Chapter 161 — The Ambush

Morning on Canglan Mountain, where a cool breeze blew gently, slowly rolling the thin mist across the whole mountain so that it drifted like gossamer through the dense woods. At the three-way fork outside the Ancestral Hall, Ming Li, Master Ghost, and the old sweeper stood in a triangle, locked in a subtle confrontation.

The wrinkles on the old man's face stirred, and he said slowly in a hoarse voice, "You two are not men of Canglan Mountain. Why have you come uninvited to this sacred ground of Qingyun? Might I ask what business you have here?"

Ming Li made no sound, his gaze measuring the old man for a moment. Master Ghost stood six feet to his side. With the cultivation the two of them possessed, there was scarce anyone under heaven they need fear—yet between the two of them, it was plain that neither trusted the other in the slightest.

But at this moment, the eyes hidden behind Master Ghost's black veil were fixed unwaveringly on the old sweeper, bright and piercing, as though stirred by some other, stranger feeling.

The old man sensed something, turned unsteadily, and looked at Master Ghost. "You have been staring at this old relic all this while, honored sir. Is there something you wish to say?"

Master Ghost suddenly laughed. "You are nothing but an old man who keeps the Ancestral Hall of Canglan Mountain. Why meddle in affairs not your own? This young man here—" he pointed at Ming Li, "—has long heard tell of the Illusory Moon Grotto-Heaven of Canglan Mountain and wishes to go in and see it for himself. Will you let him pass, old sir, or not?"

Ming Li, standing some distance off, gave a sudden cold snort. "Before we climbed this mountain, you and I agreed long ago: I would enter the Illusory Moon Grotto-Heaven and draw the attention of the Canglan Sect, while you slipped into the Ancestral Hall and destroyed every spirit tablet of every generation of Canglan's founders, giving the Canglan Sect a fine lesson. Why, now that we are here, do you still not go in?"

Master Ghost choked on his words and turned to look at Ming Li, whose face was grave, his expression serious and earnest—so earnest that it was hard to believe no such thing had ever been said. Master Ghost studied him for a good while, then seemed to give a bitter smile and shook his head slightly.

The old man looked at Ming Li, then at Master Ghost. His face slowly grew cold, and the keen light in his eyes kindled brighter. He said mildly, "It seems that, whatever the case, neither of you means well by Qingyun. This is sacred ground, and I have kept watch over it for many a year. If you wish to run riot here, you shall first have to step over this old man's body."

He said this calmly, and facing these two mysterious strangers before him, slowly straightened his back.

In the dense woods on the back mountain at early dawn, the clear, far-carrying birdsong suddenly seemed to falter and die away. Only the mist across the mountain still drifted, clinging about them.

The few decades of a life seemed to flow quietly away in that silence, until they became the fine lines at the corners of one's eyes.

Master Ghost suddenly said, "Is your left hand still well?"

Ming Li and the old man both started. Ming Li, of course, could not understand why Master Ghost had suddenly tossed out such an inexplicable remark—but the old man's body visibly shuddered, and his eyes fixed on Master Ghost and could not be drawn away.

In the early morning, in the thin mist, the old man stared a long while. Then suddenly he let out a long breath, the astonishment on his face gradually fading, and said slowly, "It is you?"

Master Ghost smiled. "It is me."

He paused, his gaze traveling over the old man's face, and even his voice took on a note of feeling. "All these years—how have you aged so dreadfully? Looking at you now, who would ever know you for the Wan Jiangu of Canglan Sect, once renowned throughout the world!"

At the sound of those three words—Wan Jiangu—the old man's body suddenly began to tremble, as though those three words were three blades, each one stabbing into his heart in turn. Even upon that face so deeply scarred by the years, a look of agitation now surfaced that had not been seen there in a very long time.

"Wan Jiangu. Heh heh, Wan Jiangu..."

He murmured the name in a low voice, his face complex and touched with pain. Ming Li frowned to one side. The name Wan Jiangu—he had heard it years ago, when he was still a disciple of Canglan Sect. But never had he imagined that this figure, long rumored dead, was still living in this world; still less had he imagined that the peerless man who had set the elders and headmasters of the present-day Canglan Sect at each other's throats—the man for whose sake even Daoist Cangyan had betrayed Qingyun—had become such an inconspicuous, doddering old fellow.

A cold wind blew past, stirring the lapels of the three men's robes. Here, where the mist lay across the mountain like dream and illusion, the past seemed to echo as well.

Until the one who had once been Wan Jiangu, the old man who had once looked askance at the whole world and now stood with a face full of wrinkles, slowly raised his head.

"Pff"—a soft sound came from his hand. Ming Li and Master Ghost both looked, and saw only fine gray powder sifting down. The broken broom in Wan Jiangu's hand had, in the surge of his emotion, been crushed to bits by his own strength and lay scattered on the ground.

The mountain wind came and carried the powder on the ground away bit by bit. Wan Jiangu gazed at what had been in his hand but a moment before and was now gone without a trace. Then he lifted his head and gazed at Master Ghost, and said, word by word:

"If not for you in those years, I would have been a cripple for life. I owe you a debt, and I have always kept it in my heart."

Master Ghost said mildly, "You and I took to each other at first sight. In the wild wastes of the northwest, there was also that monk Puzhao..."

Ming Li, who had stood silent to one side all this while, suddenly gave a start, and a fierce light blazed in his eyes.

Master Ghost and Wan Jiangu did not notice the change in Ming Li's expression. Master Ghost went on: "Though the three of us came from different houses and factions, we were friends for a time all the same. Now Puzhao has been gone these many years, and you had long since dropped out of sight. I never thought I would see you again today—so my trip to Canglan Mountain has not been in vain."

The feeling in his words was beyond mere sighing. The tautness on Wan Jiangu's face gradually eased, and he sighed. "True enough. I never thought either that I would see an old friend again... Stop!"

Halfway through his words, his voice suddenly sharpened into a shout—for Ming Li had turned away in silence, unwilling to hear more of these two and their old days, and was about to walk toward the Illusory Moon Grotto-Heaven.

Wan Jiangu gave a cold snort. His body did not seem to move at all; he merely raised a hand, and his shriveled palm suddenly seemed to swell and lengthen a thousandfold, clawing down from behind like a gigantic talon.

Ming Li's step halted. Without turning his head, he gave his wrist a shake, and there above him flashed a circular pattern traced in midair. In an instant the light blazed forth—the Taiji diagram, radiant with blue light. Wan Jiangu's giant claw was caught by the blue radiance and flung back in an instant. But in that same instant Wan Jiangu's shriveled body had already set itself before Ming Li, and astonishment had returned to his face. "The Taiji Profound Pure Way? Who are you, really?"

Master Ghost's voice drifted from behind, soft and faint: "He is a personage of no small standing in the Present Demon Sect's King of Hell Faction."

Ming Li frowned but said nothing. Wan Jiangu looked him over a few times and nodded. "So you are Zhang Qingyue—the one expelled from Canglan Sect ten years ago who threw in with the demon cult?"