Gan Nineteenth Sister Chapter 1 – Part 2

The man addressed as Second Master Xu had a clean, pale complexion and greying hair. His features were lean and austere. Though he no longer held an active post within Yueyang School, he was a very senior figure, one of the Seven Elders of the Inner Hall,¹ Xu Bin,² known to the jianghu,³ as the Wind-Chaser.⁴

The young man at his side was one of the ablest fighters among Yueyang School’s third-generation disciples, Xiong Kunliang⁵ the Jade-Faced Nezha.⁶

The two of them stood frozen, plainly dumbstruck by the bizarre scene before them.

Xiong Kunliang sprang forward and lifted Old Ma from the snow, but the old gatekeeper hung in his arms like a ragdoll, utterly devoid of strength. Even through the thick padding of Old Ma’s winter coat, Xiong Kunliang could feel the terrible chill radiating from his body. It was not like holding a man at all. It was like embracing a block of ice. He could not suppress a gasp of alarm. “Uncle Ma! What happened to you?”

Xu Bin the Wind-Chaser was a man of wide experience, and he wasted no time. He stepped forward, seized Old Ma’s wrist, and pressed two fingers to the pulse. “Speak. What happened?”

Under the infusion of Xu Bin’s neili,⁷ Old Ma rallied slightly. Yet he was still racked by that unearthly cold, his teeth chattering so violently that he could not form a coherent sentence.

“Second Master… beware… the sedan chair…”

“The sedan chair?” Xu Bin turned and studied the little red sedan, and as he did so he noticed the circle scored in the snow. And of course, he could not have missed the living-corpse of a man standing motionless beside it.

None of it made any sense to him.

Old Ma’s condition was deteriorating visibly. His face, already drained of colour, was darkening to a livid blue-grey. His eyes were shot through with blood, bulging as though they might burst from their sockets. He trembled from head to toe, fighting to force out each word. “… Beware… you must not… must not… step inside… inside that… that…”

He stammered “that” several times over, but what came after it, he could not say. Even as they watched, his iron-grey face darkened. Xu Bin, still gripping his wrist, felt the pulse change beneath his fingertips and a jolt of alarm ran through him, but before he could act, a torrent of dark, purplish blood came welling from Old Ma’s mouth, eyes, ears, and nostrils, pouring from all seven apertures at once.

Old Ma’s body convulsed in a single violent spasm, lurched forward, and went still.

Xiong Kunliang the Jade-Faced Nezha flinched in horror and tilted Old Ma’s head back to look upon that ruined, ghastly face.

Xu Bin the Wind-Chaser drew a long, steadying breath. “He is dead. Carry him inside first.”

Xiong Kunliang acknowledged the order, hoisted the corpse, and made for the gate.

Xu Bin called after him, his voice cold and deliberate. “Tell the boss we have distinguished visitors.”

Xiong Kunliang, clearly shaken to the core by these events, carried the body inside in a few hasty strides.

Those who come with ill intent show no goodwill. Those who show goodwill harbour no ill intent.⁸ With a single glance, Xu Bin the Wind-Chaser had taken the full measure of the scene, and his blood ran cold. He dared not underestimate the newcomers. He sidled a few paces to one flank and turned to face the red sedan chair squarely.

The curtains still hung motionless. Within, the dim shape of a seated figure. But who it was remained as inscrutable as ever.

The gaunt man in red robes and hat had not shifted from his original pose. He might have been in the deep slumber.

Xu Bin pushed up his broad sleeves and stood for a long moment, his curiosity piqued and his wariness mounting. At last he cleared his throat and spoke, his tone formal but cool. “Since the honoured guest has come to the very gates of Yueyang School, you are our zhangmen’s distinguished visitor. Whatever your business, pray step inside and let us discuss further.”

Setting aside the bloody killing that had just occurred, pretending in fact that nothing untoward had happened at all and offering courtesy instead, this was the wisdom of a man long schooled in the ways of the jianghu. But for all his fine words, not a murmur of reply came forth. Not from the master within the sedan, and not from the gaunt servant standing guard outside it.

Xu Bin’s composure began to crack. He reckoned that by now Xiong Kunliang would surely have reached the zhangmen, and that reinforcements would arrive at any moment. His own martial skill could hardly be mentioned in the same breath as Old Ma’s. Even if the stranger possessed some uncanny art, it was unlikely to fell him in two or three exchanges. What, then, had he to fear?

The thought steeled his courage.

He studied the little sedan chair. Barely twenty feet away. The gaunt man in red stood even closer. He refused to believe that he could not even best the servant. With a cold laugh, he stepped forward.

What happened next was no different from what had befallen Old Ma.

The instant he stepped forward, a wave of savage, penetrating cold burst from the sedan chair and struck him full force.

Xu Bin the Wind-Chaser felt his right leg go numb and could not suppress an involuntary shudder. He stumbled back a pace.

The gaunt, corpse-like figure in red chose that precise moment to open his eyes. Upon his cadaverous face there appeared a smile of sinister, bone-chilling amusement.

But Xu Bin the Wind-Chaser was, at the end of the day, a man of genuine skill. He had fifteen years of devoted training behind him, and his neigong,⁹ was of no mean order. Though he knew at once that something was gravely wrong, pride and defiance burned in him still.

He sank his neili low and stepped forward a second time.

