Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain Chapter 10 – Part 1

When Hu Fei saw the fearsome majesty in Miao Renfeng’s¹ anger, even his own heart quailed. Clutching Miao Ruolan,² he dared not linger. He rushed to the cliff’s edge, seized the rope, and slid down the peak. He knew of a cave nearby, seldom visited by any soul, and unleashed his qinggong³ to race towards it. Though he carried a person in his arms, Miao Ruolan was slight of build, and her weight did nothing to slow his stride.

Before the time needed to drink a cup of tea had passed, he had borne her into the cave. He wrapped the quilted blanket tightly about her, propped her against the wall, and hesitated. To release her sealed acupoints,⁴ I must touch her body. But if I do nothing, then as the hours pass, since she practises no neigong,⁵ I fear her body may suffer. The dilemma gnawed at him. At last he struck his fire-tinder and lit a dry branch.

In the flickering light, Miao Ruolan’s beautiful eyes flowed like water, her pretty cheeks flushed with colour. He said, “Miss Miao, this humble one would never presume to act with impropriety. Yet to release your sealed acupoints, I cannot avoid touching your person. What is to be done?” Though Miao Ruolan could not nod in reply, her gaze was gentle, equal parts shy and grateful, without a trace of anger. Hu Fei was greatly relieved. He blew out the fire first, then reached beneath the blanket and gently massaged several acupoints along her meridians,⁶ reopening the channels that had been blocked.

Gradually Miao Ruolan could move her limbs again. “There,” she whispered. “Thank you.” Hu Fei snatched back his hand at once. He wanted to say something, but no words came. After a long while he managed: “What transpired just now was wholly unintended. My heart is open as the daylight. May Heaven bear witness. I beg your forgiveness, Miss.”

Miao Ruolan whispered, “I know. I don’t blame you.”

The two sat facing each other in the dark, saying nothing. Outside the cave the world was ice and snow, yet warmth filled their hearts, and the cavern felt as gentle as a spring day.

After a while Miao Ruolan said, “I wonder how my father is faring now.”

Hu Fei replied, “Your honoured father is unmatched in battle. Those men were no match for him. Put your mind at ease.”

Miao Ruolan sighed softly. “Poor Father. He thinks you … you treated me badly.”

Hu Fei said, “That is understandable. The situation was indeed awkward.”

A blush rose on Miao Ruolan’s face. “My father was stirred to deep feeling because of a sorrow of his own. Please do not take offence.”

“What sorrow?” The words were out before he realised his error. He tried to change the subject, but nothing came to mind. He was called the Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain,⁷ and was known for his quick wit and resourceful cunning, yet here, before this graceful young woman, he seemed to have become quite another person, clumsy and tongue-tied.

Miao Ruolan said, “It shames me to speak of it, but I need not hide it from you. It concerns my mother.”

Hu Fei uttered a soft “Ah.”

Miao Ruolan said, “My mother did a wrong thing.”

Hu Fei said, “Who among us is without fault? There is no need to dwell on it.”

Miao Ruolan shook her head slowly. “It was a great wrong. A woman may not commit such an error even once in her life. It ruined my mother, and it nearly ruined my father too.”

Hu Fei was silent. He had already guessed part of the truth.

Miao Ruolan said, “My father is a hero of the jianghu.⁸ My mother was the daughter of an official’s family, raised in wealth. Once, by chance, my father saved my mother’s life, and so they wed. The two were not well matched, but that might have been bearable. Yet my father made one grave mistake: he often praised your mother’s virtues in my mother’s hearing.”

Hu Fei asked in surprise, “My mother?”

Miao Ruolan said, “Yes. When my father duelled your honoured father, your mother’s bearing was finer than any man’s courage. In idle conversation my father would often envy your father, saying, ‘Hu daxia was blessed with a match so fine that one day with her was worth more than a hundred years of an ordinary man’s life.’ My mother said nothing when she heard such things, but in her heart she was deeply unhappy. Later, Tian Guinong⁹ of the Tianlong School came to visit our home. He was handsome, eloquent, and knew how to humble himself to win favour. My mother, in a moment of weakness, abandoned me and stole away with that man.”

