劍問蒼天 - 第42章 絕地 - 翰墨軒

Zhang Qingyue was taken aback, then shook his head. "No. But she is, after all, my—why should I tell you!" He gave a snort, and, suddenly coming to his senses, ignored her. He tore a strip from his clothes, used his mouth and right hand together to bind his left arm firmly in place, then looked at the great heap of rubble blocking the cave mouth. At last he sighed and turned to walk deeper into the cave.

Seeing Zhang Qingyue heading inward, Bili could not help calling, "Where are you going?"

Zhang Qingyue answered without stopping, "I'm buried alive in here already—I might as well see what's inside!"

Bili snorted. But somehow, in this lifeless cave, she followed after all—as though with the two of them together, she was not quite so frightened.

Around a bend, a long corridor much like the one he had just left opened before Zhang Qingyue, though a little wider. The stone walls on either side still gave off light, making the place fairly bright, but the dust underfoot lay thick, and every step left a clear footprint.

A single line of footprints led forward down the middle of the path—left, it seemed, by Bili when she had come in to scout ahead.

After walking a while, they came to the end of the corridor, but ahead lay yet another turn, and at the same time the faint sound of water came drifting to them.

Just then Bili, walking behind him, suddenly called out: "Zhang Qingyue."

"What?" Zhang Qingyue answered instinctively, but at once turned his head and said, "How do you know my name?"

Bili burst out laughing. "You told me yourself, back in He Yin City!"

Only then did Zhang Qingyue remember, and he was overcome with embarrassment. He turned his head away and walked on, saying as he went, "Why is there water ahead?"

Bili said peevishly, "Because at the end of this passage a little curtain of water drips down, and beyond that there is no way out at all. Ai! To think I should die in a place like this."

Zhang Qingyue paid her no heed and walked on. After a time the sound of water gradually grew louder, a steady hua-hua rush. Before long he indeed saw, at the end of the passage ahead, a curtain of water hanging straight down from the roof of the cave, scattering spray in all directions, crystalline and beautiful, until at last it fell into a small pool at the passage's end. Had it not been for their being in this death trap, it would have made no poor scenery.

But at such a moment, naturally, no one was in any mood to admire the view. Zhang Qingyue walked up to the waterfall and examined it closely, and his heart sank.

Behind the waterfall was solid rock, no different from the stone on either side of the passage. The little pool was clear to the bottom, and no water could be seen flowing out anywhere; so small a spot must simply seep away into the ground. And overhead, the place where the water dripped was nothing but a stretch of the cave roof, which for some reason was covered in beads of moisture that fell without cease. Where in all this was any way out?

Zhang Qingyue turned back and met Bili's gaze. The two looked at each other, and both fell silent.

For a time the cave sank into a silence like death itself.

Zhang Qingyue felt as though his mind were a tangled skein. Seeing himself trapped in a hopeless place, and anxious besides about the missing Lu Xueling, he was fretful and distracted enough; and whether because it had not been properly tended or for some other reason, the wound on his left hand came throbbing back in waves, unbearable beyond words.

Watching him, Bili felt, she hardly knew why, a little unable to bear it. She said softly, "Sit down and rest a while first! We will think of some way out, slowly."