Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain Chapter 5 – Part 1

When Baoshu finished his tale, not a sound stirred in the great hall. The company of heroes were all hard-hearted men, yet hearing how Hu Yidao and his wife had faced death with such courage, they could not help but feel a pang of sorrow.

Then a woman’s voice spoke: “Great Master Baoshu, the story I heard is somewhat different from the one you have told.”

Everyone turned to look. The speaker was Miao Ruolan. They had all been so absorbed in Baoshu’s account that none had noticed when she returned to the hall.

Baoshu said, “So much time has passed that this old monk may well have misremembered certain details. Pray tell, what did your honourable father say?”

Miao Ruolan replied, “Father told me the whole story, from beginning to end. The earlier events match what you have said, Great Master, but the circumstances of Uncle Hu Yidao’s and Auntie Hu’s deaths are very different from your account.”

Baoshu’s expression shifted slightly. He uttered a soft “Mm” but did not press her. Tian Qingwen asked, “Miss Miao, what did your father say?”

Miao Ruolan took from a brocade box at her side a thin grey stick of incense, lit it, and placed it in the censer. A faint, delicate fragrance drifted through the hall. Her face took on a solemn, reverent look as she spoke.

“Ever since I was small, I have watched Father grow melancholy each winter. No matter how I tried to cheer him, I could seldom coax a smile from him. Every year, as the New Year drew near, Father would set up two memorial tablets in a small room. One read: ‘Spirit tablet of my sworn brother, Hu Yidao daxia.’ The other read: ‘Spirit tablet of my sister-in-law, Madam Hu.’ Beside the tablets he placed a single-edged dao, all covered in rust, with nothing remarkable about it. Father would have the cook prepare a full table of dishes and pour over a dozen bowls of wine. Beginning on the twenty-second day of the twelfth month, for five nights running he would drink every bowl dry beside the tablets, looking grief-stricken. As the wine took hold, he would often clasp the dao and weep aloud.

“At first I asked Father who Uncle Hu on the tablet was, but he would only shake his head. One year he told me I was old enough to understand, and so he recounted the story of his duel with Uncle Hu. You have already described the course of the duel in great detail, Great Master Baoshu.

“Father and Uncle Hu fought for four days straight, and the more they clashed the better they understood each other. Neither wished to harm the other. On the fifth day, Auntie Hu spotted the flaw in Father’s back. With a single cough, Uncle Hu at once launched the Eight Directions Hidden Dao Stance¹ and held Father helpless. You say, Great Master, that Father suddenly used a strange move and won. But Father’s account was not like that at all. Uncle Hu had seized the initiative. Father could only stand and await death, with no way to fight back. Then Uncle Hu leapt backwards and said, ‘Brother Miao, there is something I do not understand.’ Father said, ‘I have lost. What is it you wish to ask?’

“Uncle Hu said, ‘Your swordplay has turned through several thousand moves without the slightest flaw. Why, then, before executing the move called Lift the Jian, White Crane Spreads Its Wings, do you give a little shrug with your back, so that my wife was able to spot it?’ Father sighed and said, ‘When my late father taught me swordplay, he was a merciless disciplinarian. When I was eleven, he was teaching me precisely this move when a flea bit me on the back. The itch was unbearable. I dared not raise my hand to scratch, and could only hunch my spine to try to shake the flea off, but the more I hunched, the worse it grew. My father saw my strange behaviour, accused me of not paying attention, and gave me a severe beating. The memory was seared into me. From then on, whenever I came to that move, though my back did not itch, habit had become nature and I always gave that little shrug. Your wife truly had a sharp eye.’ Uncle Hu laughed and said, ‘With my wife’s help, I cannot count it a victory! Here, catch!’ With that he threw his dao to Father.

“Father took the dao, not understanding his intention. Uncle Hu took Father’s jian and said, ‘After four days of sparring, we each know the other’s arts inside out. Tell you what: I shall use the Miao Family Swordplay and you use the Hu Family Bladeworks. We shall settle once more which of us wins. Win or lose, neither family’s reputation will suffer.’

