
He gritted his teeth and pressed his hand without hesitation into the handprint carved with the character for "inner" on the stone stele.
The instant his hand pressed into the handprint, the stone stele seemed to be eaten away by a mysterious force.
The stele gradually softened, slowly turning into a puddle of sludge, which then crept toward the blood-colored fruit peel before Qing Chen.
The sludge gave off a pungent, rotten stench and bubbled, as though it were highly corrosive.
After touching the peel, it actually melted the blood-red skin bit by bit, finally forming a massive blood-colored vortex.
Qing Chen understood. This was the entrance to the Inner Hall's trials.
He realized that the three paintings of court ladies he had encountered earlier had apparently been mere appetizers. The real challenge had only just begun.
He strained his eyes and fully extended his divine sense, but all he saw ahead was a shroud of hazy blood mist. Neither his sight nor his divine sense could readily penetrate the thick fog.
Qing Chen did not hesitate in the slightest. He took a deep breath and stepped into the blood-colored vortex.
Within the vortex, space twisted, as though he were in another world.
Sand, muddy water, and blood mist interwove into a bizarre scene.
Here, time seemed to lose its meaning. Qing Chen felt only that he was drifting through endless nothingness.
The Blood Jiangshi True Mansion Token inside Qing Chen's Storage Bag glowed. He looked down at himself; his body seemed to be wrapped in a layer of blood-colored fruit peel.
Without that layer of peel, the strange forces within the vortex would likely have made him suffer bitterly.
After an unknown length of time, Qing Chen's feet suddenly touched solid ground,