Chapter 180 — Gloom

Tian Buhui came to a stop before Su Wan, fell silent for a moment, and said heavily, "These past days, Senior Brother Dao Yan has summoned me and Shui Yue again and again, repeatedly warning us that the disciples under our charge must keep the secret at all costs. That in itself is beyond reproach. But over these last few summons, I've seen that Senior Brother Dao Yan is increasingly… not himself."

Su Wan was taken aback. "Not himself? What do you mean?"

Tian Buhui frowned. "In all the years you've known him, do you ever remember Senior Brother Dao Yan scolding people lightly?"

Su Wan was silent. After a long while she shook her head. "Our senior brother the Sect Master has deep cultivation and upright character; he never lets joy or anger show on his face. When would he ever lose his temper and scold people over trifles?"

Tian Buhui nodded. "Exactly. Even you know that much. But since this great battle, Senior Brother Dao Yan's temper seems utterly changed—more and more irascible. These last few times he summoned me and Shui Yue, a word of warning would have sufficed, yet every time he began mild and pleasant, and then, for no reason at all—over some trifling, baffling thing—he would fly into a rage, reviling us or venting his wrath on others. In short…"

He shook his head, slowly raised his eyes to Su Wan, hesitated a moment, then stepped close and lowered his voice. "I suspect that in that great battle with the Beast Sovereign, Senior Brother Dao Yan was turned back upon by the malicious spirit of the Immortal Slayer's sword-soul. That's why he—"

Su Wan's face changed. "Be silent!" she said sharply. She hurried to the door of the Hall of Guarded Stillness, glanced left and right, and once she was certain no one was near, came back and whispered to Tian Buhui, "This is a secret matter of our Canglan Sect. You—you must not go saying such things carelessly!"

Tian Buhui sighed. "How grave a matter this is—how would I dare babble idly about it? But in that last great battle, to secure certain victory, Senior Brother Dao Yan ignored my repeated dissuasion and forcibly opened the Heavenly Mystery Seal, by which the ancestral masters of ages past sealed the spiritual essence of the Seven Veins of Qingyun, greatly increasing the Immortal Slayer's power. Yet whenever I recall the dying commands our forebears left behind, all of them declaring that the Immortal Slayer's malice was too fierce, its killing aura against Heaven itself, and that it seemed an ill-omened thing—I cannot treat it lightly. When I parted from Shui Yue on Jietian Peak today, though he and I have never gotten along, in that parting look I felt as though something passed between us unspoken. I reckon Shui Yue must be thinking the same as I am—only the matter is too great, and neither of us dares say it aloud."

Su Wan was silent a long while, then said, her voice a little rough, "Even so, in the end it all comes back to the Immortal Slayer. Now that the Immortal Slayer is destroyed, even if our senior brother the Sect Master has sadly been harmed, first, the source is gone; and second, his cultivation is godlike—given time, he will most likely come to his senses and resolve it himself. Surely!"

The heaviness on Tian Buhui's face did not lessen in the slightest. "Let us hope so," he said mildly. "Otherwise—him being the sovereign of Qingyun—if anything should go wrong, this whole Canglan Sect… I truly do not know how it would end."

Su Wan thought for a moment, then gave a helpless sigh and said wearily, "Enough. This is beyond our power to manage now, so don't fret yourself over it. There is one thing I have long meant to ask: after the Immortal Slayer was destroyed, what was done with it?"

Tian Buhui considered a moment. "I did once inquire of a senior martial brother who knew of it. I heard that after Senior Brother Dao Yan berated everyone on the spot and forbade them to speak of it, he at once picked up the Immortal Slayer, broken in two, and walked into the Illusory Moon Grotto-Heaven, forbidding anyone ever to enter that forbidden ground again. So to this day no one knows what has become of that ancient sword. Perhaps there is still hope it can be repaired?"

Tian Buhui said this last sentence as though to himself, then shook his head with a bitter laugh—plainly even he did not believe it. After two bitter chuckles, he went on casually, "That sword is beyond our reach, but today at Jietian Peak, besides getting an inexplicable tongue-lashing, I did hear one strange thing."

Su Wan started. "What strange thing?"

Tian Buhui shrugged. "You wouldn't believe it if I told you. In the last great battle, so many disciples and elders fell—and now they are being publicly mourned at the Jade Balance Hall on Jietian Peak. Yet our Senior Brother Dao Yan shows his face there barely once a day and then vanishes; instead, he goes every day to the ancestral shrine on the back mountain to keep vigil for the dead. Tell me, isn't that strange?"

Su Wan was dumbfounded. "Keeping vigil? What's happened at the ancestral shrine? Has some elder of the senior generation passed away?"

Tian Buhui shook his head and gave a cold laugh. "Some elder? No. I heard a few young disciples of the main lineage whispering among themselves—it's actually an old man who has watched over and swept the ancestral shrine for decades, who happened to die that very day. How he died, no one knows. All they know is that when Senior Brother Dao Yan heard of it, one moment he stood dumb as a wooden rooster, the next he was stamping and raging; and I hear he then went about for days in a daze, as if his soul had left him. In the end he insisted on placing the old man's memorial tablet inside the ancestral shrine. But the strangest part of all—the tablet he set inside the shrine bore not a single character. It was completely blank!"

The more Su Wan heard, the more bewildered she became, and the greater her alarm grew. She shook her head and said, "This—this—what on earth is going on? Can it really be that our senior brother the sect master has—has truly taken leave of his senses?"

Tian Buhui gave a cold laugh. "Whether he has or hasn't, no one can say. But people have tried to counsel him, and he would not listen. And instead of going to look properly at the spirit tablets of those disciples in the Yuheng Hall, he runs off to the Ancestral Hall to sit staring at that blank tablet. If this goes on, mark my words, the Canglan Sect will come to grief sooner or later—sooner or later it will be ruined at his hands..."

Su Wan was silent, wordless. After a long while she gave a faint, haunting sigh and looked out beyond the Shoujing Hall. In this lonely afternoon the world outside was empty and bare, and only the distant sky showed its deep blue.

The mountain wind blew past, and from the back hills came faintly the sound of bamboo surging like waves—yet somehow it only deepened the sense of desolation.

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Canglan Mountain, Jietian Peak, the Ancestral Hall in the back hills.

Here it was as silent and solemn as ever. The tall hall still stood erect, the woods around it as green as of old, as though the earth-shaking great battle fought on Canglan Mountain days before had left no mark upon this place at all.

Save that one old man who swept the floors was gone, and there on the dim altar table, in an inconspicuous spot among countless spirit tablets, there was one more—strange and blank.

Lin Jinghong knelt silently before that blank tablet, dressed in hempen mourning. A brazier was set before him, and on the table were offerings of two white candles and three slender sticks of incense; their curling smoke rose gently and was soon merged with the incense smoke of the other offerings, never again to be told apart.