Chapter 33 — Down the Mountain
劍問蒼天 · Page 6 of 7
Zeng Shuyan chuckled, exchanged a few jests with Qi Hao, and the two also parted for their rooms.
That night was the first in five years that Zhang Qingyue had left Canglan Mountain, and he tossed and turned, and for some reason could not sleep well all night. Toward midnight he at last dozed off, and abruptly dreamed that he stood covered in blood and filth, his face hideous, amid a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, while from the depths of his heart surged an unspeakable, fevered lust to kill, as though the red blood before him were sweet spring water, drawing him, luring him, so that he could not keep himself from wanting to seize it all through slaughter.
"Ah!"
Zhang Qingyue woke with a start and sat bolt upright, gasping, drenched in sweat; a long while passed before his pounding heart slowly quieted.
He sat blankly in the dark for some time, and by chance reached out and touched the Dark Iron Staff laid by his pillow; a chill enveloped him. The dream was much like the nightmares that had plagued him ceaselessly these years—the scene of becoming another person, that blood-devouring fiend in the dream, filled even him with dread.
No sound anywhere; all around, pitch black.
He crossed his legs and sat upright in the darkness, breathed deeply, closed his eyes, and pressed his palms together before him.
The darkness was like a gentle woman, softly twining about his body. A faint golden light seeped from him, now visible, now gone; lit by that thin radiance, Zhang Qingyue's face seemed cloaked in a solemnity that should not have been his.
He did not know how much time had passed before the golden radiance slowly dispersed. Zhang Qingyue opened his eyes in the darkness, his heart at peace. At moments like this, he especially missed that kindly monk, Puzhao.
Sleep would not return. He walked to the door, opened it, and stepped outside. The neighboring rooms were all pitch-dark; Qi Hao and the others must have been asleep. The rear garden of the Shanhai Court was laid out within a garden proper, with four courtyards built to the east, south, west, and north. Zhang Qingyue left the West Court where he lodged and came to the garden at the center.
It was deep in the night. He looked up at the vault of heaven, thick with stars, a full moon hanging at the edge of the sky. A gentle night wind blew, faintly carrying a trace of fragrance. The path wound, secluded and deep, leading on toward some nameless place ahead. Along its edges, green grass and shrubs and flowers of every hue bloomed on all sides.
A wave of wistfulness came over Zhang Qingyue, and he followed the path onward. The breeze brushed his face, bringing a thread of coolness.
On such a quiet night, a youth walked alone through the secluded garden, turning over memories of the past.
Beside the path, a small flower trembled in the night wind, crystalline dewdrops clinging to its pale pink petals, exquisite and translucent. Zhang Qingyue halted, and before he knew it he stood staring, utterly entranced.
A faint, secluded sweetness drifted stealthily to him.
Suddenly a slender, jade-white hand, as though reaching out from eternal darkness, bearing a share of quiet beauty, printed with the moonlight and starlight of the sky, stretched toward the flower.
And plucked it!
In that instant a thunderclap sounded in Zhang Qingyue's head; it was as though all the moonlight in the heavens had lost its luster, and the whole garden was plunged into darkness.
He turned his head and looked, carrying with him an inexplicable resentment.
A young girl in water-green robes stood there, as though she had drawn all the radiance of the sky to herself, and gently lifted the blossom to her nose and breathed in deeply.