劍問蒼天 - 第179章 化解 - 翰墨軒

Ming Li had by now reached the doorway, his hand stretching toward the door. But after a moment he stopped, his whole body seeming to freeze there. Pu Cheng and Fa Cheng, unable to guess his mind, simply watched him in silence.

Slowly Ming Li turned around, and once more he saw that aged face, faintly marked with pain. In all his life he had seen this face but twice; the years and months of more than a decade rushed into his heart in an instant, and in the end there remained only that night of fierce wind and sudden rain, and the kindly, peaceful smile the man had shown him.

He was Ming Li—or Zhang Qingyue. Who could say?

And who cared?

"Thud!"

There at the doorway, the man knelt before the dharma body seated in the faint light on the jade disc—that body which had suffered a lifetime—just as that boy had done years ago. He bowed his head three times, square and proper, then lifted his face, solemn, a deep and endless grief upon it, and said, "Master!..."

...

All was silent.

"Master, you... rest in peace."

He spoke in a low voice, then rose to his feet, said no more, turned, opened the door, and walked out.

********

Cultivators of the attainment of Pu Cheng and Fa Cheng were struck dumb for a moment, watching Ming Li leave the little room. In the silence, Fa Cheng sighed and said, "He—he truly has great wisdom and great compassion! A remarkable man of this world indeed. Amitabha..."

Master Pu Cheng turned and looked at Pu Zhao's dharma body. After a long while he pressed his palms together and said, "Junior brother, at last you may rest... Eh?"

Master Pu Cheng's slight cry of surprise startled Fa Cheng as well. He hurriedly followed the master's gaze, and at once his own body shook, his face full of astonishment.

There on the jade ice disc, Pu Zhao's dharma body had plainly changed. In the glimmering silver-white light, fine as frost and snow, the dharma body was crumbling away like sandstone weathered to dust, bit by bit dissolving into motes almost too fine for the eye to see, drifting slowly down. And upon that aged face, somehow, the trace of pain that had been there had melted away, and instead there seemed to linger a faint, contented smile.

The weathering quickened before their eyes; the whole body was about to vanish. Master Pu Cheng, tears at the corners of his eyes, pressed his palms together and said, "Junior brother, junior brother, your wish is fulfilled, and your senior brother rejoices for you. From here on the sea of Buddha is boundless—take good care of yourself."

Pu Zhao's dharma body weathered swiftly and at last turned wholly to white dust, drifting down through the silver-white glow cast by the jade ice disc in midair. And just then, as the disc received that dust, the treasure's radiance blazed up suddenly, and within the sealed little room a strange force seemed to stir up a wind.

From some distant, hidden place, the sound of Buddhist chanting seemed to drift faintly near.

The jade ice disc shone brighter and brighter; the wind in the little room blew faster and faster, whipping the robes of Pu Cheng and Fa Cheng so that they snapped and flapped. The two looked at each other in alarm. Suddenly the disc gave a thin, sharp whistle; its radiance surged, and countless motes of dust, steeped in the frost-snow glow, hurtled outward in every direction—and with a thunderous roar, burst forth!

"Boom!"

Dust flew up, then was drowned by a vast, blinding radiance. In an instant the walls around the little room were destroyed by the jade ice disc's strange light, leaving not the slightest trace. The moon shone high, its clear radiance like snow, mirrored upon this mountaintop—and upon the silent world below—in so wondrous a spectacle.