Chapter 39 — The Abyss
劍問蒼天 · Page 2 of 6
Zhang Qingyue felt his heart give a leap — and then it was as if the heart within his breast had stopped altogether. He held his breath and watched as a shaft of pale, ghostly white light, almost exactly like that of the yin spirit before, kindled in the darkness ahead.
Then a light to the left, a light to the right, a light in front, a light behind — and when he looked up, even above his head it lit up, flickering with that pale, ghostly white.
There were, it seemed, countless yin spirits, as though startled from a long slumber, sensing the warmth of a living human body for the first time in hundreds of years, gathering here.
Those waves of smoke-like white light drifted and wandered, shaping countless faces — man or woman, old or young, fair or foul — yet at this moment, in Zhang Qingyue's eyes, there was only one impression: cold.
The very thought of those countless yin spirits surging forward to hem him in made his scalp prickle. But by the greatest good fortune, after that first horror had passed, he saw that these yin spirits seemed rather afraid of the Black Iron Rod barring their way, not daring to approach the dark blue-green radiance it gave off. Yet before Zhang Qingyue could breathe easy, the yin spirits drifting and circling in midair seemed to notice something else, and one after another they flew toward his left side.
Zhang Qingyue was stunned for a moment, then his face changed. The soft hand he still held in his left was by now gradually growing cold. He gave it a sharp pull; there was a splash of water, and Lu Xueqi was drawn to his side. By the ghostly light around them Zhang Qingyue could see that her face was pale and her eyes tightly shut, but when he felt for her breath it seemed normal enough; a hasty examination showed she appeared to have no serious wounds. Only then did he set his mind at ease and look about, studying the surroundings carefully.
He and the still-unconscious Lu Xueqi were now, somehow, beside a sheet of water. In the darkness he could not tell how large it was, nor whether it was a small pool, a great lake, or one of the legendary vast seas beneath the earth. Zhang Qingyue did not know why such a thought should suddenly come to him, but there in the water he could feel that the surface was not still: wave after wave of tide swelled and rolled, like gentle hands stroking his body.
And yet this water was truly cold enough to pierce the bone!
Zhang Qingyue struggled to his feet. If they lingered here any longer, even if these yin spirits did them no harm, the two of them would likely freeze to death in the water first. The moment he straightened up, his head swam and he could not keep himself from swaying.
Back on the platform, his back had been struck at one and the same time by Elder Nian, the Wild Wolf Daoist, and Liu Gao, and his injuries were truly severe. At that same moment, the dark blue-green radiance of the Black Iron Rod dimmed, as though in response. Almost in that very instant, the ghostly lights of the countless yin spirits around them blazed up together, and on every face shaped from that light there was written an infinite craving.
Zhang Qingyue was startled and hastily steadied his mind; the light of the Black Iron Rod flared up again and overawed the yin spirits. Laboriously he dragged Lu Xueqi toward the shore — a short stretch of ground, yet it seemed to him endlessly long.
At last they reached solid ground. Zhang Qingyue dropped at once to a sitting position, gasping for breath.
All around, beyond the dark blue-green ring of light cast by the Black Iron Rod, countless yin spirits fluttered and wandered.