Chapter 106 — The Ancient Temple
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 3 of 7
As Ming Li stood lost in thought, he suddenly sensed something, and raised his head to the sky. There, a lone moon drifted among the faint black clouds, and of a sudden it too seemed touched with something uncanny.
A streak of dusky red light suddenly appeared in the night sky; beneath the clear radiance of the moon it swept across the heavens and dropped toward a hilltop to the south.
Ming Li fixed his gaze upon that strange red light, his brows gradually drawing together. After a moment he seemed to reach a resolve; he patted Xiao Hui on the shoulder, and at once blue light flared beneath his feet. Soul-Eater glimmered with a faint, dim radiance, bearing him and Xiao Hui slowly aloft; then of a sudden he quickened his speed and gave chase in the direction of that red light.
No one knew when it had begun, but the black clouds in the night sky were gradually thickening, and the lone moon's radiance slowly dimmed—as though a dark, uncanny aura peculiar to the southern wilds were growing ever denser this night.
The mysterious red light flew on for a while, then descended upon a mountain ten li south of the hill where Ming Li had hidden himself. The southern wilds are full of mountains, and the mountains thick with trees and grass; yet within the forest of this nameless little hill stood a desolate ancient temple. The red light came down before the temple, and with a flicker of radiance revealed a gaunt, withered old man.
He cast a few glances around him, and having made certain no one was about, stepped into the ancient temple.
A wild mountain, a ruined temple—and someone coming here in the dead of night; there must surely be some matter not fit for the light of day. A moment later, in the shadows of the trees outside the temple, Ming Li's figure slowly emerged. His gaze swept over the nameless temple, then he raised his head and looked at the sky. The black clouds had grown heavier, and were gradually blotting out the moonlight.
His figure flickered, and without a sound he swept toward the temple.
The ancient temple had plainly long lain abandoned; broken walls and crumbling ruins were everywhere within, and even the main hall, seen from outside, was sorely damaged, riddled with holes. The night wind blew cold; the broken windows creaked and swayed, their low sound seeming especially desolate in the darkness, and faintly uncanny besides.
"Pop!"
A faint sound, as though someone had struck a tinder; a tiny point of lamplight kindled within the great hall. But the flame was dim, and could light only a small part of the main hall; the places farther off remained shrouded in darkness.
"Jiji, jijiji, ji, jijijijiji..." Suddenly a strange, inexplicable sound broke out in the great hall—a sound like ghosts wailing deep in the night, or venomous insects creeping in the dark; hearing it, one's scalp crawled at once, and one felt utterly wretched.
Ming Li, hidden in the gloom, gazed quietly into the great hall.
There, in the dim lamplight of the hall, he saw to his astonishment that besides the old man he had just seen, there were two others: one a man of some thirty-odd years, of middling build; the other tall, but wrapped from head to foot—for some reason—in a tightly muffled cloak, not a bit of him showing, not even his head. And that strange, inexplicable sound was in fact coming from this very person, from beneath the cloak.
The sound echoed through the gloomy ancient temple, ever more uncanny, as though an evil spirit had woken.