Chapter 57 — To Sea
劍問蒼天 · Page 4 of 6
On the journey, Zhang Qingyue was impatient to press on, and apart from resting, he flew through the air on his black iron staff the whole way. After about two days more he was out over the sea; at first he often saw small islands, but after another ten days of flying, he had gone far, and saw only blue sea and blue sky, high heavens and pale clouds.
Often he flew a day and a night without stopping. The sea was clear and azure; were it not for the rolling waves, it would have been like a beautiful, translucent gem beneath his feet—yet there was not the faintest shadow of an island.
At such moments Zhang Qingyue was at a loss in midair. The sea wind blew cool against his face, but his heart was full of anxiety.
By today, he had been flying out over the Eastern Sea for ten days, and this time had gone a day and two nights without finding an island to rest on. He had never imagined he would lose his way on this boundless ocean.
Still, these past days of eating in the wind and sleeping in the open had done him no harm in other respects, but his skill at flying through the air had greatly improved—he was no longer as frightened as before.
Now he looked up at the sky, then down at the deep blue sea beneath his feet, and could not help a bitter smile.
Just as he was at his wit's end, Zhang Qingyue suddenly heard a clear birdsong ahead of him. He looked up and saw a pure white seagull, wings spread, soaring above the sea.
Zhang Qingyue's heart stirred. At the start of his voyage he had often seen such seabirds, but once he flew far enough, the birds could not reach, and he saw them no more. Yet here in the depths of the ocean he could still see seabirds—there must be islands nearby.
At that thought Zhang Qingyue grew excited and hesitated no longer, flying off in the direction of the gull. The vast sea stretched boundless; on the distant horizon, sea and sky were one color, as fair as a poem, as lovely as a painting.
Flying through the air between heaven and earth, he suddenly felt a sense of transcendence, his heart elated, as though his whole being had become one with the world.
After another half hour or so of flying, an island indeed appeared ahead. Looking down from the sky, the whole island was lush and green, covered in vegetation, and the water near the island was even clearer and more blue, like translucent blue jade.
Zhang Qingyue had flown a long while and was somewhat weary, so he brought his black iron staff down and landed to rest a while on the island. The moment his feet touched solid ground, he looked around, and saw that from the ground the scenery was different from above, and all the clearer.
The clear seawater washed in wave after wave against the white sand. Near the shore grew mostly a kind of tree not found in the Central Plains: the trunks rose tall with no side branches, thrusting straight into the sky, and only at the top did they spread great masses of foliage, beneath which hung fruit the size of a child's head.
Deeper into the island, besides these tall trees, low shrubs also grew thickly. The woods were dense, with no path to be seen—it seemed no one had set foot here in a thousand years.
Overhead, the seagulls cried and circled above the island, and the fresh sea breeze blew in from the horizon, cool and refreshing. Zhang Qingyue drew a deep breath. In this lonely frontier place, a wave of weariness came over him; seeing nothing strange around him, he found a clean spot, lay down just as he was, and soon fell fast asleep.
He slept rather soundly. The island was silent; apart from the tides and the sea wind there was no disturbance, and naturally no one came to disturb him. Zhang Qingyue slept straight through until dusk before he woke.