劍問蒼天 - 第105章 劍舞 - 翰墨軒

Over these ten years Lin Jinghong had more than once wished to address the old man as Master, but without exception the mysterious old man had refused. So Lin Jinghong had always called him Senior; after all, even the sect leader sometimes regarded the old man with special attention, and he supposed the old man must once have been an elder of the Canglan Sect in former days.

The old man smiled and stepped out from the shadow. He looked Lin Jinghong up and down, and saw that after months away his face bore the marks of wind and frost, yet he seemed more vigorous than before. A faint gratification showed in the old man's eyes. "You went out this time—were you not hurt?" he asked gently.

Lin Jinghong smiled faintly. "It is not that I came away unscathed, but they were only flesh wounds, hardly worth mentioning. What I regret is that this trip into the Death Marsh came to nothing."

Thereupon he gave a brief account of the campaign in the Death Marsh. By then the news that three great sects of the Demonic Cult, in the course of their internal strife, had joined hands to annihilate the Eternal Life Hall had already spread across the world. Lin Jinghong had heard it on his way back, and now he related it as well to the old man.

The old man, however, was plainly little interested in whether the Eternal Life Hall survived or perished. On hearing that one of the four great factions of the Demonic Cult had been destroyed, his expression did not change in the slightest; he merely listened quietly to Lin Jinghong's words.

When Lin Jinghong had finished, the old man was silent for a moment, then suddenly said, "You say that this time the other three great sects of the Demonic Cult, the Ten Thousand Venoms Sect among them, all sent large numbers of men?"

Lin Jinghong nodded. "Yes."

The old man seemed to hesitate, but in the end he said, "Did you see Cangsong?"

Lin Jinghong's body gave a start, and he was struck dumb with amazement; but then he fell silent, the expression on his face exceedingly complex, and only after a long while did he say, "No, Senior."

The old man took in every shade of his countenance, and suddenly said, "Do you hate him very much?"

A flicker of pain passed through Lin Jinghong's eyes. Slowly he said, "I do not know. But the righteous and the wicked cannot stand together; in any case, should we meet again, we are already foes who can never share the same sky."

"Hmph!" The old man suddenly gave a cold laugh.

Startled, Lin Jinghong said, "Senior, what is it?"

The old man slowly shook his head and turned away, his gaze lifted upward. What met his eyes were the countless spirit tablets of the Canglan Sect's founding masters, set high above; the dim candle flames before those tablets now seemed like their very eyes, gazing in silence upon the people in the shrine.

"He raised you from childhood, passed on to you the arts of the Dao, taught you how to be a man, and in the end bequeathed to you the Dragon-Slaying Sword. Was there ever a time when he did you wrong?" the old man said suddenly, in that mild way of his.

Lin Jinghong shook his head slowly and said in a low voice, "He was always good to me. In days past I truly revered him as I would a god from Heaven, looked on him as a father, held him in the utmost esteem. But..."

Lin Jinghong did not go on, and the old man too fell suddenly silent. After a long while, the old man gave a bitter laugh, fraught with boundless sorrow, and said softly to the spirit tablets and candle flames before him, "The truth is, Cangsong was only a pitiful man who took the wrong path..."