Chapter 27 — Self-Esteem
劍問蒼天 · Page 5 of 8
Zhang Qingyue thought this faintly in his heart. At the moment he had heard Zeng Shuyan's words, he had almost immediately felt the urge to throw this dark iron rod away—but what followed, Qi Hao and Tian Lingsu together, had struck him a far heavier blow, so that he cared nothing at all for this so-called evil thing.
"Hmph!" He gave a low, bitter laugh. "Even if it is an evil thing, it's a treasure of peerless power. When have I ever had the fortune to deserve such things? What keeps me company but an ugly rod of dark iron?"
A cool sensation rose slowly from the dark iron rod and wandered through his body, as though consoling him.
"A treasure? A treasure?"
Zhang Qingyue clenched his teeth. "What am I, that I could use a treasure?" By the end his voice carried a catch of tears, and even that cool breath seemed startled by his grief, pulsing and leaping as though it had come alive.
Zhang Qingyue felt it, but paid it no mind, taking it only for the mountain wind chilling his body. He raised his head slowly and looked at the dark iron rod in his hand, and his mind drifted back to that year when he had gone with Tian Lingsu into the secluded valley—a time that now seemed like another life.
The threads of blood within the rod's dark blue-green deepened slowly, as though sensing something. Zhang Qingyue saw it by chance and his heart gave a jolt; he was startled, and at the same time he remembered Zeng Shuyan's words from the day. In his heart a sudden, irrepressible impulse surged up.
He closed his eyes.
In an instant, that cool sensation coursed through his whole body, yet with no chill in it at all. All around was silence, yet from the depths of his heart he heard with utter clarity a mad roar, as though countless wronged souls beneath the ninefold underworld were wailing, carrying endless resentment, rising seething upward.
White bones, fresh blood, shrill howls, the stench of gore!
Zhang Qingyue's eyes flew open and he gasped for breath—yet a moment later, he held his breath.
His hand lay flat and open, fingers some extended, some crooked, forming the shape of a mudra, while the black dark iron rod had already flown from his palm and hung suspended in midair, black vapor seething about it, blue light blazing forth.
In front of the rod, a tree in the woods facing him—one that had been full of life—had in that instant withered completely, its branches and leaves fallen away, as though something had drained all its life in a heartbeat.
For the first time in his life, Zhang Qingyue felt himself so intimately joined with this dark iron rod. Though the rod hung in midair, across that distance he clearly felt that he was holding it, and that familiar cool breath had grown mightier than ever before. Within it, it seemed, threads of an inexplicable fresh, pure air were being drawn from the black staff and coursed through his whole body.
Just then, from somewhere far behind him, came a low, deep roar. He turned in alarm and saw the waters of the jade-green pool suddenly thrown into chaos, as though something had been startled. He thought no more; by instinct he took to his heels and ran, swiftly reaching the Rainbow Bridge, and without once looking back he ran on until he had crossed the bridge and come to the sea of clouds, and could feel nothing strange behind him. Only then did he stop, gasping for breath.
After a long while, he gazed once more at the black dark iron rod in his hand. Now it was as it had always been—plain and unremarkable, lying ugly and quiet in his palm.
The next day, the Seven Branches Martial Contest of the Canglan Sect entered its third round.
There were sixteen Qingyun disciples, distributed neatly across eight platforms, all competing at once. Of the three from Dazhu Peak, Zhang Qingyue was assigned to the "Kan" platform, Song Dayi to the "Li" platform, and as for the bout between Tian Lingsu and Lu Xueqi, it was set upon the largest and most conspicuous platform of all—the "Qian" platform.