“When Father heard this, he understood at once what was in Uncle Hu’s heart. The Miao and Hu Families had been bitter enemies for over a hundred years, a grudge handed down from their forefathers. Father and Uncle Hu had never met before, and bore no personal enmity. Many in the jianghu² claimed that my grandfather and Uncle Tian Guinong’s father had vanished at the same moment, their bones never returned home, all through Hu Yidao’s treachery. But Father had only half-believed such talk. He had long heard of Uncle Hu’s chivalrous conduct and the admiration he commanded, and thought it unlikely that such a man would stoop to murder in the dark. Several times he had tried to arrange a meeting, but to no avail. Uncle Tian and Guild Chief Fan had invited Father to ride to Liaodong to seek vengeance. Father was close friends with Guild Chief Fan, but had never thought much of Uncle Tian’s character. Ah, forgive me, Sister Tian, please do not take offence. That was what Father said: he would rather act alone than join forces with Uncle Tian. When he heard that Uncle Hu had come to the Central Plains, he accepted the joint invitation of the Fan and Tian families and rode to Cangzhou to intercept Uncle Hu for a duel. But his first purpose was to ask Uncle Hu for the truth.

“In the end, when he asked, it turned out that Uncle Hu had indeed been responsible for the deaths of our grandfather and Uncle Tian’s father. Father admired him as a hero, but a father’s vengeance could not go unanswered. But Father could not bear the thought of these four families passing their hatred down from generation to generation. He longed above all things to end the hundred-year feud in his own hands. When Uncle Hu proposed to exchange weapons and fight again, it suited his purpose perfectly. For if Father won, it would be said he used the Hu Family Bladeworks to defeat the Miao jian, and if Uncle Hu won, that he used the Miao Family Swordplay to defeat the Hu dao. Victory or defeat would lie between the two men alone, and neither family’s honour would be at stake.

“The two exchanged weapons and began to fight. This battle was unlike the bitter struggles of the four days before. Both were consummate masters, but neither was at ease with the other family’s weapon, and every move they made, their opponent knew by heart. To overcome an adversary using the very arts learned from him these past four days was no easy task. Father said afterwards that the fighting that day was the most perilous of his life. Uncle Hu may have looked rough and bluff, but he was sharp-witted beyond measure. He wielded the Miao Family Swordplay as though he had trained in it for years. The mere fact that he used it to break the Eight Trigrams Dao of Shang Jianming, the Shandong magnate, was enough to suggest the rest. Father’s understanding was not as quick as Uncle Hu’s, but fortunately he was accomplished in every weapon under the sun. Though the Hu Family Bladeworks was new to him, he had trained with the single-edged dao in his youth, and that gave him a foothold. He was able to hold his own against Uncle Hu.

“They fought on into the afternoon, both settling into a steady, measured rhythm, their blows falling slower and slower. Then Uncle Hu said, ‘Brother Miao, you are still executing your Closed-Gate Iron Fan Dao a trifle too quickly. The force cannot carry.’ Father replied, ‘Thank you for the correction. I thought I had slowed enough.’ They fought with all their concentration, and wherever one man’s technique fell short, the other would openly point it out, holding nothing back. Round after round they rolled on, several hundred moves more, until both their sequences of technique grew ever smoother.

“Father saw that Uncle Hu’s Miao Family Swordplay was growing more refined by the moment, and his heart grew uneasy. He thought, ‘His talent for learning swordplay is greater than mine for learning bladeworks. If this goes on, the dao-foundation I built in my youth will stop serving me. I must change tactics at once, or I am certain to lose.’ So he executed the move ‘Sand Gull Skimming the Waves,’ which calls for a downward cut first and then an upward cut, but deliberately reversed the order: upward cut first, then downward.

“Uncle Hu was taken aback. He had only just cried, ‘That’s wrong!’ when Father shouted, ‘Take the dao!’ The dao flipped up, and what should have been the second downward cut became an upward cut instead. This was bladework Father had invented himself. Though it drew on the Hu Family Bladeworks, it was strange and shifting, impossible to read. Had his opponent been another master, that man would likely have dodged the blow. But Uncle Hu knew the Hu Family Bladeworks so well that he never imagined Father could improvise a new move on the spot. Caught off balance, he took a slash across his left arm.

“The onlookers cried out as one. Uncle Hu suddenly lashed out with a kick. Father flew backwards and crashed to the ground, unable to rise. The kick had struck the Jingmen acupoint³ at his waist.

“Guild Chief Fan, Young Master Tian, and the other men rushed forward together. Uncle Hu flung away the jian in his hand, his hands darting in and out to seize each man and hurl him aside. Then he helped Father to his feet and cleared the blocked acupoint, laughing: ‘Brother Miao, that new move of yours was devastating indeed. But our Hu Family Bladeworks carries a follow-up in every stroke. When you cut upward twice in succession, you leave a gap at the waist.’

