Chapter 257 — Summoning

Standing before the Phantom Moon Grotto-Heaven, Zhang Qingyue halted and gazed at this mysterious place before him.

From the outside, this stone cave looked no different from any ordinary mountain cave in the world—rough stone and hard ground; the only difference was perhaps that the ground before the cave entrance had been worn smooth by the tread of countless feet over the long years, a testament to the wind and frost it had weathered.

From that small stone gate had once walked Daoist Qing Ye, the peerless pride of the Cang Lan Sect's generation; countless figures who had dominated their times in bygone years had left their footprints here. This Phantom Moon Grotto-Heaven was in truth a witness to two thousand years of the Qing Yun Sect's rise and fall, glory and disgrace.

And now, before Zhang Qingyue stood nothing more than an ordinary stone cave.

He smiled and stepped inside, as if returning home, without the slightest hesitation or faltering.

The sunlight outside the cave was blocked by the stone walls and could not reach within, leaving the interior profoundly cool and shadowed. The humble scene was exactly as it had been the first time he came here; even the taiji diagram hanging on the wall was identical to before.

Zhang Qingyue walked over and placed his hand upon the taiji diagram. A faint, clear radiance flared to life—the true esoteric art of the Cang Lan Sect's inner lineage. Within that limpid glow the taiji diagram slowly stirred and brightened, and moments later, just as he had anticipated, the rock wall beside it slid slowly aside, revealing that strange gateway of white mist swirling like rippling water.

Zhang Qingyue gazed at those rotating ripples that seemed fathomless. The last time he had entered, the mysterious power contained within had stirred his inner demons and nearly plunged him into irrevocable ruin. Now, facing it once more, he felt as though some faint, devouring pull lurked deep within those profound waters, giving one the illusion of falling in.

He drew a deep breath, hesitated no longer, and strode forward through the gate.

A rush of coolness met him head-on, as though he had truly stepped into a world of deep water. Yet after a brief moment, Zhang Qingyue found himself, just as before, surrounded by a world of utter void and nothingness.

Darkness—boundless, endless, without light, without horizon. Little Grey, perched on his shoulder, grew uneasy, shifted, and gave two low calls. Zhang Qingyue gently reached up and patted the monkey's head as if to reassure it, and Little Grey quieted at once.

Then Zhang Qingyue gazed ahead, but in his eyes there was nothing save darkness. He looked for a long while without moving, until at last a faint smile appeared at the corners of his mouth—and he closed his eyes and walked on.

He had taken only a few steps when the deathlike silence was suddenly shattered. With a thunderous roar, a blast of scorching heat rushed at him, and Zhang Qingyue could clearly feel himself as though stepping into a sea of fire, every inch of his flesh and skin seared by the sudden flames. Agony surged wildly from every corner of his body, and his whole frame seemed about to be destroyed within that inferno.

Yet he kept his eyes tightly shut—even as the muscles of his face twisted slightly from the ferocious pain, the faint smile still lingered at the corners of his mouth. Step by step, slowly but steadily, he pressed onward.

On his shoulder, the monkey Little Grey let out frightened cries, sounding utterly terrified, but Zhang Qingyue at once gathered it into his arms and pressed its head deep against his chest so it could not look out. Soon, it seemed, the master's palm and the heartbeat within his chest calmed Little Grey, and it lay motionless.

The roar of the flames grew louder and louder, until even the air around him seemed to fill with a dreadful smell of scorching. The pain in his body only increased; every step seemed to demand the endurance of a thousandfold torment.

Yet his feet did not stop, walking slowly and resolutely forward.

At some unknown moment, that raging sea of fire seemed to recede, and around him once more was a vast, void-like silence. The pain in his body vanished with it.

In the stillness, suddenly, a crisp sound of a water droplet falling rang out by his ear. A drop of icy water, from whence he knew not, fell out of the void and landed upon Zhang Qingyue's face.

Bitterly cold, piercing to the bone.

In an instant, without the slightest warning, a rumbling roar came crashing from ahead, overwhelming and seemingly everywhere. In Zhang Qingyue's mind the terrible scene was etched with startling clarity: colossal waves like dragons, towering ten thousand fathoms, crashing down, and anything standing before that heaven-and-earth majesty was as insignificant as an ant—even the towering Cang Lan Mountain would be swallowed in an instant. A piercing cold wind tore at his body, and pain ten times fiercer than the blazing flames erupted once more from every corner of his frame.

Zhang Qingyue had never known that a human body could be tormented in such a way, could feel such violent agony. Even his indomitable nerves seemed on the verge of collapse before such suffering. A thousand hands tore at him; he could no longer even breathe, as though trapped beneath the depths of the sea, where boundless pressure would crush him to powder and reduce him to water of utter annihilation.

Even if he must die—before dying, he should open his eyes and look around, shouldn't he...

Like a lamp, this thought suddenly appeared deep in his heart, flickering without cease, like a temptation.

Zhang Qingyue drew a deep breath and slowly continued forward, his eyes tightly shut!

The cold of the surrounding waves seemed provoked, and in an instant grew even more furious; the roaring became deafening, and a torture like a thousand cuts followed close upon it. Cold sweat now covered Zhang Qingyue's forehead, his face deathly pale, yet he held fast to that last shred of clarity remaining before the brink of collapse, and still walked slowly on.

One step, and another, never stopping—like life itself, moving slowly forward, unable in the end to turn back.

The tide slowly receded, the deafening, dreadful roar faded, and silence returned to his side. In the vast void, it seemed only his own footfalls echoed.

One man, walking alone!

"Xiaofan..."

Suddenly, a voice called faintly from behind him. In that instant Zhang Qingyue was struck as by lightning; his body convulsed violently, and an expression of disbelief came over his face. For the first time, involuntarily, he halted his steps.

His eyes were still closed, but his lips began to tremble slightly—part choked, part heartbroken, and part despairing—as he murmured low: "Biyao..."

That familiar voice seemed to be right behind him, infinitely tender, carrying a gentleness that haunted his dreams and was engraved upon his bones: "Xiaofan, won't you pay me any mind? Turn around and look at me."

Zhang Qingyue's body began slowly to shake; within him it was as though a fierce battle raged. Time and again he nearly turned around, yet each time he endured it bitterly. Though there was no torment of pain now, at this moment, drenched in sweat, his face contorted, he suffered more bitterly than under the dreadful blazing fire and the icy depths of the sea.

Call after call, low yet clear, drifted passionately behind him, as though without end. This life of hardship and wandering—had it not all been for that voice? Why, then, did he still not turn back?

"Ah..."

He suddenly roared, his body shaking, his teeth clenched, the bones of his whole frame rattling, as though he had at last reached the limit of endurance.

Yet it seemed this was not the end. Besides Biluo's voice calling behind him, gradually he began to hear other voices too—voices of those indelibly engraved upon his life.

Father! Mother!

Master Puzhao!

Tian Buhui! Su Wan!