Hu Fei sighed softly, unable to reply. Miao Ruolan’s voice thickened with tears. “I was only three years old then. Father took me and pursued them through the night. He neither ate nor slept. For three days and three nights he chased, until at last he caught up with them. When Tian Guinong saw my father, how dared he lift a hand against him? Yet my mother shielded the man with all her strength. When Father saw how truly my mother loved that man, he had no choice. He took me in his arms and left. When he returned home, he fell gravely ill and nearly died. He told me that if not for me, alone and helpless with no one in the world to care for me, he would not have wished to go on living. For three years he did not step beyond the gate. Sometimes he would cry out: ‘Lan, oh Lan, how could you be so foolish?’ My mother’s given name also contained the character ‘Lan’.” At this point she blushed. In those days a woman’s given name was kept strictly secret, shared only with the closest kin. For her to say this was as good as telling Hu Fei that her own name contained that character.

Though Hu Fei could not see her expression, he was overwhelmed with gratitude that she should confide in him the most shameful secret of her family. And when at last she mentioned her childhood name, it was like drinking the finest wine, a pleasant warmth of intoxication. He said, “Miss Miao, that Tian Guinong’s heart was utterly black. He likely bore no true affection for your mother at all.” In truth, after Tian Guinong had lured Miao Ruolan’s mother away, he had plotted against Miao Renfeng, and Hu Fei himself had once come to the Golden-Faced Buddha’s aid. But he said nothing of this now.

Miao Ruolan sighed. “My father says the same. Yet he always blamed himself, saying that if only he had been warmer and more tender, my mother would not have been led astray by another. My father’s title is ‘He Who Has Fought All Under Heaven and Found No Equal,’ but in the matter of dealing with people, he was no match for Tian Guinong. That man deceived my mother because he truly wanted the treasure-map of the Miao Family. Yet though he made our family suffer and left me motherless from childhood, in the end his scheming came to nothing. My mother saw through his designs, and on her deathbed she returned the phoenix-head hairpin,¹⁰ with the map hidden inside it, to my father.” She then told him everything Liu Yuanhe had seen and heard beneath Tian Guinong’s bed, and at last how Baoshu and the others had seized the map, and how they had used the Storming King’s military dao¹¹ and the map to search for the treasure.

Hu Fei said bitterly, “That Tian Guinong’s heart was truly vile. He feared your father, and could not obtain the map, so he sought to use the imperial authorities to capture your father and force him to surrender it. But Heaven’s net is wide, and at last he could not escape his retribution. Alas, this treasure has brought ruin to so many.”

He paused, then added, “Yet Miss Miao, it was because of this very treasure that my father and mother wed.”

Miao Ruolan cried, “Ah? Truly? Tell me quickly!” Though she was naturally reserved, she was young, and in her delight she reached out and clasped Hu Fei’s hand. But at once she realised her error and tried to pull away. Hu Fei turned his palm and held her hand gently, not letting go. A blush rose on Miao Ruolan’s face, and she did not withdraw, but felt the warmth of his hand seep into her heart.

Hu Fei said, “Do you know who my mother was? She was Manor Master Du Ximeng’s¹² cousin.”

Miao Ruolan was all the more astonished. “I have known Uncle Du since childhood, yet Father never mentioned this.”

Hu Fei said, “I learned it from my father’s posthumous letter. I imagine your honoured father may not know the full details. Manor Master Du obtained certain clues and guessed that the treasure must lie near the Snowy Peak, so he took up long residence on the summit to search. But he was somewhat dull of mind, and fortune never favoured him. He could never fathom the hiding place. My father, working in secret, actually discovered it before him. He entered the treasure cave and found Tian Guinong’s father and your grandfather dead within. He was about to excavate the hoard when my mother arrived.

