Chapter 162 — The Illusory Moon
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 3 of 5
Apart from the meaning of the four characters themselves, everything around this place—even the strokes of the carving—seemed utterly ordinary. Could this really be the foundation of the Canglan Sect for two thousand years?
Was that nameless ancient scroll—the one that had produced countless brilliant talents, including Canglanzi and Patriarch Qingye—really lying quietly in here?
And that ancient sword whose fame shook the world!
Ming Li gazed quietly at the four characters, and the strokes, weathered by years of frost and wind, seemed to gaze back at him in silence.
He said nothing, gave no sigh; the next moment he stepped forward into the cave, as though setting his foot into the years long past...
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There was no deep, winding passage as he had imagined. What appeared before his eyes was simply a plain, unadorned stone chamber; every object within could be taken in at a glance. A few stones were piled in a corner, and where the wall met the floor, faintly damp, there was a trace of green moss. The only thing different from outside was the extraordinary stillness—stepping into the cave, everything seemed suddenly to fall quiet, as though cut off from the world beyond.
Drawing his gaze back from his surroundings, Ming Li's eyes came to rest at last on the stone wall directly facing the cave entrance. Set into the smooth stone was a taiji diagram carved in relief—the only thing in this cave that had any connection to the Canglan Sect.
Ming Li drew a deep breath, walked forward, and stopped before the taiji diagram. The pattern was marked with countless scars, showing signs of damage in many places—plainly a thing of great age. Ming Li gazed at it in silence, and Master Ghost's words from not long ago slowly echoed through his mind.
The next moment, he laid his hand lightly upon the taiji diagram, and a faint blue-green light radiated from his palm. Ming Li watched the glow expressionlessly, feeling the familiar breath of the Taiji Mystic Pure Dao flowing through the meridians of his body—the breath that had once belonged to this mountain range!
As though one long asleep had at last awakened, the stillness of the stone chamber was suddenly broken by a faint, distant sound, as if the whole cave had breathed a gentle sigh. Something began to turn; then the taiji diagram too lit with a blue-green glow, and at the same time the pattern began to rotate.
It turned from left to right exactly one full circuit, and then from within the stone wall came a click, and everything stopped. Ming Li withdrew his arm and waited quietly.
The moment's silence vanished in a flash, and a low, rumbling sound rose in the cave. To the right of the taiji diagram, a circular crack suddenly appeared in what had been a solid stretch of stone wall; then it slowly rotated apart to the side, revealing a hidden opening. Yet within that opening coiled a strange thing like grey-white mist and water, appearing now as vapor, now as rippling water, swirling without cease, murky and impenetrable within—nothing could be seen clearly at all.
Ming Li looked at that mist. In the end, Master Ghost had not lied to him. But within this mysterious vapor, who could say what waited?
He did not hesitate—indeed, he seemed hardly to think at all—and strode in.
The mist swallowed him, and that figure swiftly vanished; then the two stone walls swung silently back and closed gently together, leaving no trace at all.
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In a daze, in the blur, deep in the vast firmament a lightning bolt flashed, piercing the darkness of the long night, and became an immeasurably vast sword of light descending from the heavens, so dazzling and radiant that none could look upon it directly, plunging straight into the depths of the heart.
Then in the pitch-black firmament rose a strange moon, glimmering with an uncanny silver light, hanging high in the distant sky.