Chapter 256 — The Spirit Tablet
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 10 of 10
In this hesitation another long while passed. Lin Jinghong had never felt time crawl so slowly; even in these days, alone with the empty wild mountains and the lonely Ancestral Hall, he had never known a mood like this. And it was only when he began to doubt whether his cultivation was insufficient that the figure of the True Man Dao Yan once more appeared at the hall's doorway.
His face was still as blank as ever. He came slowly down and did not favor Lin Jinghong with so much as a glance. Lin Jinghong, whether from awe of the True Man Dao Yan's old authority or some other cause, dared not ask more, and quietly stepped aside. As the True Man Dao Yan passed him, he suddenly paused; after a moment, he heard him say in a low voice: "Take good care of them... all of them!"
Lin Jinghong started, not knowing whom the "them" in the True Man's mouth might mean; but since he had just come from the Ancestral Hall, surely it must mean the spirit tablets of the Canglan Sect patriarchs therein. He nodded and said respectfully: "This disciple understands."
The True Man Dao Yan gave him a long, deep look, his gaze sweeping over him—over the plain white robe Lin Jinghong wore, over the emerald Dragon-Slaying Sword glinting at his waist—and suddenly he gave a bitter laugh: "So very like..."
Lin Jinghong did not catch his meaning at once; he raised his head to ask, but saw that the True Man Dao Yan had already gone—and by the direction he took, he was bound for Illusory Moon Grotto-Heaven, the most important forbidden ground of the Canglan Sect. Lin Jinghong hesitated, then at last decided to go first into the Ancestral Hall and have a look. He turned, picked up from the ground the broom he had carelessly tossed aside earlier, and walked in.
He looked all about; everything in the great hall of the Ancestral Hall was as it had been, seemingly unchanged. He frowned and walked to the offering table and incense stand that honored the patriarchs of past generations. In a small bronze censer on the table stood three newly lit sticks of sandalwood incense, burning quietly and giving off a faint sandalwood fragrance.
Suddenly his gaze fixed: on the incense table where the countless spirit tablets were set, one tablet had been placed too close to the edge. He frowned—these past days he had tended this place from morning to night, and knew the positions of the tablets by heart, so he quickly saw that the tablet had been moved. For a disciple of the Canglan Sect to recklessly disturb a patriarch's spirit tablet was no small offense...
He shook his head slightly and went over. He picked up the tablet and was just about to set it back in place on the incense table when his body suddenly convulsed, and his eyes could no longer leave the tablet in his hands.
For on that tablet, unlike the others whose names and honorifics were written in gold lacquer, there had originally been a blank space—but now, on the tablet in Lin Jinghong's hands, a line of writing had plainly appeared: Spirit Tablet of Wan Jian Gu of the Canglan Sect!
That line of writing, a striking crimson, was written in blood!