“My mother’s skill was far superior to Manor Master Du’s. My father had been seen lurking about the vicinity for days, and she had already discerned the truth. She followed him into the treasure cave and the two fought. From that combat they came to know and admire each other, and my father proposed marriage. My mother said that she had been raised from childhood by her cousin Du Ximeng, and that if my father took the treasure she would be wronging him. She asked him whether he wanted her or the treasure: he could have only one.

“My father laughed aloud and said that even a hundred thousand treasures were worth less than she. He took up a brush and wrote an account of the matter, sealed it in the cave, so that when future generations found the treasure they would know the most precious thing in the world is the true love between two hearts, not riches worth a kingdom. It was this posthumous record that revealed the truth to me.”

Miao Ruolan listened, and could not help but drift into a reverie. She murmured, “Though your father and mother died young, they were happier than my father and mother.”

Hu Fei said, “Yet I grew up without father or mother, which is more pitiable still.”

Miao Ruolan said, “If my father knew you lived, he would have cast everything aside to take you in and raise you. Then we might have met long ago.”

Hu Fei said, “If I had lived in your home, I fear you would have come to despise me.”

Miao Ruolan said urgently, “No! No! How could that be? I would have treated you so well, as though you were my own elder brother.”

Hu Fei’s heart hammered. “And now that we have met, is it not too late?”

Miao Ruolan did not answer. After a long while she whispered, “Not too late.” A moment later she added, “I am very happy.”

In ancient times, a man and woman in love could convey their devotion with a single word or phrase.

Hu Fei heard these words and his heart leapt with joy. “Hu Fei shall never dare to fail you for all his days.”

Miao Ruolan said, “I will surely be like your mother, not like mine.” The two sentences were spoken with a child’s artlessness, yet they brimmed with resolve. She had entrusted her whole life’s fate to him, whether it brought good or ill, fortune or disaster. She would bear it all beside him.

Their hands clasped, they spoke no more. It seemed that tiny cave was the whole world, and they forgot all that lay beyond.

After a long while Miao Ruolan said, “Let us go find my father and leave together. Pay no heed to Manor Master Du and the rest.”

Hu Fei said, “Very well.” Yet in all his life he had never known such happiness as this moment, and he had no wish to leave the cave. Miao Ruolan felt the same. It seemed better to linger, to speak of this and that, to stretch each moment a little longer. She asked, “If Manor Master Du is your elder kin, why have you set yourself against him?”

Hu Fei said bitterly, “The matter is galling indeed. When my mother lay dying, she begged your father to look after me and raise me to manhood. A few days before my father’s death, my mother hid a bundle of keepsakes and a letter in my swaddling clothes, recording the hour of my birth, our family’s ancestral home, the names of our forebears, and the kinsfolk still living in the world. Then disaster struck without warning. Fourth Uncle Ping Asi took me and fled.¹³ He believed your father meant me harm, and seeing Manor Master Du’s name in the letter, he carried me to seek Du Ximeng’s protection. But Manor Master Du harboured foul intentions. He coveted my father’s secret martial arts manual. He also suspected that my parents knew the treasure’s secret, and went so far as to search through the keepsakes my mother left me. Fourth Uncle, sensing danger, carried me off the Snowy Peak by night. My father’s martial arts manual he took with him, but my mother’s bundle of keepsakes was lost at the manor. When I met Du Ximeng this time, it was to ask why he had ill-treated a helpless orphan, and to reclaim what my mother left me.”

Miao Ruolan said, “Manor Master Du was always gentle and hospitable. I never imagined he could treat you so badly.”

Hu Fei said, “The man is a hypocrite. His plot against your father alone tells you everything else …” Then his voice softened. “But I am not angry with him now. If not for him, how would I ever have met you?”

Just then, from outside the cave came the clash of weapons, mingled faintly with shouts and curses. The sounds were muffled and deep. Hu Fei could just make them out, but Miao Ruolan took them for the wind in the pines and snow falling on the summit.

Hu Fei said, “These sounds come from beneath the earth. That is strange. Stay here. I will go and look.” He rose to his feet.

