Chapter 2 — Azure Cloud

Zhenren Qingye lived to the ripe age of seven hundred and fifty before he passed. He was strict in taking disciples and transmitted his teaching to only seven, dividing the seven peaks of Qingyun among them and charging the seven branches to carry on the incense of the tradition together. The eldest branch dwelt in the Qingyun Temple upon the principal peak, Jietian, which was the heart of the sect.

By the present day, the Canglan Sect counted nearly a thousand disciples, talents as numerous as clouds, its fame and might resplendent, ranked alongside the "Fanyin Temple" and the "Fenxia Valley" as one of the three great sects of the age. And its head, Zhenren Daoyan, whose powers partook of creation and who had entered the sage's realm from the mortal, was the peerless figure of the age.

At the foot of the Canglan range, some fifty li northwest of the great city of Heyang, lay a small village called Liumiao. Forty-odd households lived there, simple and honest folk; most of the villagers made their living by gathering firewood on the mountain and trading it to the Canglan Sect for a few pieces of silver. The villagers often saw Qingyun disciples come and go high overhead, displaying all manner of wonders, and they worshipped the Canglan Sect as folk who had attained the Dao. For its part, the Canglan Sect had always looked after the people around it, and treated the villagers here rather well.

On this day the sky was leaden, dark clouds pressing low, giving one a feeling of being unable to breathe.

Seen from Liumiao, the towering Canglan Mountains stabbed into the heavens, their fantastic peaks and strange crags hinting faintly at something savage.

But the villagers had lived here for generations and had seen such sights more times than they could count; they paid it no mind, let alone the ignorant children.

"You little brat, where do you think you're running?" A scolding shout, tinged with laughter, came from a half-grown boy of about ten, fine-featured and bright-eyed, who was leading four or five boys and girls in chase of another child ahead. The child in front was two years his junior and shorter besides; his face was all smiles as he ran with all his might, and now and then he turned and pulled a face.

"Zhang Qingyue, stand still if you dare!" the boy behind shouted.

The child ahead, Zhang Qingyue, spat. "As if I'm an idiot!" he called back as he ran—and only ran the faster.

The chase carried the children gradually toward a dilapidated thatched shrine at the eastern end of the village. From outside, the little shrine was a ruin, weathered by who knew how many years of worldly storms.

Zhang Qingyue was the first to dash inside—but in his haste he stumbled over the door panel, and with a thud he went sprawling. The children behind were overjoyed; they piled on and pinned him down. The fine-featured boy looked smug and laughed: "Caught you! Now you've got nothing to say, have you?"

But Zhang Qingyue rolled his strange eyes and said, "No fair, no fair! You ambushed me—how does that count?"

The boy blinked, astonished. "When did I ever ambush you?"

"Lin Jinghong, you dare say you didn't put this door panel here?" said Zhang Qingyue.

The boy called Lin Jinghong cried loudly, "Nothing of the sort!"

Zhang Qingyue pursed his lips and cocked his head, the very picture of one who would never surrender or yield. Lin Jinghong's anger rose from his heart; he seized the other by the throat with one hand and shouted angrily, "We agreed that whoever got caught admits defeat! Do you yield or not?"

Zhang Qingyue paid him no heed at all.

Lin Jinghong's face went red; he tightened his grip and shouted, "Do you yield or not?"

With his windpipe clutched, Zhang Qingyue's breathing grew harder and harder, and slowly his face began to flush. But young as he was, his temper was stubborn to the bone, and he held his tongue and made not a sound.

Lin Jinghong grew angrier and angrier, his grip tighter and tighter, and he cried over and over, "Do you yield? Do you yield? Do you yield?"

By now the other children had seen that matters were going wrong and quietly edged away, leaving only these two ignorant little ones to carry on their stubborn stand, each driven by his own hot temper in a contest of wounded pride.

Just as a great calamity seemed about to spring from nothing, a Buddhist invocation sounded from deep within the shrine, and a voice said, "Amitabha, stop at once."

A lean, withered hand reached out across the air, extended two fingers, and flicked Lin Jinghong's hands. Lin Jinghong was as if struck by lightning; his whole body convulsed, and his hands came loose of their own accord.

Zhang Qingyue gasped for breath, plainly having been throttled badly. The two stood frozen where they were; when they came to themselves and recalled what had just happened, they looked at each other, and each grew more frightened in retrospect.

Lin Jinghong said blankly, "Xiaofan, I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me..."

Zhang Qingyue shook his head, his breathing gradually steadying. "It's nothing. Say—who are you?"

Following his gaze, the children saw standing in the shrine an aged monk, his face deeply lined, dressed in a worn and tattered cassock, filthy from head to toe. Only the string of jade prayer beads in his hand was clear and translucent, dazzling to the eye and giving off a faint blue light. Strangely, among the dozen or so beads of uniform size, all of them smooth and translucent green jade, there was one round bead of neither jade nor stone, deep purple in color and dull and lusterless.