Chapter 77 — The Fifth Chapter

In but a moment the Perfected One Daoyan felt dizzy and dim-eyed, his breath choked and hard to bear. Yet his cultivation was so profound, surpassing even that of the monk Puzhao in his day, that he at once steadied his mind by force, joined the fingers of his left hand like a blade, and struck several points upon his right hand, which in that brief span had grown nearly numb. Tracing a talisman in the air, he at once checked the black vapor's upward advance.

At this moment Daoist Cangyan rushed to his side and tightly supported his body. Glancing at the Perfected One Daoyan's wound, he turned and shouted at Zhang Qingyue, "Zhang Qingyue, you vile creature, you dared to secretly harm the sect leader!"

The crowd was aghast, and Zhang Qingyue cried out in a lost voice, "No, it was not I..."

The Perfected One Daoyan, now thronged about by the crowd, had by this time somewhat recovered his color, but the Seven-Tailed Centipede's venom was so savage that even upon his face a faint black vapor could be seen, thin yet unbroken. Even so, his mind remained clear, and after drawing a deep breath he said, "Seize this vile creature at once and question him well."

Daoist Cangyan turned and said, "Rest easy, Brother. I am here."

The Perfected One Daoyan gasped for breath, but his heart was half at ease. He nodded, looked toward him, and was about to say, "Then..."

His voice suddenly stopped. The face of Daoist Cangyan before his eyes had in an instant changed from an anxious countenance to one unspeakably hideous. And almost at the same moment, the Perfected One Daoyan felt a chill at his heart, and a sharp agony shot through him. His body convulsed, and the vital essence he had channeled into his right hand to hold back the poison suddenly scattered away.

"Ah!"

With a great roar, Perfected One Daoyan swept his left hand down in a slashing cut. Daoist Cangyan met it at once with his own left hand; the two collided, and Cangyan's body was violently shaken and sent flying backward, landing at the gate of the Yuheng Hall. After a moment, a trickle of blood slowly ran from the corner of his mouth, yet his expression was one of cold laughter.

In his right hand he held a short sword crosswise, crystalline as water—one glance told anyone it was no ordinary weapon. And now the blade was covered in streaks of blood, bright red blood that slid slowly, drop by drop, from the edge and fell upon the gray bricks of the great hall.

The crowd that had been in such chaos a moment before suddenly fell silent, silent as death.

The belly of Perfected One Daoyan's dark green daoist robe had turned dark in an instant, and his whole face went deathly pale. Yet the astonishment on his face far surpassed the pain of his body.

"You—what are you doing?" he rasped, toward Daoist Cangyan standing at the hall's gate, voicing the question in every heart. Even Qi Hao, Lin Jinghong, and the other disciples of Long Peak could scarcely believe their eyes; every one of them gaped at the man who had once been among the most powerful figures on Canglan Mountain.

"Me?" Daoist Cangyan seemed suddenly to have become another person entirely, and he burst into wild laughter. "I was plotting against you! Could you not see it?" As he spoke he beckoned with his hand, and the seven-tailed centipede in midair flew to him at once, vanishing in the blink of an eye into his sleeve.

Qi Hao could hold back no longer. His voice thick with confusion and horror, he cried out, "Master, you—have you gone mad?"

Daoist Cangyan glanced at him, then his gaze fell upon Lin Jinghong, who stood beside Qi Hao with an expression much like his own, and upon the many other disciples of Long Peak—indeed, upon the disciples of every branch of the Canglan Sect, all of whom were staring at him as though at a madman, with looks of utter disbelief.

"Hahaha, mad? Yes! I have long been mad!" Daoist Cangyan threw back his head and laughed, a trace of madness in his manner too. "A hundred years ago, right here in this Yuheng Hall, when I saw what became of Senior Brother Wan Jiangu, I was already mad!"

"Master!" Qi Hao and Lin Jinghong of Long Peak now had tears in their voices, but behind them, the seat-elders of the Canglan Sect gathered around Perfected One Daoyan suddenly went rigid.

Wan Jiangu—that name, like something out of a nightmare, pressed down upon the Canglan Sect with a heavy, brooding shadow.

The corner of Perfected One Daoyan's eye twitched. That name, which for a hundred years no one had dared speak before him, seemed to strike him to the depths. Xiao Yichen was supporting him, and yet he distinctly felt the wounded body of Perfected One Daoyan give a violent shudder; even through the fabric of his robe, he could feel the fire that had suddenly begun to burn within his master—how scorching it was!

Daoist Cangyan stood there in his madness, as though the foul air pent up in his heart for so many years had finally been released; for a time, no one stepped forward to seize the murderer who had wounded the supreme head of the Canglan Sect.

He pointed at Perfected One Daoyan, then pointed at the statues of the Three Pure Ones behind the crowd, there in the shadows, and cried aloud, "You—all of you," and he swept his finger across Tian Buhui, Shuiyue, Zeng Shuchang, Shang Zhenglang and the other seat-holders of Qingyun, "all of you, answer me in good conscience: who ought to sit in the seat of sect master? Senior Brother Wan of those years, or him?"

No one answered. The young disciples did not know what to do; but Tian Buhui and the others had gone ashen, and said not a word.

In the great hall, only Daoist Cangyan's mad voice echoed on: "What, have you no words now? Does your conscience prick you? Hahaha, yes! Yes! Who among you does not know in his heart how it should be? And yet—who sits in that seat today?"

Shuiyue, pale of face, gazed at Cangsong, so unlike his usual self, and said slowly, "Senior Brother Cangsong, more than a hundred years have passed. Why must you cling to it so?"

"Bah!" Daoist Cangyan, wholly heedless now of his own standing, spat fiercely, his face full of contempt, and sneered, "A hundred years? Yes! A hundred years I have endured it, and only today have I found the chance to right the wrong done to Senior Brother Wan. In those days, among the Canglan Sect, on that journey to the wildlands—you, and you, and you!"

His finger jabbed from one to another, pointing in turn at Tian Buhui, Zeng Shuchang, and Shang Zhenglang, and he sneered, "These hundred years you have sat comfortably in your seats—do you still remember how Senior Brother Wan, at the risk of everything, saved our lives? Do you still remember who it was that so freely shared his insights into cultivation with us, that our arts advanced by leaps? And you!"

He pointed sharply at Shuiyue and said coldly, "Just now you called me obsessive? Heh heh, heh heh. Who in those days did not know that you secretly pined for Senior Brother Wan, and that he later saved you and loved you? Who would have thought that on that day you stood by and let him die, and today you come to mock me!"

Shuiyue's face went dead white!

"And you, Tian Buhui!" As though he would vent every grievance in his heart, Daoist Cangyan laughed wildly and pointed at Tian Buhui, crying aloud, "You tell them yourself—how did Senior Brother Wan treat you, and how did you repay him?"

Tian Buhui's face was ashen, his hands clenched into tight fists; beside him stood his wife Su Wan, her face no less pale. Yet neither of them said a single word, but let Daoist Cangyan laugh and rage and accuse.