Chapter 28 — Perseverance
劍問蒼天 · Page 4 of 6
He was no longer the ignorant boy of five years ago who knew nothing of the world. From his senior brothers' talk in ordinary days, he had long since learned the great name of the Fanyin Temple, and learned the true identity of that gaunt old monk named Puzhao on that night. All these years he had practiced the "Great Brahma Prajna" art in secret, but deep in his heart his gratitude toward Puzhao had never diminished in the least.
"I—no, this disciple is dull, and in these years my cultivation has advanced but little," Zhang Qingyue bowed his head, not daring to meet Tian Buhui's gaze, choosing his words with care and speaking slowly. "Some days ago, this disciple suddenly found he could move certain things—but I could not believe it myself, so, so I dared not report it to Master and Mistress. I never thought—"
Tian Buhui gave a cold laugh. "You never thought that this time you would startle the world and cut a brilliant figure!"
Zhang Qingyue said hastily: "No, that's not it, Master—"
Tian Buhui was not so easily fooled. He said coldly: "You say you can move things—but that requires at least the fourth level of the Yuqing Realm. I have asked Daren: he passed on to you only the second level's formula. So perhaps you can tell me, your ignorant master, just how you bypassed the third level and cultivated your way to the fourth?" By the end his voice was ice-cold, carrying a murderous edge that made everyone change countenance.
Zhang Qingyue fell silent, and the room was utterly still.
After a long while—just as Tian Buhui's face grew uglier and uglier and everyone's anxiety heavier and heavier—Zhang Qingyue silently clambered up. One could see he was still terribly weak, yet he struggled out of bed, and there before everyone, beneath the gaze of Tian Lingsu's crystalline, flowing eyes, he knelt down before Tian Buhui.
Tian Buhui was not moved in the least. He said coldly: "Well?"
Zhang Qingyue bowed his head low, his eyes fixed only on the small patch of ground close beneath him, not glancing aside even once, and said in a low voice: "Master, I beg you to punish me."
Everyone was shaken; Tian Buhui's face contorted with rage. Su Wan frowned. "Xiaofan, if you have some scruple, just speak plainly to your master. Why must you do this?"
Zhang Qingyue knelt there without moving.
Tian Buhui laughed coldly twice—so angry he laughed instead. "Good, good, good! You've got a hard backbone after all. And I've taken a fine disciple!"
Zhang Qingyue's prostrate body trembled; what he felt or looked like at that moment, none could tell. In that room there seemed to be someone whose breathing suddenly grew rapid. In a low voice he said: "All of it is this disciple's fault. I beg Master to punish me!"
Tian Buhui sprang to his feet with a sharp crack—the chair beneath him had split into pieces and lay scattered on the floor. Everyone's face changed. He raged at Zhang Qingyue: "All your fault, heh heh! Do you know that stealing another's art behind your master's back is the greatest taboo of our Canglan Sect? At the least, decades of wall-facing meditation; at the worst, your cultivation stripped away and you cast out of Qingyun. Do you know that?"
Zhang Qingyue jerked his head up and looked at Tian Buhui. His master's face was full of fury, and there was not the slightest trace of exaggeration in it; his heart sank.
"How could it be like this?" he thought bitterly. When Tian Lingsu had secretly passed him the formula, she had not said so.
Yet in the end, he still did not turn his head to look back.
The room was still as death; no one said a word.
Only anxious breathing remained, now quick, now slow.
A heart, in that stillness, quietly and coldly grew chill, as though crazed yet so lucidly watching itself. Zhang Qingyue closed his eyes and bowed his head once more, like a desperate man slowly taking his final step:
"This unworthy disciple begs Master to punish me!"