“Father said nothing. Waves of pain shot through his waist, and he could not speak. Uncle Hu went on, ‘Had you not held back, my left arm would have come off at the shoulder. Let us call today a draw. Go back, get a good night’s rest, and we shall fight again tomorrow.’ Father endured the pain and said, ‘Brother Hu, I did show some restraint in my cuts, but even if I had taken your arm, that kick of yours would still have been my death. Looking at the man you are, I cannot believe you would harm my father in the dark. Let me ask once more: how did my father die?’ Uncle Hu’s face showed astonishment. ‘Did I not make it plain? You would not believe me and insisted on fighting, so I had no choice but to risk my life for a gentleman.’

“Father was greatly puzzled. ‘You told me? When?’ Uncle Hu turned and pointed at someone standing nearby: ‘You… you…’ He managed only two syllables before his knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground. Father was alarmed and caught him, but saw a terrible change come over his face. ‘Good… good… you…’ His head dropped, and he was dead.

“Father could not believe it. The man was hale and hearty. How could a scratch on the arm be fatal? He held him and called, ‘Brother Hu! Brother Hu!’ But his cheeks were turning purple, the unmistakable sign of a lethal poison. Father tore open his sleeve and saw that the arm had swollen to twice its size, black blood seeping from the wound.

“Madam Hu was stricken with grief and alarm. She set down the child in her arms and picked up the dao to examine it. By then Father too understood that the blade had been coated with deadly poison. Seeing Father silent, Madam Hu said, ‘Miao daxia, this dao was lent to my husband by a friend of yours. He did not know the blade was poisoned, and I am sure you did not know either, else how could two such men have wielded a treacherous weapon? It is fate, and no one is to blame. I had promised my husband I would raise the child with my own hands, but these five days I have seen Miao daxia at close quarters, a man whose honour weighs as heavy as a mountain. Since you have undertaken to care for the boy, let me spare myself twenty years of hardship.’ With that she drew the dao across her throat and died on the spot.

“That is how Father himself described Uncle Hu’s death to me. Yet what Great Master Baoshu has told us is altogether different. Twenty-odd years have passed, and perhaps memory has its gaps, but it should not differ so greatly. What could be the reason?”

Baoshu shook his head and sighed. “Your honourable father was in the thick of the fight, his whole mind on the battle. He could not have seen as clearly as a bystander. That may well account for it.”

Miao Ruolan murmured softly and lowered her head.

Then a hoarse voice spoke from nearby: “The two of you tell different stories because one of you is deliberately lying.”

Everyone turned at the abrupt words. The speaker was the one-armed servant with the scar across his face.

Baoshu saw that Miao Ruolan sat at ease, seemingly unconcerned, and though the servant’s words were insolent, he was after all a guest and did not wish to lose his temper. Cao Yunqi, never one for patience, blurted out, “Who is lying?” The servant said, “I am a man of no account. How would I dare?” Miao Ruolan said, “If what I said was wrong, you may speak freely.”

The servant said, “What the Great Master and the Miss have been discussing, this humble servant also saw with his own eyes. If you will permit me, I too have something to tell.”

Baoshu barked, “You saw it with your own eyes? Who are you?” The servant said, “I know the Great Master, but the Great Master does not know me.” Baoshu’s face went dark. “Who are you?” he demanded in a fierce voice.

The servant did not answer him but turned to Miao Ruolan. “Miss, I fear the tale I have to tell cannot be told in full.” Miao Ruolan asked, “Why not?” The servant said, “If I tell even half, my life is forfeit.” Miao Ruolan said to Baoshu, “Great Master, here on this peak, all is yours to command. You are an elder of the wulin, a man of high virtue and great renown. A word from you, and no one here would dare harm him.” Baoshu laughed coldly. “Miss Miao, are you trying to goad me?” The servant broke in: “This humble servant cares nothing for his own life or death. I only fear that what I know will never be told.”

Miao Ruolan considered for a moment, then pointed to the lower half of the wooden couplet hanging nearby and said, “Please take that down.” The servant did not understand her purpose, but did as he was told and laid the wooden panel before her. Miao Ruolan said, “Look carefully. My father’s name is written on it. Hold this panel in your hands and speak as boldly as you wish. If anyone harms a single hair on your head, he makes himself the enemy of my father.” The guests exchanged glances, thinking that if this man took the Golden-Faced Buddha as his shield, who would dare strike?

The servant’s face brightened. He gave a faint smile, and the scar across his cheek twisted grotesquely. He held the wooden panel tight in his left arm.

