Chapter 24 — The Divine Sword

After a moment, onto the platform stepped a young disciple from somewhere—no one had noticed whence he came—with a square face and thick brows, presentable enough in appearance, though he looked rather agitated. Once on the platform he said to Lu Xueqi: "Sister Lu, I am Fang of the Long Peak disciples. To be so fortunate as to exchange pointers with you today is the blessing of three lifetimes!"

"Boo!" Hisses rose from below the platform.

Lu Xueqi's face was expressionless; coldly, from midair, she said: "Greetings, Brother Fang. Lu Xueqi, eighth-generation disciple of Xiaozhu Peak, begs instruction from Brother Fang today."

Zhang Qingyue stood below the platform, watching Lu Xueqi still suspended in midair like a fairy, and felt a sudden, senseless pang at his heart. Just moments ago, had not Sister Ling'er stood aloft in just such surpassing grace? In his daze, Lu Xueqi's figure seemed to overlap with Tian Lingsu's likeness.

On the platform, Fang was still chattering away; by the look of him, if he could go on talking like this without ever fighting, until the end of heaven and earth, he would not mind at all. Fortunately his opponents in this world were the majority, and before he had got out two sentences, countless voices—including Zeng Shuyan's beside Zhang Qingyue—cried: "Aren't you going to start?"

"Lecher!"

"Chirping and chattering away like a woman! Eh—this senior sister of Xiaozhu Peak—ah, what are you doing, no, I absolutely meant nothing else—"

"Dong!"

At last the final bell and cauldron of the contest sounded. Lu Xueqi's face turned cold, and she looked straight at Fang. Under that icy gaze Fang felt a chill run through him; though from here even with a cold face Lu Xueqi was peerlessly beautiful, he dared not jest any further. He hastily wiped the smile from his face, composed his mind, and with a dharma sign drawn by his right hand summoned a silver-white immortal sword into the air.

Zhang Qingyue frowned, and could not help thinking again of Qi Hao's immortal sword "Hanbing". Just then he heard Zeng Shuyan beside him: "With Qi Hao as their model, the folk of Long Peak all love to cultivate this kind of immortal sword."

Zhang Qingyue's eyes flickered; he looked all around, and saw a bobbing sea of heads—but nowhere could he find any trace of Qi Hao, much less that figure he most wished to see and, at this moment, most wished not to see.

Where had they gone? Zhang Qingyue lowered his head, and a bitter sorrow filled his heart.

Suddenly Zeng Shuyan tugged at his arm and said gleefully: "Xiaofan, quick, look—it's starting."

Zhang Qingyue raised his eyes to the platform and saw that Fang had already summoned his immortal sword; a piercing cold instantly filled the platform. Yet in Zhang Qingyue's eyes it seemed plain that compared with Qi Hao when he had fought Tian Buhui in the old days, Fang still fell some way short in wielding the Hanbing immortal arts.

Lu Xueqi, by contrast, still hovered expressionless atop the drifting clouds, watching Fang gather his qi and condense ice below and before her, seeming to have no mind to attack at all. On her back she carried an immortal sword in a sky-blue scabbard. Though this sword could not merge with its master into one, as the swords most people cultivated could, yet from Fang on the platform to every Canglan disciple below it, not one dared make light of it.

On the path of cultivation, a spiritual treasure often can, after its master has cultivated long with it, merge with him into one, so that it need only be summoned when used—most convenient. But some wondrous treasures, because their own spirit-nature is too strong for a human body to bear, cannot do this, and can only be carried about by their master. Yet such treasures are always supreme immortal artifacts of tremendous power: the deeper the master's cultivation, the more astonishing the might they unleash. The Canglan Sect's treasure of treasures, the ancient sword "Shixian", is of this kind.

By now, on the dueling platform, a thin layer of ice had formed across the surface within a three-zhang radius of Fang. The disciples nearest the stage, Zhang Qingyue and Zeng Shuyan among them, felt a chill breath wash over their faces. Yet Liu Xueqi, still hovering in midair, seemed utterly indifferent; she merely watched Fang with cold detachment.

Fang performed his one-man show under the gaze of the crowd, his immortal sword dancing through the air. From the corner of his eye he took in the hundreds of stares from below—those he could bear—but Liu Xueqi's gaze seemed colder than the frost radiating from his own sword, chilling him to the heart until he scarcely knew where to put his hands or feet.

A flicker of impatience stirred in Fang. He pointed the sword-finger of his right hand, and the silver-white immortal sword shot upward from below toward Liu Xueqi. "Careful, Junior Sister Liu!" he called.

A ripple of laughter ran through the crowd below; from Fang's manner, one would think he feared wounding Liu Xueqi. Cangyan Daoren, seated below the stage, wore a very ugly expression and gave a heavy snort.

The snort carried a note of disdain, and it reached the ear of the person beside him, who reacted at once: "What, Senior Brother Cangsong, do you seem to have some complaint?"

Cangyan Daoren did not turn his head. "Junior Sister Shuiyue," he said mildly, "the disciples of your school are indeed outstanding in beauty."

Shuiyue Dashi's expression changed. At a time like this—a contest of magical arts—Cangyan Daoren chose not to praise her disciples' cultivation but instead their beauty; the mockery was plain. What manner of person was Shuiyue Dashi? Her brows shot up, and she retorted at once: "I never knew the cultivators of the Canglan Sect harbored so many libertines and lechers."

Cangyan Daoren was furious and was about to retort when Daoyan Zhenren, seated between them, raised a hand and smiled: "Enough, enough. We are all centuries old—quarreling before so many disciples, have you no shame? Watch the contest, watch the contest."

Both seat-holders gave heavy snorts and turned their heads away.

Fang's silver-white immortal sword had by now streaked to the cloud mist beneath Liu Xueqi's feet. Not a trace of expression crossed Liu Xueqi's cold face; without any visible movement, the cloud cluster beneath her bore her body backward. But Fang's sword was faster still, closing the gap in the blink of an eye, and from below the stage rose a chorus of shrieks and sighs.

In that instant, with no room to spare, Liu Xueqi turned her wrist, and the precious sword at her back was in her hand. Her jade face was frost-pale, and she did not even draw the blade from its sheath; she simply raised the sky-blue sword before her as a shield.

"Zheng!"

The clear ring of the impact echoed far across the plaza, wonderfully sweet to the ear.

Fang's silver-white immortal sword, as though struck a heavy blow, rebounded backward, and the faces of Fang on the stage and Cangyan Daoren below it alike changed drastically. Amid the astonished gazes of the crowd, Liu Xueqi did not hesitate in the least. A faint flush of pink swept across her snow-white face, and then with her right hand she tossed the sky-blue sword—sheath and all—into the air. At the same time her right hand's five fingers flexed and extended, gripping a dharma seal, and the sky-blue immortal sword blazed forth in midair. Blue light covered the entire vast platform, immortal qi surging—plainly no ordinary object.

Fang dared not be careless. Seeing that radiant blue light spread across the sky and earth, he was startled within, and all the more angered that Liu Xueqi would not even unsheathe her immortal sword—such contempt for him. Yet his hand still drove his own sword, and in an instant three walls of ice congealed before him, exuding threads of cold vapor.