Chapter 31 — Suspicion
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 2 of 7
A tremendous crash sounded from the black clouds; at the deepest heart of the giant whirlpool a light seemed to appear—countless bolts of lightning converging into one, faintly aimed straight at the divine sword Tianxuan in Lu Xueqi's hands.
But in Lu Xueqi's heart there was only despair. Amid the wind came a shrill shriek, just as she had feared. She had thrown all her strength into guarding Tianxuan, and had none left for the ward around her. Zhang Qingyue, overjoyed, dissolved with his dark iron staff into a pillar of spreading blue light, streaked across the sky, and charged the beautiful woman swaying in the wind.
Was this how it ended?
Was everything to stop here?
Her heart suddenly grew calm, and in that instant she thought, faintly, such a thought.
In that instant—that brief instant—heaven and earth were silent, frozen; all things stood still, and only she stood in the wind, garments fluttering, black hair streaming, opening the eyes she had closed, gazing at the streak of blue light rushing toward her.
That moment seemed eternal.
Zhang Qingyue saw her—and saw her eyes.
She stood alone in the wind and rain, facing the terrible might of heaven and earth, yet so serene; only her face was faintly pale, and in her eyes there was a trace of sorrow, and a flicker of alarm.
The wind and rain screamed; the world was desolate. This beautiful woman gazed at him in silence.
Whose eyes were those, so sorrowful and so bleak, as though—last night—that person had been wounded by love! That pain had sunk deep into the marrow, deep into the soul.
Deep. Deep.
Was it you—the woman who loved another?
Did you pledge yourself to him with iron resolve, never to regret it in this life?
Zhang Qingyue suddenly smiled, with a trace of sorrow and a heart gone dead, as though it were last night again.
The dark iron staff melted into the radiance of the divine sword Tianxuan; no one could see the two figures any longer, nor see that the staff's light had suddenly dimmed. At that moment a tremendous crash sounded from the heavens, and an inconceivably vast pillar of lightning descended from the sky onto Tianxuan.
The whole world, all the gods and buddhas of heaven, seemed to chant in unison at the same instant.
A gigantic pillar of light refracted from Tianxuan, carrying the force to destroy heaven and earth, and rushed at Zhang Qingyue. At the moment of life and death, the dark iron staff leapt into the air and shielded its master.
The next moment, Zhang Qingyue was swallowed by the light.
A long time. A long time. A long time.
The black clouds scattered; the radiance vanished.
The crowd stared blankly at the sky, at that youth clutching a black iron staff, falling straight down like a stone battered and scarred by every torment.
He did not hit the ground. Tian Buhui appeared beneath him like a ghost and caught him. Tian Buhui's face was grave; his hand moved like wind, prying open the mouth of the senseless Zhang Qingyue, pulling a small bottle from his robe, and—heedless of measure—pouring the yellow pills straight down Zhang Qingyue's throat.
The pills dissolved the moment they touched his tongue. Tian Buhui said not a word, sprang up, and a crimson light rose at once, bearing him away swift as wind and lightning; he did not so much as glance back at the arena. By the look of that direction, he was returning to Dazhu Peak.
Su Wan and the rest of the Dazhu Peak party followed one after another.
Then the pale-faced Lu Xueqi descended, and was at once surrounded by the overjoyed disciples of Xiaozhu Peak. Amid her senior and junior sisters' embraces, she raised her head without a word and gazed at that crimson streak in the sky, fading into the distance until it vanished, saying nothing.
He seemed to have slept in darkness for a thousand years, longing to wake yet unable to open his eyes; in the boundless, sunken dark, he was utterly alone.