He sprang forward first with sword in hand, and Yi Duanzhi followed close behind, clearing the stream in a long leap.
For an instant, Pei Ye felt as though a lifetime had passed.
He stood on stone steps, surrounded by nothing but a sea of clouds.
This was not the mortal world. This was an immortal palace in the high heavens.
Whichever way he looked, he seemed to stand within a painting. But Pei Ye remembered the grave responsibility he bore and raised his head, climbing the steps.
Thin clouds curled around him. After only a few steps, he reached the top.
His field of vision opened in an instant, and the strange, magnificent sight filling his eyes rooted him to the spot.
An enormous circular wall emerged from the sea of clouds like the moon rising through them. It stood perfectly upright, over twenty zhang across; a person beneath it was like an ant before a bronze mirror.
From right to left, lofty, spare characters densely covered this bronze mirror. Their distinctive clarity let Pei Ye recognize the hand at a glance.
Before he had time to read their contents, the very first sight of them seized his entire mind.
It was as though, after decades of living in the gloom of a cramped underground hollow, he had emerged one morning to behold the high heavens and distant peaks. This wall of writing struck straight into the soul with just such a sense of "hearing the Dao at dawn."
Beneath it, a broad Sword Platform, carved flat from the stone, connected its base to where Pei Ye stood.
At the end of the Sword Platform, beneath the circular wall, a figure in white stood quietly with a sword held crosswise, sleeves and ribbons drifting slowly in the wind.
This