Chapter 22 — Nightfall
劍問蒼天 · Page 4 of 6
How long they lingered there, no one could say. The pair murmured their tender secrets until Qi Hao glanced at the sky and saw that the moon had passed its zenith in the east. Only then did he say: "Ling'er, it's late. We should go back—if we were discovered, it would not do at all."
Tian Lingsu thought it over and nodded. They looked at each other, then suddenly both smiled; all that needed saying was said in silence. Qi Hao took Tian Lingsu's hand, and they walked slowly toward the Rainbow Bridge, a pair of mandarin ducks in the moonlight, pressed close together, until at last they vanished upon the bridge.
The night had grown a shade more desolate.
In the grove, in the shadows, Zhang Qingyue slowly stepped out. Dazed, he walked to the edge of the jade pool and gazed at the glittering surface, at the cold moon mirrored in the water, bobbing gently with each ripple.
Suddenly he wanted very much to cry.
But in the end, he did not cry. That nameless pain rampaged through his heart like a maddened beast, leaving wounds everywhere within him.
Yet he clenched his jaw and made no sound.
It was as though he had gone back five years, to the time when he had lost everything. Except for Lin Jinghong at his side, the whole world had turned utterly strange.
And tonight, at this hour, he was alone—alone to face it.
"Hrr." A low sound, like the snort of some beast, suddenly rose behind him. Zhang Qingyue started from his tangled emotions and turned. A cold sweat broke out over him at once.
There stood the guardian spirit beast of the Canglan Sect, the vast creature the people reverently called "Lingzun"—the water qilin. It had appeared behind him without a sound, and so close! Its head lowered, its great eyes seemingly pressed right against Zhang Qingyue's body. How a frame so huge could manage such a thing was beyond knowing—or perhaps Zhang Qingyue's heart was so dead within him that he had not noticed.
But now his heart nearly leaped from his chest. The water qilin's body loomed before him like a small mountain, and the long, sharp fangs in its vast bloody maw gleamed in the moonlight. Terrified, he stumbled back several steps, caught his foot, and fell sprawling over a large stone.
His clothes had been disheveled when he came out—he had only thrown on a garment carelessly. Now, as his body swayed, something fell to the ground with a clang.
The sound spread swiftly through that quiet place, echoing over the water.
Zhang Qingyue and the water qilin both looked down at once. There on the ground by the water, between Zhang Qingyue and the qilin, lay a black, unlovely thing—the so-called "Dark Iron Staff"—resting quietly.
In the qilin's great eyes were mirrored Zhang Qingyue's pale face and the ugly staff on the ground. Zhang Qingyue felt his throat go dry; cold sweat poured down him, and in his heart he screamed desperately: "Run, run, run for it!"
But before the water qilin, for all his wild imaginings, his feet seemed no longer his own—they would not move. The qilin, for its part, seemed rather odd: after a glance or two at Zhang Qingyue, its attention appeared wholly caught by the Dark Iron Staff. The huge beast stared fixedly at that black thing, peering at it this way and that, turning its great head from side to side, yet finding nothing. After a moment, as though hesitating, it reached out a forepaw and gingerly nudged the staff.
Zhang Qingyue watched, dumbfounded. Though still frightened out of his wits, curiosity welled up in him as well. Could this "Lingzun" have lived so many thousands of years that it had gone senile? Or was it, like that yellow dog on Dazhu Peak, an elder who refused to act his age, its childlike heart not yet faded—so taken with a mere iron staff?
The qilin's enormous paw touched the staff lightly, then at once withdrew. From its manner, it seemed to regard the staff with considerable wariness; yet the staff merely shifted, rolled a little, and lay there quietly again, still as could be.