Baoshu sat back in his chair, staring fixedly, searching his memory of twenty-seven years ago, but could not place the man.

Miao Ruolan said, “Sit down and tell your story more comfortably.” The servant said, “I shall stand, if you please. May I ask, Miss, what became of the child that Elder Master Hu Yidao left behind?”

Miao Ruolan sighed softly. “Father saw that Uncle Hu and Auntie Hu were both dead, and was deeply grieved. He stood looking at their bodies for a long time. Then he knelt and bowed eight times, saying, ‘Brother Hu, sister-in-law, rest easy. I shall raise your son well.’ When he rose and turned to pick up the child, his arms came away empty. Father was alarmed and asked around, but everyone had been watching Hu Yidao’s death and no one had paid the child any heed. Father ordered an immediate search. He swallowed his pain and went from room to room at the inn. Then he heard a baby’s cry behind the building, loud and strong. Father was overjoyed and hurried towards it. But the kick Uncle Hu had landed on his waist had injured him badly, and when he tried to rush, he collapsed on the ground, unable to rise.

“By the time others helped him up and reached the back of the building, there was only a pool of blood on the ground and a small child’s cap. The child was gone. Behind the inn ran a river with a swift current. A trail of blood led to the water’s edge. Plainly the child had been killed and the body thrown in, carried away at once by the current. Father was beside himself with grief and fury. He gathered everyone and questioned them thoroughly, but could never discover who the killer was.

“The matter gnawed at him every day. He swore to find the person who had murdered the child. One year I watched him sharpening his jian and he told me there was one more person he must kill: the murderer. I said to Father, ‘Perhaps someone rescued the child and he lived.’ Father said he hoped so, but in his heart he could not believe it. Ah, that poor child. I truly hope he is alive and well. Once Father said to me, ‘My child, I love you more than my own life. But if Heaven allowed me to trade you for Uncle Hu’s child, I would rather you died and Uncle Hu’s child lived on.’ “

The servant’s eyes reddened. His voice broke. “Miss, if Elder Master Hu Yidao and Madam Hu have spirits beneath the earth, they must be grateful for the high honour of you and your father.”

Steward Yu had assumed the man was a servant Miao Ruolan had brought with her, but the more he watched his bearing and listened to his words, the less the notion fit. He was about to speak when the servant began his story, and with everyone listening in silence, he did not wish to interrupt.

The servant went on: “Twenty-seven years ago, I was a kitchen boy at the inn in the little town outside Cangzhou, tending the stove. That winter, disaster struck my family. Three years earlier my father had borrowed five liang⁴ of silver from the local rich man, surnamed Zhao. The interest compounded every year, doubling annually. After three years the debt had grown to forty liang. Squire Zhao had my father seized and forced him to sign a document handing over my mother as his concubine. My father refused outright, of course, and the squire’s lackeys beat him half to death. When he came home, he and my mother talked it over: in another year the forty liang would become eighty, a debt they could never repay in a lifetime. My father and mother thought of killing themselves, but they could not bear to leave me behind. The three of us could only hold each other and weep. I tended the stove at the inn by day and went home at night to sit with them, terrified they would take their own lives and leave me alone in the world.

“One night a great many wounded guests arrived at the inn. The kitchen was frantic, and the innkeeper would not let me go home. The next day, Elder Master Hu Yidao arrived. His wife had just given birth to a son, and they needed water and broth boiled. The innkeeper would not hear of letting me leave. I was worried sick about my parents, clumsy with the bowls, smashed a few, and earned a few slaps from the innkeeper for my trouble. I hid by the stove and wept. Elder Master Hu passed the kitchen, heard me crying, and came in to ask what was wrong. I took one look at his fierce face and could not speak. The more he asked, the harder I cried. At last he spoke gently, kindly, and I told him everything.

Footnotes

1. 八方藏刀式 – bāfāng cáng dāo shì. The Eight Directions Hidden Dao Stance, a signature stance of the Hu Family Bladeworks in which the blade is concealed before being unleashed from an unexpected angle. ↩

2. 江湖 – jiānghú. Lit. rivers and lakes. The itinerant world beyond settled society and official reach, holding not only martial artists but the trades that travel with them. ↩

3. 京门穴 – jīngmén xué. The Jingmen acupoint, located on the lower back. A strike here can paralyse the lower body. ↩

4. 两 – liǎng. One-sixteenth of a jin (approximately 37 grams in the Qing dynasty). The unit in which silver was reckoned. ↩