This time he led with his left foot, but before it had settled, his face underwent a terrible transformation. A cold such as he had never experienced in all his life seized him and spread through his body in a single, searing instant. With thirty years of cultivation to draw upon, he could not withstand it. He shook from crown to sole. And that was not the worst of it. Some vast, invisible force seemed to hang before him like a wall, pressing him backward with irresistible strength.

Xu Bin the Wind-Chaser gritted his teeth and forced himself three agonising paces forward, but his legs would carry him no further. His calves buckled, and he pitched headlong into the snow.

His face changed colour in a heartbeat, draining to a deathly grey. In that single, terrible moment, he understood that inside the circle and outside it were two different worlds entirely. He tried to crawl back out, but his body would no longer obey him.

At that very instant, the great doors of Yueyang School burst open, and a host of figures came pouring forth.

The full strength of Yueyang School, it seemed, had been marshalled in a single moment.

First through the gates were eight young disciples, each no older than twenty. Behind them came the Four Hall Elders. And hard on the elders’ heels, emerging almost in the same breath, came the man who now held the mantle of Yueyang School’s third-generation zhangmen, the figure whom the wulin had hailed these past two decades as an unmatched daxia,¹⁰ Li Tiexin the Peerless Sword.

So many people, all appearing at once beneath the gilded characters of Yueyang School plaque, had an overwhelming effect, one of unmistakable authority. It was the full pageantry and martial splendour of a great school on display.

The eight young disciples wore dark blue robes with silk sashes at the waist, each bearing a sword of identical make. The moment they emerged, they fanned out to either side of the main gate, four to the left and four to the right, spreading into a formation like the outstretched wings of a wild goose.

The Four Hall Elders each wore a grey robe, tall white stockings, and thick-soled cloth shoes stamped with the character for “fortune.”¹¹ Though all were past their sixtieth year, not one of them showed the slightest sign of age. To a man they looked hale, vigorous, and bright of eye.

The zhangmen, Li Tiexin the Peerless Sword, appeared to be no more than forty. He was plainly a man of striking presence—tall, broad-shouldered, with a straight nose and a square jaw. He wore a long robe of purple satin beneath a cloak of deep scarlet, and the combination lent him an air that was at once commanding and dashingly unorthodox.

Close at his side walked a young disciple bearing a sword in both hands, a slender blade in a scabbard of dark blue sharkskin¹² with fittings of white bronze. This was the weapon upon which his fame had been built, the Jade Dragon Sword.¹³

Li Tiexin’s swordsmanship was already a matter of common knowledge across the jianghu. But it was said that of late he had been cultivating the supreme art of qi-guided swordplay, controlling his blade through neili alone, without the need for physical contact. How far he had progressed in this discipline, however, few could say.

The full might of Yueyang School had assembled in the space of a heartbeat, and the reason was plain. Old Ma’s death. Yet now they found another of their own, Xu Bin the Wind-Chaser, lying in the snow. Not a soul among them, Li Tiexin included, had noticed the circle drawn upon the ground. Nor had any of them made the connection between Xu Bin’s collapse and that unassuming circle in the snow. Two young disciples, acting on pure instinct and the bonds of fellowship, dashed forward without waiting for orders to pull Xu Bin to safety.

What they witnessed next was bizarre indeed.

The two dark-robed disciples were swift beyond the ordinary. But the instant their leading feet touched down inside the circle, their bodies locked rigid as though flash-frozen, their faces went ashen in agony, sweat pouring from every pore. Immediately after, they crumpled to the ground in violent spasms, twitching and shuddering in the snow.

Footnotes

1. 内堂七老 – nèitáng qī lǎo. Literally seven elders of the inner hall. The council of seven senior retired masters within Yueyang School’s governance structure, holding the highest seniority and serving as advisors. ↩

2. 徐斌 – Xú Bīn. His name meaning “Refined” or “Accomplished”. ↩

3. 江湖 – jiānghú. The world of martial arts. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 追风叟 – Zhuīfēng Sǒu. Literally wind-chasing elder. Xu Bin’s epithet, suggesting extraordinary speed in his prime. ↩

5. 熊坤亮 – Xióng Kūnliàng. His name meaning “Bright Earth” or “Radiant Foundation”. ↩

6. 玉面哪吒 – Yùmiàn Nézhā. Literally jade-faced Nezha. An epithet comparing the young man’s handsome features and martial prowess to Nezha, the fearsome child-warrior deity of Chinese mythology. See Wikipedia. ↩

7. 内力 – nèilì. Inner power, the energy cultivated through neigong practice. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 来者不善，善者不来 – lái zhě bù shàn, shàn zhě bù lái. Literally those who come bear no goodwill; those who bear goodwill do not come. A classical warning that unexpected arrivals invariably portend trouble. ↩

9. 内功 – nèigōng. Internal cultivation or internal martial arts, the practice of developing neili through breathing techniques, meditation, and energy cultivation. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 大侠 – dàxiá. Title of great respect in the jianghu, denoting a xia of exceptional martial prowess who upholds justice and righteousness. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 福字履 – fúzì lǚ. Literally fortune-character shoes. Traditional cloth shoes bearing the auspicious 福 (fortune/blessing) character, typically worn by senior figures of standing. ↩

12. 青鲨鱼皮剑鞘 – qīng shāyú pí jiàn qiào. A scabbard made from sharkskin, traditionally dyed dark blue-green, prized for its durability and grip. A mark of a weapon of exceptional quality. ↩

13. 玉龙剑 – Yùlóng Jiàn. Literally jade dragon sword. ↩