Chapter 58 — Heartbreak
劍問蒼天 · Page 2 of 7
Huge ripples spread outward in rings across the surface. The four in the sky—the fleeing no longer fleeing, the pursuing no longer pursuing—faced each other in midair for a moment, each vaguely sensing that the strike just now had something strange about it.
After a while, a figure slowly floated up on the water, spread-eagled on the surface; by the look of him, he had fainted. The four in the sky descended at once, wary of one another, approaching the water cautiously. By the starlight, they only just made out the face of the man in the water.
"Xiaofan!"
Two startled cries, ringing out from both sides at once.
Soaked in the ice-cold seawater, the sensation made Zhang Qingyue in his daze fancy himself still in the Merciless Sea beneath the Death Spirit Abyss of Kongsang Mountain, still there beneath the earth where no sun or sky could reach. Only—why were there such bright stars in the sky?
He shook his head and came to himself, looked around, and found himself half-lying on the shore, while on the sand some distance off stood four people: on one side a woman in green, on the other a woman and two men—and by their dress, they were of the Canglan Sect.
Zhang Qingyue steadied himself and looked at the woman and two men. The two men's features were familiar—they were, astonishingly, eldest senior brother Song Dayi and sixth senior brother Du Biyan. The woman's brows and eyes were like a painting, she wore red, and her face was so familiar.
In that instant he felt his blood boil through him, his mind buzzing, and not a single other thought remained. Staring fixedly at them, he cried out loud, "Sister!"
The woman in red turned at the sound and smiled sweetly, and in that moment this lonely isle in distant seas, this desolate night, seemed to brighten all at once: "You little wretch, I knew you wouldn't die so easily!"
What words could describe such fever? Zhang Qingyue felt a thousand phrases dammed up in his heart; endless longing, ten thousand miseries, all the yearning for life at the brink of death through these days past—all of it surged up at once. Gazing at that beautiful woman smiling so charmingly before him, he knew not why, but something in the depths of his heart suddenly ached, and he found himself staring blankly, tears running down.
Sister, sister, sister! He had said it in his heart countless times, countless turns, and now that she had suddenly appeared before him, he could see no one else at all.
Until a chiding cry rang out: "Zhang Qingyue, you dead wretch, you won't even spare me a glance?"
Zhang Qingyue started—and not only he; by the look of it, the three on Tian Lingsu's side had started too. Only then did Zhang Qingyue come back to himself and turn to look, and this shock was no small one.
Moonlight like water, the sky full of stars, shining cool and clear upon the sands of this lonely isle in distant seas—and there stood a young girl in water-green, a faint anger on her face, her skin whiter than snow, her bright eyes rippling like water, glaring hatefully at Zhang Qingyue. Who else could it be but Bili?
Facing her, Zhang Qingyue suddenly felt nervous, his tongue clumsy, and he stammered, "You—how do you come to be here?"
Bili glared at him hatefully and did not answer. Her gaze slid to Tian Lingsu's face on the other side, and seeing that Tian Lingsu was indeed lovely and striking, she felt a fire flare up in her heart from she knew not where.
That day at the Haiyun Tower in Changhe City, after Bili had left deep in the night with the woman in black, she had met her father outside the city and gone with him to Liubo Mountain in the eastern sea, to join the gathered host and prepare a great undertaking there. The righteous sects had come in pursuit, and the two sides had faced off on Liubo Mountain for several days already.