Miao Ruolan said, “No, I’m coming with you.” Hu Fei had no wish to leave her alone, so he said, “Very well,” and took her hand. Together they left the cave and followed the sounds.

They walked slowly across the snow for several hundred feet. That day was the fifteenth of the third month, and the moon was full. Silver moonlight fell on silver snow, and Hu Fei saw the moon and the snow reflected in Miao Ruolan’s flawless face beside him. It was a scene fit for the realm of immortals. What night was this, to be so blessed? By now Hu Fei had long since removed his own robe and draped it over Miao Ruolan’s shoulders. Beneath the moon their eyes met, and they cared for nothing beyond themselves.

Their hearts were soft, and the ancient verses on love and devotion came unbidden to their lips. Hu Fei murmured without thinking:

“Yi yan yin jiu, yu zi xie lao.”¹⁴

Miao Ruolan raised her head and gazed into his eyes, and softly replied:

“Qin se zai yu, mo bu jing hao.”¹⁵

These were the words a husband and wife exchanged in the Classic of Poetry, tender and boundless in their warmth.

Suddenly the sounds from beneath the earth grew violent, and the two stopped at once, listening.

Hu Fei discerned the direction and said, “They have found the treasure and are fighting over it underground.” From his father’s posthumous letter he knew the treasure’s location, and had entered the cave several times. He had taken out the words his parents had sealed there, and also the small golden pen that had belonged to Tian Guinong’s father. That morning he had used the brush to strike at Tian Qingwen,¹⁶ as a warning. Though he knew where the treasure lay, he honoured his parents’ wishes and would not excavate it. Now, reading the sounds, he knew that Baoshu and the rest had surely gone mad with greed and were tearing each other apart.

Hu Fei’s guess was not wrong. Deep in the cavern below, the men of the Tianlong School, the Yinma Creek Stockade, and the Pingtong Armed Escort were locked in a murderous free-for-all over the spoils. Baoshu stood apart, watching with a cold smile, thinking: Let them batter each other to ruin, and then this old monk will deal with them one by one at his leisure.

Zhou Yunyang and Xiong Yuanxian were locked together again, rolling on the ground. They rolled towards the fire, each trying to pin the other upon the flames. But as they tumbled, they nearly smothered the fire itself. Baoshu cursed, “Put that out, and we all freeze to death, eh?” He thrust out his right foot, hooked it beneath Zhou Yunyang, and flipped them both into the air, clear of the fire. They landed with a thud at the same moment.

Baoshu chuckled and bent to pick up several thick branches, tossing them onto the blaze. He was about to straighten when he saw the firelight leaping and dancing, and in the reflection upon the opposite wall of ice, two shadows appeared, swaying slightly. Baoshu started in alarm and spun around. At the mouth of the cave stood two figures side by side. One, her face flushed with shyness, was Miao Ruolan. The other, his bristling beard thrust out like halberds, his eyes blazing with killing intent, was the Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain, Hu Fei.

Baoshu cried out and flung up his right hand. A string of iron prayer-beads shot forth. Though the beads left his hand as a single strand, the silk thread binding them had already been snapped between his fingers, and dozens of iron beads scattered up, down, left, and right, striking at the vital points of both Hu Fei and Miao Ruolan. This was a technique he had trained for over ten years, refined from the “Full Sky Flower Rain”¹⁷ method of scattered weapons. It was his last resort for saving his own life, never before used in combat. Now, facing a deadly foe in desperate straits, he deployed it at once with killing intent.

Hu Fei gave a faint cold smile and stepped forward, placing himself between Baoshu and Miao Ruolan. Baoshu saw no extraordinary technique in his stance, and his heart leapt with joy. So you are bluffing. Your skill is nothing special. This time I will leave you with no place to bury your bones. He was savouring his triumph when Hu Fei’s sleeves flicked outward in a single motion, catching every one of the dozens of iron beads in their rush. The sleeves snapped taut with a sharp clatter, like falling hail, and the beads flew into the wall of ice, sending shards of ice in every direction.

