Chapter 18 — Answering the Summons
劍問蒼天 · Page 4 of 7
Su Wan shook her head with a light laugh and said to the others, "Come along, all of you." She paused, then said to Song Dayi, "Daren, Xiaofan's cultivation isn't sufficient. You carry him."
Song Dayi nodded. "Yes."
Su Wan nodded. Without any visible effort on her part, a pale green light flashed by—as if to match her robes—and bore her straight up into the blue sky, chasing the red light of Tian Buhui.
Among the disciples of Dazhu Peak, Wu Dayi, Zheng Dali, and Lu Daxin had not reached the fourth level of cultivation and could not ride magic treasures. So Song Dayi went to Zhang Qingyue, and the rest—He Dachuan, Du Biyan, and Tian Lingsu—each took one of the others, and they set off their separate ways. Of them all, Tian Lingsu's treasure was the Amber Red Silk; He Dachuan's was a "Rivers and Mountains Brush," which suited his usual love of letters well enough. But the funniest was undoubtedly Sixth Senior Brother Du Biyan's dice treasure. Once invoked, white light flashed and three dice swelled tenfold, spinning endlessly in the air, the various numbers appearing in turn. If one spoke of gambling devices under heaven, there was nothing to surpass it.
The fifth brother, Lu Daxin, carefully stepped up to look it over, his face miserable as he said to Du Biyan, "Sixth, this thing of yours isn't going to fall out of the sky, is it?"
Du Biyan said, "Fifth Senior Brother, how about we make a bet? If it falls out of the sky, you win, and I'll..."
Lu Daxin spat, "Ptui, ptui, ptui! Would I even dare win a bet like that?"
Du Biyan said, "That's true enough!"
Song Dayi walked up to Zhang Qingyue and smiled. "Xiaofan, are you ready?"
Zhang Qingyue was about to nod when the monkey Xiao Hui on his shoulder suddenly began to shriek. The two of them started, and saw Xiao Hui pointing now at the sky, now at Zhang Qingyue and then at himself. Zhang Qingyue blinked. "You want to come too?"
Xiao Hui immediately bared his teeth in a grin. Zhang Qingyue hesitated and glanced at Song Dayi, who thought a moment and laughed. "Master's bringing Da Huang anyway. We'll bring Xiao Hui along too."
Zhang Qingyue was delighted and nodded, and Xiao Hui was even more delighted still.
Song Dayi turned to the others. "Let's be off too, or we'll be late and Master will scold us again." The others answered and went their ways on their treasures. As she was leaving, Tian Lingsu came to Zhang Qingyue's side to add a word of caution: "Be careful, and hold on tight to our senior brother."
Zhang Qingyue nodded. "I know, Senior Sister."
Tian Lingsu smiled at him, invoked her spell, and the Amber Red Silk blazed with rosy light and cleft the air. Song Dayi then raised his own treasure, the immortal sword "Ten Tigers." He was the eldest disciple of the Dazhu Peak meridian; though his junior brothers cultivated all manner of treasures, he still trained with an immortal sword. "Ten Tigers" was yellow throughout, four feet long and three fingers wide—on the larger side among immortal swords, though unfortunately a treasure's power cannot be measured by its size.
Song Dayi pulled Zhang Qingyue up. Zhang Qingyue had ridden Tian Lingsu's Amber Red Silk before, so when "Ten Tigers" dipped under his weight and then steadied, he was not too alarmed. The monkey Xiao Hui, however, seemed to know something, and clutched tightly to Zhang Qingyue's head.
Song Dayi smiled slightly. "Little Junior Brother, off we go." With that, he pointed his right-hand spell at the sky, and "Ten Tigers" gave a low hum; the sword, which had been drifting a foot above the ground, suddenly rose three feet. Zhang Qingyue instinctively clutched at Song Dayi.
Then a gust of mountain wind blew up, and the tip of "Ten Tigers" slowly tilted upward, until it had risen about seven parts, and Zhang Qingyue was clinging to Song Dayi entirely to keep from falling—when with a shrill whistle, "Ten Tigers" shot straight up into the sky.