劍問蒼天 - 第235章 陰謀 - 清風書屋

Standing at the center of the earthen pit, Jin Pingyue saw that to the east, north, and west there rose towering peaks on every side. Gazing up from the pit's bottom, those perilous, vicious crags seemed to lean inward somewhat, like three fingers about to close together, and this pit of theirs stood at the very center. Now the curtain of night hung low and the vault of heaven was black as ink; after gazing for a long while, Jin Pingyue felt as though the sky were about to collapse upon her, and her head swam and her eyes blurred.

But she was no ordinary mortal after all. She withdrew her gaze and steadied her mind, and her expression at once returned to normal—though with a trace of relief now added to it. Then her eyes swept swiftly across the pit, and suddenly her body seemed lifted by a gentle breeze and floated upward, alighting upon the three-chi log. From there she looked all around once more.

Cangyan Daoren, standing to one side, knit his brows slightly, but a hint of admiration had already begun to show in his eyes.

A moment later Jin Pingyue let out a long breath and clapped her hands together. "What a mind, what an eye! Which generation of your Canglan Sect's founders chose this spirit node? Truly a peerless eye—the spiritual energy of the peaks all gathers here, and with three peaks converging to hold it in, none can leak away. But what is even more remarkable is this thousand-year mystic log: it looks blunt and edgeless, yet it thrusts precisely into the weakest point of the spirit node's energy vein, like striking a snake at its vital seven inches. With the dry, astringent qi of the mystic log, it has pinned down all the spiritual energy of the mountain. Extraordinary, extraordinary!"

Her applause and praise came from the heart. Cangyan Daoren looked at her, and his expression eased without his quite noticing. After a moment he said mildly, "The one who surveyed the mountain's configurations and discovered this node was Canglan Zi, the founding patriarch of our Canglan Sect. As for the elder who laid down the mystic log's restraint, there is no record—some say it was Patriarch Canglan Zi himself, others that it was actually Patriarch Qingye, who created the Immortal-Slaying Sword Formation."

Jin Pingyue nodded. "To tell the truth, I never had much fondness for the Canglan Sect, high or low. But seeing this today, I feel your patriarchs must have numbered many souls of dazzling brilliance—I could never match them. It seems that beneath a great reputation there are indeed no empty names."

Cangyan Daoren gave a snort, a look of pride and arrogance coming over his face. "For several thousand years the Canglan Sect has stood—how could the small sects compare? And as for the successive patriarchs of our Qingyun, naturally they were even more..."

Halfway through, his voice suddenly faded; by the end, the sentence had grown hoarse and inaudible. Jin Pingyue had soundlessly leaped down from the thousand-year mystic log, and somehow she too felt a sudden pang of sorrow, and did not wish to look at Cangyan Daoren's face in that moment.

This man who so deeply took pride in Qingyun—was he the chief villain who had betrayed it?

Can a person truly be sorted and described by a simple phrase like "righteous" or "wicked"?

Silence fell within the earthen pit. Seen from behind, Cangyan Daoren's frame stood ramrod straight and still seemed tall, but his expression seemed hidden away in the silence and the shadow, so that one could no longer see it clearly.

After a long while, Cangyan Daoren said in a low, slow voice, "We have delayed too long. Let us begin."

Jin Pingyue nodded. "Tell me what must be done."