At the sight Baoshu’s nerve broke. He leapt backwards, hiding behind Cao Yunqi,¹⁸ fearing Hu Fei would press the attack. He shrieked, “Disaster!” and seized Cao Yunqi by the back of his robe. Lifting the man’s great, towering frame, he hurled him straight into the fire. His intent was to smother the blaze so that Hu Fei could not see him. But he had just fed the fire dry wood, and it was burning fiercely. Cao Yunqi crashed into the flames, his clothes catching fire at once, and the cave grew brighter still.

Hu Fei saw that from the very first moment Baoshu had unleashed a murderous attack on both him and Miao Ruolan. He remembered what Ping Asi had told him of this monk’s depravity and cruelty, how he stopped at nothing. Rage blazed up in him like the very fire before him. He bent, scooped up a handful of jewels in his left palm, and began to flick them from his right forefinger.

Pearls, coral, blue jade, agate, kingfisher jade, diamonds, crystal, cat’s eyes, emeralds, every manner of precious thing, flew at Baoshu like rain. Each strike that landed brought searing pain. Baoshu leapt and dodged with all his skill, but every time Hu Fei’s finger flicked, a jewel flew true, missing by not half a finger’s width. How could Baoshu evade them? And though the cave was full of men, not a single jewel struck anyone but him.

Liu Yuanhe,¹⁹ Tao Baisui,²⁰ and the rest pressed themselves flat against the ice wall, not daring to move. At first Baoshu leapt and ran, but then two pieces of blue jade struck his ankles in quick succession, and he collapsed, unable to rise. He howled aloud, rolling on the ground. Earlier his only worry had been that there were too few jewels. Now he wished there were as few as possible.

Footnotes

1. Miao Renfeng (苗人凤) — the Golden-Faced Buddha, Miao Ruolan’s father, one of Li Zicheng’s four bodyguard descendants. ↩

2. Miao Ruolan (苗若兰) — Miao Renfeng’s daughter, Hu Fei’s love interest. ↩

3. qinggong (轻功) — lightness skill; martial arts technique for agility and movement. ↩

4. xue (穴) — acupoints; pressure points on the body’s meridians used in martial arts for attack or healing. ↩

5. neigong (内功) — internal energy cultivation; the practice of developing internal force. ↩

6. jingmai (经脉) — the body’s meridian channels through which neili flows. ↩

7. Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain (雪山飞狐) — Hu Fei’s jianghu nickname. ↩

8. jianghu (江湖) — the martial world; the itinerant realm beyond settled society. ↩

9. Tian Guinong (田归农) — late zhangmen of the Tianlong Northern Branch. ↩

10. The phoenix-head hairpin (凤头珠钗) concealed the treasure map within its jewelled setting. ↩

11. 闯王军刀 – Chuǎngwáng jūndāo. The military dao of Li Zicheng, the peasant rebel leader known as the Storming King, and the key to locating his hidden treasure. ↩

12. Du Ximeng (杜希孟) — Manor Master of Jade Brush Peak, Hu Fei’s mother’s cousin. ↩

13. Ping Asi (平阿四) — Hu Yidao’s loyal servant, who raised Hu Fei after his parents’ death. ↩

14. “Yi yan yin jiu, yu zi xie lao” (宜言饮酒，与子偕老) — “Let us drink wine together, and grow old side by side.” ↩

15. “Qin se zai yu, mo bu jing hao” (琴瑟在御，莫不静好) — “With the zither and lute at hand, all is peaceful and good.” ↩

16. Tian Qingwen (田青文) — Tian Guinong’s daughter, Cao Yunqi’s shimei. ↩

17. “Full Sky Flower Rain” (满天花雨) — a scattered-weapon technique that launches multiple projectiles in all directions. ↩

18. Cao Yunqi (曹云奇) — senior disciple of the Tianlong Northern Branch. ↩

19. Liu Yuanhe (刘元鹤) — a first-rank imperial guard from the capital, Xiong Yuanxian’s fellow disciple. ↩

20. Tao Baisui (陶百岁) — chief of the Yinma Creek Stockade. ↩