Chapter 2 — Azure Cloud
劍問蒼天 · Page 1 of 4
The Canglan Mountains rose sheer and towering, crouching like a tiger over the Central Plains. On the mountain's shaded side ran a great river called the Hongchuan; on its sunlit side lay the key town of Heyin, which gripped the throat of the realm and commanded a position of vital strategic importance.
The Canglan range stretched a hundred li, its peaks rising and falling in waves. Of these, the highest were seven, so tall they pierced the clouds; on ordinary days one saw only white clouds girdling the mountainsides, never the true face of the summits. The mountains were dense with forest, threaded with plunging waterfalls and fantastic crags, and teemed with rare birds and strange beasts. In all the world, the scenery was renowned for its secluded, perilous, and wondrous beauty.
Yet what was more renowned still was the sect of immortal cultivators that dwelt upon this mountain: the Canglan Sect.
The Qingyun lineage had a long history; two thousand years and more had passed since its founding, and it stood today as the foremost of the righteous path. It was said that the founding patriarch had begun as a wandering physiognomist, a man who had spent half his life in poverty and frustration, his talents unrecognized. In his forty-ninth year, while roaming the four quarters, he came by chance to the Canglan Mountains and saw at a glance that the range was a concentration of celestial beauty, a gathering-place of the world's vital essence, a site beyond compare. He climbed the mountain at once, fed on wind and dew, and cultivated the Way. Before long, deep within the range, in a hidden cave, he came upon an ancient scroll with no title, inscribed with every manner of method and wondrous art; its language was knotty and obscure, yet its uses were inexhaustible and its power immense.
The physiognomist, having met with this stroke of fortune, gave himself wholly to its study. Twenty years slipped by, and when he had gained some mastery he emerged. Through several turns of fortune in the martial world, though he could not dominate all beneath heaven, he became a power in his region. Thereupon he founded his sect upon the Canglan Mountains and named it Qingyun. Because the ancient scroll's teachings were close to those of the Daoists, he dressed as a Daoist and styled himself "Canglanzi"; later generations of disciples mostly honored him as "Zhenren Qingyun."
Canglanzi lived to the age of three hundred and sixty-seven. In his lifetime he took ten disciples, and as he lay dying he instructed them: "All the learning of my half a lifetime lies in physiognomy, and I was especially skilled in reading the feng shui of sites. These Canglan Mountains are a rare spiritual ground in this world. My Qingyun lineage holds this mountain, and in days to come we shall surely flourish. You must never abandon it. Remember this, remember this!"
The ten disciples nodded, fully convinced, and Canglanzi passed quietly away. Yet in the hundred years that followed—whether Heaven mocked them, or Canglanzi's art had simply been poor—the Canglan Sect not only failed to prosper but dwindled by the day.
Of the ten disciples, two died young, and four perished in vendettas and duels of the martial world. Of the survivors, one was crippled and one vanished, leaving only two branches to carry on. Fifty years passed in this way, and then a catastrophe and earthquake such as the region had never known struck within a hundred li of the mountain: torrents burst forth, the earth heaved, and countless perished—and another branch was extinguished. The single surviving line was limited in aptitude and low in skill, long since bereft of Canglanzi's former glory. Because of that ancient scroll, moreover, it drew the covetous attacks of outsiders, and after several bloody battles, but for a few formidable warding arts and dharma treasures Canglanzi had left behind, the Canglan Sect would likely have been wiped from the earth.