劍問蒼天 - 第18章 赴會 - 翰墨軒

Standing on the immortal sword and hugging Song Dayi tight, Zhang Qingyue was nervous, yet could not for anything bring himself to shut his eyes. He watched the green peaks of Dazhu Peak dwindle farther and farther behind him, and then suddenly all before him went white, a vast whiteness, as they pierced into thick banks of cloud and could see nothing at all.

Now above and below, before and behind, all was boundless cloud; the great wind howled without cease, stinging his cheeks. Zhang Qingyue's body trembled slightly, half from nerves, half from excitement. To ride galloping across blue sky and white cloud, what a dream that was!

The sea of clouds was vast; how long they flew, he could not tell. Just as Zhang Qingyue's heart was slowly settling, as though to astonish him one more time, the Ten Tigers, shrieking sharply as it split the air, burst out of the cloud sea.

That boundless blue sky was like a deep ocean hung upside down, blue almost to purity, endless, magnificent, majestic. As they broke through, the white clouds beneath their feet seemed like spray, trailing long streamers of vapor in their wake as if reluctant to let them go; and like little waves on a great river they drifted up into the air, then slowly sank back into the cloud sea.

The vault of heaven was washed clean. The Ten Tigers soared upward until it was nearly three hundred zhang above the vast cloud sea below, and only then did Song Dayi level the blade and begin flying straight toward Jietian Peak.

In the distance a towering peak rose into the clouds, no, into the very sky, standing proud and aloof. There, where white clouds drifted, the faint sound of a bell echoed through that vast heaven and earth. Jietian Peak seemed truly to lead into the blue heaven.

Zhang Qingyue held his breath and gazed far out. Beneath the boundless blue sky, around that majestic peak, countless beams of light in every hue swirled and danced, growing ever denser the closer they came to Jietian Peak.

Zhang Qingyue knew these were the treasures driven by the disciples of the Canglan Sect, colored variously according to the five elements of each treasure, so that the whole was a riot of color, exceedingly beautiful. These beams of light were like colored stones falling as rain, pouring toward that peak, a spectacle of magnificent grandeur. And they, together with the Ten Tigers, soon merged into that brilliant torrent.

With a rush of wind, Song Dayi brought Zhang Qingyue down on his sword onto a vast plaza. The instant they touched ground, the monkey Xiao Hui was looking every which way, then leaped from Zhang Qingyue's shoulder and bounced about the plaza, beside himself with excitement. Zhang Qingyue paid him no mind and looked around: white jade railings, wave upon wave of immortal aura, and in the center of the plaza nine great bronze cauldrons set out in threes. Most startling of all, the plaza was wreathed in rising clouds, so that walking there was like walking amid clouds, giving one the feeling of having become an immortal.

Zhang Qingyue found it all strangely familiar, and remembered that this was the Sea of Clouds, one of the so-called Six Scenes of Qingyun that he had visited when he first came to Mount Canglan. Five years had passed, and it was as it had always been, unchanged, still as beautiful and ethereal; only today it was far livelier than five years ago.

The plaza was by now bustling beyond measure. The Canglan Sect disciples who had come for the Seven Branches Martial Contest were presumably all gathered here for the time being; from afar, a sea of heads, surely several hundred strong. Most of those standing on the plaza wore the Canglan Sect's garb, some in Daoist robes and some in secular dress, men and women alike, and the young were especially numerous; there was no lack of spirited, striking figures, plain proof of how the Canglan Sect had exerted itself these years to bring on its young disciples.