Seeing that this uncanny sword, unfathomable even to gods and ghosts, actually knew how to feint east and escape west, Xing Yan was secretly delighted!
But he dared not laugh out loud just yet. Glancing at the two points of sword-light still flickering now and then in the distant night sky, he hastily grabbed the strange sword and slipped back into his room with astonishing speed...
The night passed without further incident.
Early the next morning, the first thing Xing Yan did after getting up was take the extraordinary sword onto the stone terrace outside. He raised it, lowered it, and ran his hands over its length, trying to discover just what was so peculiar about it.
As the boy held the sword up to the light and scrutinized it as though inspecting merchandise, he suddenly heard a clear, trilling cry. Then an unusual fragrance reached his nose. Turning his head, he saw two wisps of white smoke curling from the slender beaks of the stone cranes beside his door.
"Oh! Flying Cloud Summit is summoning me."
Just as Xing Yan carefully put the strange sword away and prepared to answer the summons, an ominous thought suddenly surfaced in his mind:
...This sudden summons-could it be about last night's commotion?
Hmm! That's quite possible!
Have they called me over because some accomplished elder spotted a clue and realized last night's sword-light rose from my Thousand Birds Cliff?
...Uh! So what if they know? At worst, they'll only blame me for disturbing their sweet dreams! Haha!
Yet despite comforting himself this way, the boy remained rather uneasy throughout the journey.
As the boy with a guilty conscience rounded a bend near Dharma Propagation Hall on Embracing Rosy Clouds Peak, directly opposite Flying Cloud Summit, and approached the Immortal-Gathering Bridge, the shortcut