Chapter 98 — The Giant Tree
劍問蒼天 · Page 1 of 6
The sky was gradually growing light.
The rain had stopped and the wind had died; the first faint glimmer of morning light filtered down through the dense clouds and the drifting mist of the Dead Marsh.
Everywhere the forest lay in silence, yet slowly, with that glimmer, it began to stir and murmur. Somewhere unknown, the first birdsong rang out. All at once, as shafts of radiance spilled through the gaps in the branches, the whole forest seemed to wake from the deep sleep of night; near and far, joy broke out on every side, greeting the new day.
Now the woods were full of mist as thin as white gauze, drifting everywhere, so that walking through it one felt a faint dampness on the face. Add to that the air's peculiar freshness, drawn into the lungs, and one truly felt the chest expand.
Ming Li drew a deep breath of the morning air, his face expressionless as he gazed ahead, and even Little Grey, draped over his shoulder, stretched out in a long, lazy yawn.
Some dozens of yards ahead—precisely in the direction of last night's pillar of golden light—the mist had suddenly thickened, hazy and obscure, so that nothing could be seen clearly. Yet this mist was not like the miasma at the marsh's edge; its color was not grey but pure white. Seen from afar, it drifted gently among the trees, thread upon thread, layer upon layer.
Perhaps that was where the wondrous treasure lay!
Ming Li slowly turned his head and looked to his side. Lu Xueling stood a couple of yards away, her white robes like snow, silently contemplating the expanse of mist ahead.
In the end, they had not come to blows.
The whole night long, after that first moment of shock and the faint, hidden tremor of emotion at seeing each other again, there had been only a long silence between them.
Barely three feet separated them, yet it was a chasm vaster than the abyss of the Spirit of Death itself, carved deep between them—and deeper still in their hearts.
Even when that brilliant, resplendent pillar of golden light had shot up into the sky, and they turned to gaze at it, their faces lit by the golden radiance overhead, a careful glance in that strange, foreign place revealed something coldly distant in them too.
The past, after all, had changed...
Lu Xueling seemed to sense something and turned her head, meeting Ming Li's gaze. Her eyes were clear as water; perhaps deep within them there were still faint ripples, but now no one could see them anymore.
She looked at the man before her, standing there in the woods beside her. Now, studying him closely, she finally realized that he was no longer the youth he had once been!
That once-familiar face now held more of the world's weariness and a settled stillness; it held less of innocence and of smiles.
She lowered her head slightly, her gaze like water coming to rest on the Heaven Jade Divine Sword she held in her hand, as though pondering something. After a moment, her voice soft and wandering, she suddenly said, "Come back."
She did not raise her head, made no movement, did not change her expression in the slightest; only her hand upon the Heaven Jade, its long pale fingers, slowly tightened.
"...Junior Brother Zhang!" she said, softly, ever so softly.
Come back...
Those four words, drifting on the morning wind, encircled him, then, like so many pebbles, fell one by one into the field of his heart.
Ming Li drew a deep breath and closed his eyes. The cold Soul Devourer in his sleeve rested against his hand, like the most loyal of friends, never once having forsaken him!
A long while passed.
When he opened his eyes, a faint smile was on his lips, and he said slowly, "I haven't used that name for a long time."
Lu Xueling's lips moved; slowly she raised her head, but in the end she said nothing, and fell silent.