Chapter 257 — Summoning
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 11 of 11
Call after call, low yet clear, drifted passionately behind him, as though without end. This life of hardship and wandering—had it not all been for that voice? Why, then, did he still not turn back?
"Ah..."
He suddenly roared, his body shaking, his teeth clenched, the bones of his whole frame rattling, as though he had at last reached the limit of endurance.
Yet it seemed this was not the end. Besides Biluo's voice calling behind him, gradually he began to hear other voices too—voices of those indelibly engraved upon his life.
Father! Mother!
Master Puzhao!
Tian Buhui! Su Wan!
...
Endless, countless, layer upon layer, wave after wave, calling and crying out behind him. The events of a lifetime drifted by like smoke, flickering past scene by scene.
A thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers, one man trudging alone; evening snows upon a thousand peaks, a single shadow walking solitary.
He did not want solitude, did not want eternal life. All he wanted was to be with the one he loved...
He clutched his head and wept bitterly, like a child, with nowhere to hide.
Tears fell into his palm, faintly warm. The endless calls around him still echoed at his ear, lingering, entangling, tempting him to open his eyes and turn back.
But that faint warmth suddenly stilled his trembling body. This familiar and tender sensation—he had felt it not long ago. There had once been someone who, when he stood on the verge of collapse, stayed by his side without leaving or forsaking him; through countless dark nights, holding him tightly, warming him with the warmth of her own body.
There had also been a time, in that vast, empty, dim void, when he lay half-conscious, hovering between waking and dreaming, and warm tears had fallen upon his face. In a world of dreadful cold, she had told him that he was not alone.
This life—those thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers, those twilight snows upon a thousand peaks—
No.
Not alone!
The countless voices around him suddenly turned urgent, as though provoked by something, and went on calling to him with a note of shrill misery; yet Zhang Qingyue's body slowly rose to its feet, the anguished contortion of his face gently displaced by a calm.
Then he smiled—a faint, soft smile, laden with a profound reluctance to let go and a remembrance carved into his very bones. And then he turned, and walked away, leaving all the voices behind him, let them shriek as they would, and in that shrill clamor they gradually died away.
Silence, at last, descended once more.
A light cough drifted toward him from before Zhang Qingyue—an aged voice, tinged with a certain frailty and a certain astonishment. "So it was you..."
Zhang Qingyue stood where he was, drew a deep breath, let out a long slow exhale, and gradually opened his eyes.