劍問蒼天 - 第198章 迷局 - 翰墨軒

The Ancestral Shrine of the Canglan Mountain Sect stood as it always had, wrapped in ancient pines and cypresses, its vast silhouette half-hidden among the green; but the silence of the place was soon shattered by the clatter of hurrying feet, as a great crowd of Canglan disciples came swiftly to this sacred ground where the founding masters of every generation were honored.

From the outside, all still seemed as peaceful as in former days; yet when they reached the great hall of the shrine, both the puzzled disciples of the Peak That Touches Heaven and the frantic Su Wan halted in their tracks, struck dumb with dismay.

The shrine beneath its circling pines and cypresses, that solemn and reverent holy ground, was now strewn everywhere with splintered wood and debris, a scene of utter chaos. At the vast entrance, the red-lacquered doors had been smashed to pieces entire, so that their very shape could scarce be made out; what confronted the crowd was only a monstrous, gaping hole, all the more glaring for its size.

Along the outer walls of the shrine, nearly every window had been shaken loose and fallen away, and countless holes great and small pitted the walls, so that the once-solemn hall was now riddled through and through, a sight too grievous to behold. Only the dimness deep within the shrine seemed still to ignore the faint light seeping through the fallen windows and the countless breaches, and spread itself softly through the hall.

"Buhui!"

Su Wan was the first to recover. Caring nothing for how the shrine had come to such ruin, she flashed forward and rushed inside, hoping to see the one she longed to see. Master Shuijing, Elder Yang, and Elder Fan followed close behind.

Within the shrine, all seemed as it was outside: a tremendous force had struck it, and everything that had once borne so stern and stately an air lay in ruins. The smooth flagstones were cracked; the great glazed oil lamps were shattered; and when the company reached the holiest place of all, behind the massive altar table that had been split clean in two, the countless spirit tablets of the Canglan masters of every generation, there enshrined, lay scattered across the floor—and a single glance showed that Heaven knew how many had been struck by some mysterious mighty force and cloven straight through, some into two pieces, some into more.

Yet amid all this wreck and desolation, not a single human figure was to be seen.

Su Wan's face was ashen, and she swayed as though she would fall. Master Shuijing frowned, stepped forward, gathered her into his arms, and murmured a few words of comfort; then, turning to Xiao Yichen, who had followed behind the others, he said, "What happened here? And where is Senior Brother Daoyan?"

Xiao Yichen's face was drawn, and even now the shock had not left his features. "Replying to Uncle-Master," he said, "this is the very sight that met my eyes when I arrived. As for my honored master—for the past month he has been in retreat here at the Ancestral Shrine almost every day. I truly cannot think where else he could have gone."

The worry in Master Shuijing's eyes deepened, and he seemed about to speak and yet held back; just then a faint sound came suddenly from nearby, and everyone present, being cultivators of deep attainment, heard it almost at once.

"Someone is there," Elder Yang said, swiftly judging that the sound had come from behind the broken altar table. Su Wan, weak in every limb, gave a violent start; a flicker of joy passed through her eyes, and she straightened and cried:

"Buhui, is that you?"

Disciples had already run over and together heaved the altar table aside. That table, handed down from some patriarch of ages past, was huge and thick and immensely heavy; though the disciples were cultivators of some skill, it still took several of them straining together to turn it over.