劍問蒼天 - 第25章 意外 - 翰墨軒

Lin Jinghong pointed behind him: "I have a match today, on the Kan platform, so of course I had to come early and get ready." He looked Zhang Qingyue up and down and smiled. "Today it's your turn too, isn't it? Which platform are you on?"

"The Zhen platform," said Zhang Qingyue. "It's about to begin. I won't be able to come and cheer for you—mind yourself."

Lin Jinghong laughed. "And you. Say, how is it that none of your senior brothers or your elders came to watch you?"

Zhang Qingyue was taken aback for a moment, then forced a smile. "You know as well as I do that my line has few people, and with so many competing today, Master and Mistress have both gone to watch my senior brother and senior sister's matches."

Lin Jinghong glanced at him, sighed, and clapped him on the shoulder.

Zhang Qingyue pulled himself together and smiled. "It's nothing. I only came to see how such things are done anyway—no great loss. But you had better give it your best; don't let people say that folk out of Liumiao Village are good for nothing."

Lin Jinghong nodded firmly and was about to say something when a bronze bell rang out behind him. He turned to look, then said: "My match is starting. No more talking—if there's time afterward, I'll come straight over and watch you."

Zhang Qingyue nodded. "Go on, hurry."

Lin Jinghong turned and went. Zhang Qingyue watched his back recede, and said within himself: "If you make it over in time and I'm still standing on that platform—now that would be a wonder."

Mocking himself thus in his own heart, he walked slowly to the Zhen platform. It stood at the far eastern edge of the Sea of Clouds Square, and a single glance showed only a dozen or so Canglan disciples, most of them of Chaoyang Peak—a world apart from Lu Xueqi's Qian platform at the center. Under the platform there was a single chair, and in it sat a white-bearded old man. Zhang Qingyue looked at him and thought him somewhat familiar; a moment's thought and he remembered: this was the elder who, yesterday morning before Lu Xueqi's match, had stood outside the crowd cursing the disciples for lechery and grumbling that girls should never have been taken in as disciples at all. He only did not know to which branch of the Canglan Sect the man belonged.

In the great Seven-Peak Martial Contest there were eight platforms in all, and as a rule the Canglan Sect seated at least one elder at each, for young disciples are hot-blooded, and once the fight gets into them there is no controlling them.

Zhang Qingyue walked over, came before the white-bearded old man, bowed, and said: "Martial Uncle, I am Zhang Qingyue, a disciple of Dazhu Peak. I am to compete at the Zhen platform today."

The old man turned his head, glanced at Zhang Qingyue, and said carelessly: "Oh. You're here. It's about to begin—get up on the platform."

Zhang Qingyue answered, and looked up at the platform: it was empty. Evidently the Chaoyang Peak disciple called Chu Yuhong had not yet arrived. He hesitated, then at last obeyed the old man and climbed the steps onto the platform. Behind him, among the Chaoyang Peak disciples below, whispers broke out at once—plainly they were talking about him.

By now the morning sun had risen, and the first ray of light over Jietian Peak fell quietly upon him, carrying a touch of warmth. Standing on the platform, Zhang Qingyue looked toward the eastern horizon, where the newly risen sun was climbing slowly, round and red, its light soft and not dazzling, dyeing the far clouds crimson.

A sudden emotion welled in Zhang Qingyue's heart. Five years ago he had been a village boy who knew nothing of the world; never had he dreamed that a day would come when he stood on Jietian Peak and watched the sun rise. No—it was not that he had never dreamed it; he had simply never known that such a beautiful sunrise existed in this world.

In the blink of an eye, a life drifts by like a white cloud.