劍問蒼天 - 第180章 陰霾 - 清風書屋

Lin Jinghong knelt silently before that blank tablet, dressed in hempen mourning. A brazier was set before him, and on the table were offerings of two white candles and three slender sticks of incense; their curling smoke rose gently and was soon merged with the incense smoke of the other offerings, never again to be told apart.

Grief was written on Lin Jinghong's face. His lips were pressed tightly together, and he knelt there woodenly, slowly feeding a stack of paper money into the licking flames of the brazier before him, watching the sheets curl and yellow and crumble to ash, then slowly feeding in more.

Now and again he raised his head to look at that blank tablet. That this old man's tablet should be placed in the Ancestral Hall was something the Canglan Sect master, the Perfected One Daoyan, had insisted upon alone; the other elders had all opposed it. But the sect master's word had always carried great weight, and since the Perfected One Daoyan had in one stroke defeated the Beast Sovereign, his prestige had known no equal; seeing that he would not yield, the rest had no choice but to let him have his way.

Yet though this came as a surprise to Lin Jinghong, what followed astonished him still more: the Perfected One Daoyan had actually placed a blank tablet in the Ancestral Hall. For this, Lin Jinghong had even dared to question the Perfected One Daoyan when he came to pay his respects—only to have Daoyan silence him with a single mild question:

"Then do you know his name?"

Lin Jinghong was struck dumb. He had followed that mysterious old man in his cultivation for ten years, yet concerning the elder's own past, the old man had never breathed a single word to him; and now, if Lin Jinghong were asked to say anything, he truly had nothing to offer. Yet from the Perfected One Daoyan's manner, it was plain that he knew at least something of the old man's affairs—but he had no intention of divulging it. Much as doubts churned in Lin Jinghong's heart, in the end he dared not be too presumptuous before the sect master, and could only withdraw in silence. In his own heart, after all, though the old man's tablet was blank, his face and voice were carved clear in Lin Jinghong's memory, in no way dimmed.

He had gone to the public memorial rites on the front mountain to pay his respects as well, yet he had always felt that countless disciples were there to do the dead honor, while this elder, for all that he possessed peerless learning, had slipped from the world so quietly—and come what may, Lin Jinghong would see him off to the end. And the Perfected One Daoyan seemed to have tacitly permitted him to come here and see to the old man's last affairs. What was more, in his capacity as sect master, heedless of the astonished eyes of the many disciples, Daoyan himself often came to the Ancestral Hall to visit the old man's blank tablet—and the speculations this aroused were more than Lin Jinghong could govern.

Just then, footsteps sounded again behind him. Over the past few days Lin Jinghong had grown so used to those footsteps that he knew at once it was the Perfected One Daoyan.

He rose and turned, saying in a low voice, "Sect Master."

The Perfected One Daoyan walked slowly into the Ancestral Hall.

The lamplight in the hall was dim; though Lin Jinghong had been lingering here all along, for the moment he could not make out Daoyan's expression, only a blurred shape standing in the shadows, gazing silently at the blank tablet beside him.

Somehow, looking at that figure, somewhat indistinct in the darkness, Lin Jinghong suddenly felt that something was not right—yet what exactly it was, he could not say; he only felt for no reason at all that his heart was pounding, and a faint nervousness crept over him.

"Is he—well?" the Perfected One Daoyan said at last. His voice was rather low and somewhat hoarse, as though he were secretly exerting effort, holding something in check—utterly unlike his usual tone.