Chapter 27 — Self-Respect
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 5 of 8
Zhang Qingyue clenched his teeth. "What am I, that I could use a treasure?" By the end his voice had a catch in it, and even that cool breath seemed startled by his grief—it leapt and pulsed, as if come alive.
Zhang Qingyue felt it and paid it no mind, taking it only for the mountain wind chilling his flesh. He raised his head slowly and looked at the dark-iron rod in his hand, and the scene of that year, when he had gone with Tian Lingsu into that hidden valley, passed through his mind; for a moment it seemed another lifetime.
The threads of blood in the dark blue-black of the rod slowly began to glow, as if sensing something. Zhang Qingyue saw it by chance and his heart jolted; he was startled, and at the same time he remembered Zeng Shuyan's words that day. Suddenly an uncontrollable urge welled up in him.
He closed his eyes.
In an instant that cool sensation ran through his whole body without the least chill, and though all was silent around him, deep in his heart he heard so clearly a savage roar—as if the countless wronged souls beneath the Nine Netherworld were shrieking, bearing endless resentment, surging up in billows.
White bone, fresh blood, shrill howls, the reek of gore!
Zhang Qingyue's eyes flew open and he gasped for breath; yet a moment later he held his breath.
His hand lay open and flat, fingers some extended, some crooked, shaped into the form of a hand seal; and the black dark-iron rod had now flown from his palm and hung in midair, black vapor seething about it, blue light blazing out.
In front of the rod, a tree in the little wood that faced him—a tree that had been full of life—had in that brief moment withered utterly, its branches and leaves fallen away, as if something had drained all its life in an instant.
For the first time in his life Zhang Qingyue felt himself so intimately one with the dark-iron rod. Though the rod hung in the air, separated from him by that distance, he clearly felt that he was holding it; and that familiar cool breath had grown stronger than ever before, and within it there seemed to be threads of an indefinable fresh, pure air, drawn in from the black rod and coursing through his whole body.
Just then, from somewhere far behind him, came a low, deep roar. He turned in alarm and saw the waters of the emerald pool suddenly thrown into turmoil, as though something there had been startled. He thought no more; by pure instinct he turned and ran, ran swiftly onto the Rainbow Bridge, and without looking back fled on until he had crossed the bridge and come to the Cloud Sea, and could feel nothing strange behind him; only then did he stop, gasping for breath.
After a long while, he once more gazed at the black dark-iron rod in his hand. Now it was as it had always been—plain and ordinary, lying ugly and quiet in his palm.
The next day, the Seven-Branch Martial Contest of the Canglan Sect entered its third round.
Sixteen Qingyun disciples, spread across eight dueling platforms, would fight at once. Of the three from Dazhu Peak, Zhang Qingyue was assigned to the Kan platform, Song Dayi to the Li platform, and the bout between Tian Lingsu and Lu Xueqi was set on the Qian platform, the largest and most conspicuous of them all.