Chapter 195 — Old Ground
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 2 of 5
Tian Buhui paid him no further mind. He lifted his leg and set foot on the stone steps. Startled, Lin Jinghong stepped forward. "Uncle-Master Tian, what are you doing?"
Tian Buhui said blandly, "I've come here, so naturally I mean to go in. I have matters to discuss with the Sect Leader."
Lin Jinghong's brows knit. "Uncle-Master Tian, the Sect Leader has said he will see no one. Without his permission and summons, every disciple of Jietian Peak—"
"I am not a disciple of Jietian Peak!" Tian Buhui cut him off coldly.
Lin Jinghong choked; for a moment Tian Buhui's words left him speechless.
Tian Buhui said no more, but climbed the stone steps and walked toward the hall. Lin Jinghong's body stirred as though he meant to stop him still, but then he halted, watching Tian Buhui's short, stout frame, a keen light flickering in his eyes.
He stepped over the high threshold, and at once a faint scent of sandalwood met him. A vast shadow seemed to well gently up from the depths of the hall, lightly barring the daylight that had been there a moment before outside the Ancestral Hall.
Tian Buhui stood in place for a moment, then slowly walked deeper inside. As his footsteps rose and fell, the expression on his face seemed to change as well, bit by bit.
One by one, great red-lacquered pillars stood at scattered intervals throughout the hall, upholding the majestic structure. Yellow cloth banners hung from the ceiling's dome, draping quietly beside the pillars; many looked somewhat worn, and to the eye they seemed to exhale a breath of vicissitude from that slowly aging yellow.
The years gone by seemed to have frozen here.
The hall was very quiet, almost without a sound but his own footfalls, echoing amid the silent shadows. Beyond, behind the great offering table, countless points of incense burned bright and soft, like so many strange and secret eyes watching the figure that moved through the shadows of the hall.
He passed the thickest pillar in the hall and walked out from behind the low-hanging yellow banners; at last Tian Buhui stopped.
Before him lay an open space, with three rows of rush cushions set upon the floor, seven to a row. On the cushion at the very center of the first row sat a familiar figure, motionless. Before the cushions stood an enormous offering table, laden with fruit and sacrifices; at its center was a great incense burner which, strangely, held only three slender sticks of incense, their faint smoke curling slowly upward.
Through the smoke-wreathed offering table, in the deep darkness behind it, one could dimly make out countless spirit tablets, each seemingly inscribed with characters, set upright within the shadows.
Tian Buhui's face slowly grew heavy, touched with reverence. Facing the spirit tablets of the Canglan Sect's generations of founding masters, his gaze rested first for a moment on that once-familiar back, then he walked silently forward.
Immortal Daoyan's body stirred slightly, but he did not turn his head.
Tian Buhui walked slowly to the offering table and looked at the countless spirit tablets shrouded in shadow. He drew a deep breath, then pulled three slender sticks of incense from the pouch beside the burner, lit them carefully at a candle flame nearby, stepped back, and standing three feet before the table, raised the incense reverently and bowed three times.
The cushion where Immortal Daoyan sat was no more than six feet from the offering table, yet the faint light ahead seemed no longer able to reach where he was. In the dim shadow he slowly raised his head; Tian Buhui's figure stood before him, his back turned.
Then suddenly, deep in that darkness, like ghostfire from the depths of the netherworld, with a *hu* two beams of keen light flared to life. Almost at the same instant, like the soundless wave of a ghost's shriek sweeping through the hall, every candle and lamp blazed up—all save the three slender sticks of incense in Tian Buhui's hand.