Chapter 162 — The Illusory Moon

Was that nameless ancient scroll—the one that had produced countless brilliant talents, including Canglanzi and Patriarch Qingye—really lying quietly in here?

And that ancient sword whose fame shook the world!

Ming Li gazed quietly at the four characters, and the strokes, weathered by years of frost and wind, seemed to gaze back at him in silence.

He said nothing, gave no sigh; the next moment he stepped forward into the cave, as though setting his foot into the years long past...

********

There was no deep, winding passage as he had imagined. What appeared before his eyes was simply a plain, unadorned stone chamber; every object within could be taken in at a glance. A few stones were piled in a corner, and where the wall met the floor, faintly damp, there was a trace of green moss. The only thing different from outside was the extraordinary stillness—stepping into the cave, everything seemed suddenly to fall quiet, as though cut off from the world beyond.

Drawing his gaze back from his surroundings, Ming Li's eyes came to rest at last on the stone wall directly facing the cave entrance. Set into the smooth stone was a taiji diagram carved in relief—the only thing in this cave that had any connection to the Canglan Sect.

Ming Li drew a deep breath, walked forward, and stopped before the taiji diagram. The pattern was marked with countless scars, showing signs of damage in many places—plainly a thing of great age. Ming Li gazed at it in silence, and Master Ghost's words from not long ago slowly echoed through his mind.

The next moment, he laid his hand lightly upon the taiji diagram, and a faint blue-green light radiated from his palm. Ming Li watched the glow expressionlessly, feeling the familiar breath of the Taiji Mystic Pure Dao flowing through the meridians of his body—the breath that had once belonged to this mountain range!

As though one long asleep had at last awakened, the stillness of the stone chamber was suddenly broken by a faint, distant sound, as if the whole cave had breathed a gentle sigh. Something began to turn; then the taiji diagram too lit with a blue-green glow, and at the same time the pattern began to rotate.

It turned from left to right exactly one full circuit, and then from within the stone wall came a click, and everything stopped. Ming Li withdrew his arm and waited quietly.

The moment's silence vanished in a flash, and a low, rumbling sound rose in the cave. To the right of the taiji diagram, a circular crack suddenly appeared in what had been a solid stretch of stone wall; then it slowly rotated apart to the side, revealing a hidden opening. Yet within that opening coiled a strange thing like grey-white mist and water, appearing now as vapor, now as rippling water, swirling without cease, murky and impenetrable within—nothing could be seen clearly at all.

Ming Li looked at that mist. In the end, Master Ghost had not lied to him. But within this mysterious vapor, who could say what waited?

He did not hesitate—indeed, he seemed hardly to think at all—and strode in.

The mist swallowed him, and that figure swiftly vanished; then the two stone walls swung silently back and closed gently together, leaving no trace at all.

********

In a daze, in the blur, deep in the vast firmament a lightning bolt flashed, piercing the darkness of the long night, and became an immeasurably vast sword of light descending from the heavens, so dazzling and radiant that none could look upon it directly, plunging straight into the depths of the heart.

Then in the pitch-black firmament rose a strange moon, glimmering with an uncanny silver light, hanging high in the distant sky.

In that instant his mind went utterly blank; everything was forgotten, and only his gaze remained fixed forward, upon what lay behind that flash of white light.

As though it were a low, plaintive sound, someone was weeping softly—but then a familiar voice laughed aloud, and a small, young voice let out a wail and at last began to cry.

Somehow, he held his breath!

An inexplicable tension, yet his heart beat so fast; there seemed to be wind at his ear, yet he could not feel his own existence—as though he were nothing but a pair of eyes, searching, peering, until at last he saw...

That tiny village, and behind the village a broken-down thatched temple.

"Is it born?" a man's voice asked anxiously.

"It's born, mother and child both safe, it's a boy!" The midwife's voice carried a smile as she said loudly, "Congratulations!"

"Heh heh, heh heh..." The honest man laughed with simple, guileless joy, his plain feeling tinged with comfort and a measure of relief. The next moment, he saw the crying boy, the child nestled in his parents' arms.

"What shall we name him, father?" The mother was somewhat weak, but a smile of happiness still lingered on her face.

The father thought for a moment and said, "Neither of us knows a single character. If you ask me, the most learned man in the village is Mr. Lin, who teaches at the east end. Whenever anyone in the village has a child, doesn't he always choose the name? Why don't we go and ask him to pick one?"

The mother nodded, and the father went out. Before long he came back in from outside, a smile on his face, holding a slip of paper. "Mr. Lin said that for families like ours, the most important thing is to keep safe and know one's place, to live out a good honest life—so he chose three characters and wrote them here."

The mother said happily, "Oh, a learned man is different after all. What name did he give our son?"

The father brought the slip of paper close to the mother with his rough hand, and wrapped his arm around both mother and the child sleeping peacefully, and lowered his voice, as though holding those three characters in boundless respect and tenderness, and said softly:

"Zhang, Xiao, Fan..."

"Boom!"

A thunderclap rang out in the firmament, and rain began to fall from the sky. His whole body shook suddenly, and he gasped sharply!

Rain outside the house, the sky ink-dark, and distant Canglan Mountain stark and savage; in that vast, bitter wind and driving rain, father and mother held each other, calm smiles on both their faces, gazing at the child in their arms...

He wanted to cry out but could make no sound; a thousand words swirled and spun in his mind, yet in the end they came to only two:

"Father—Mother!"

The rain filled the air, and all of it seemed to fall upon his face, ice-cold to the bone.

********

The illusory moon in the sky glimmered with a faint, ghostly light.

"Bang!"

A stone came flying from the sky, seeming to pass straight through his body and land behind him. The sky had cleared at some unknown moment, and a pack of children were running through the village, laughing and playing at the top of their voices.

The ordinary-looking boy was running desperately in front, and a boy somewhat older than he, with a gang of children behind him, gave chase, shouting loudly, "Zhang Qingyue, if you've got any guts, stand still!"

The boy in front spat. "You think I'm an idiot?" he called back as he ran—and ran all the faster.

On and on they chased, until the children gradually drew near that shabby thatched temple at the east end of the village. From the outside, the little temple was worn and broken, who knew how many years of wind and rain it had weathered.

Zhang Qingyue was the first to dash inside, and the pack of children behind him ran in after, and from that ruined little temple the sound of children's voices seemed still to come drifting out.

He stared blankly, and his mind went blank once more; some inexplicable dread seemed to seep thread by thread from some long-buried place deep in his heart, spreading through his whole being.

One step, then another; soundlessly he drew near that thatched temple, near that nightmare that seemed to have vanished long ages ago.