Gan Nineteenth Sister Chapter 3 – Part 2

“So that is how it was,” Xian Bing said with a nod. “Very well… after that… you came to our Yueyang School?”¹

“Indeed!” said Yin Jianping. “The Yueyang School’s Blood Shroud² is an art I have long admired. Only…”

He faltered, and a look of bitter anguish crossed his face. “… How could I have presumed to ask for such a thing upon arrival? I had intended to render what small service I could and, in time, approach the Old Patriarch with my request. Never did I imagine that such a calamity would befall us… It was beyond all reckoning, and the pain of it is more than I can bear… As the saying goes, a single day as one’s teacher binds a lifetime of devoted service. This disciple’s life belongs to the Yueyang School. I shall stand or fall alongside my brethrens. Whatever the Old Patriarch commands, I will carry out without hesitation even if it means a thousand deaths!”

Xian Bing the Lone Gull spoke, his voice thick with grief and stirred by profound emotion. “Do you speak… truly? You must not deceive… me.”

“Every word is the solemn truth,” said Yin Jianping. “Heaven above and earth below bear witness.”

Xian Bing’s eyes shimmering with unshed tears, fixed upon him for a long, searching moment. At last he sighed. “I believe you speak truly… In this case, Jianping, our school has wronged you greatly. In truth, with the skills you already possess, you have little need of our school’s Blood Shroud… And yet, if you do not gain this art from me… how could I dare to entrust you with this grave responsibility…?”

Yin Jianping was seized with alarm. “I asks only to do what he can for the school. I would not dare, in this darkest of hours, to request any reward from the Old Patriarch. This heart of mine is known to Heaven and earth. Whatever you wish to say, Old Patriarch, speak plainly. shoul dI dare to disobey, may my bones be ground to dust and my brain smeared upon the ground.”

Xian Bing’s breathing had grown terribly laboured.

“I know,” he rasped. “But what I would ask of you may be too much… Though you have studied under many masters, you cannot truly be called a disciple of any one school. Yet I… I must have you swear to me, here and now, that you are a loyal and devoted disciple of Yueyang School and no other… Can you do it?”

It was, in truth, an extraordinary demand.

The Yueyang School was all but finished. Once both the zhangmen and the old patriarch had passed, the school would be shattered beyond recognition. If Yin Jianping pledged himself as a disciple of Yueyang School, he would be honour-bound to devote himself to the work of restoration, a task upon which the school’s legacy of seven generations would depend. What an immense burden that would be. What an oath to swear.

Yin Jianping gazed at the dying Xian Bing, whose haggard cheeks radiated a yearning so fierce it had become a kind of supplication…

To die with eyes that would not close³ was surely the cruelest of all deaths, and the most wretched of all endings.

Facing this old man at his deathbed, Yin Jianping felt an unbounded compassion swell within him. In truth, every year of his young life had been spent fighting through hardship and adversity. A ceaseless torrent coursed through his veins, defying fate itself. A man could no more escape conflict than he could escape his own shadow. Even without enemies, how could one ever flee from oneself? Yin Jianping had long since understood this.

He gave a resolute nod. “You have my word. Old Patriarch, if there is anything more instructions, please speak quickly!”

The emotions that warred across Xian Bing’s face were far more than mere elation.

He nodded again and again, and at the corners of his eyes two deep creases opened into something that might have been a smile. His tears traced those twin furrows and streamed down his face.

“Then though I die, I shall have no regrets!” Xian Bing’s voice had gone hoarse almost beyond recognition. He murmured, “Jianping… do you know why I asked you to stay behind alone?”

“I’m ignorant of the reason’,” said Yin Jianping. “The Old Patriarch must have important instructions for me”

Xian Bing said, “Of course I have… instructions for you… But the chief reason is that… you are the only one among the school who will survive…”

Yin Jianping was thunderstruck. He said in dismay, “Old Patriarch… I beg your pardon for not understanding you mean.”

Tears and mucus streamed together down Xian Bing’s face. His voice rasped, “The reason is… that the three Hall Elders and the seven remaining disciples in the outer chambers… I fear none of them will survive… the ordeal that lies ahead… Only you… only you alone will turn calamity to fortune…”

Yin Jianping was stunned into silence. A crushing weight of grief bore down upon him, yet he could only stare at Xian Bing, unable to find words.

Xian Bing’s voice had faded to a feeble, rasping whisper. “Just now… I read your fortunes of your faces through the Innate Divination…⁴ I have spent a lifetime studying men’s countenances… and this time will prove no different… Therefore… child…”

One of his hands had, without Yin Jianping noticing, had seized the young man’s wrist in a grip of iron.

“Your survival… is of paramount importance to the school…” Xian Bing rasped, “I am glad to see that you already possess the means to endure… Only by escaping the present danger can you begin to plan for the school’s restoration!”

Yin Jianping’s anguish was beyond measure. The thought that every one of his brethrens would perish filled him with a grief and fury too vast for words.

“Old Patriarch!” he cried. “Is there no way to avert this disaster?”

Xian Bing shook his head slowly, his voice breaking with the effort. “Mark my words… Nothing in this world matters more than staying alive… Know that the enemy’s martial arts are unfathomably formidable… You must find a way to study her closely, to learn her strengths and weaknesses. Know your enemy and know yourself⁵…that is the only path to… victory!”

“I will remember,” said Yin Jianping.

Xian Bing struggled, forcing out the words with visible effort. “Only by destroying tha woman… Shui Hongshao,⁶ can the wulin be delivered from its scourge… Jianping, come closer.”

Yin Jianping responded and stepped forward.

Xian Bing regarded him calmly. “Unfasten my… upper garments. In the inner pouch, of my under-robe, there is something… Take it out.”

“Yes,” said Yin Jianping. He hesitated for only a moment before reaching forward and parting Xian Bing’s outer garments. In the pouch of the yellow silk vest beneath, his fingers closed around something hard and cold. He drew it out and beheld a lustrous, shimmering green jade piece. Set into its centre was a silver pearl the size of a little finger’s tip, and the engraving upon the jade was of exquisite workmanship. It was a treasure of considerable worth.

“This is a jade token that ward off all kinds of poisons,” Xian Bing murmured. “It was a gift from Shui Hongshao herself back then… Worn upon the body, it will repel all manner of venom. Even a poison as lethal as the Seven-Pace Gut-Severing Red⁷ will not harm you, so long as the enemy does not employ the Lurking Sand Shadow Strike⁸ to drive it into your body. Keep in on your person, it may prove useful.”

Wasting no time on ceremony, Yin Jianping accepted it with a reverent bow and tucked it safely away.

Xian Bing continued in a murmur, “Of the Seven Cultivators of the Wulin,⁹ only three remain… Besides myself, one is the present… master of the Double Crane Hall… Mi Ruyan.”¹⁰

Yin Jianping started violently. “What? Master Mi is actually one of the Seven Cultivators?”

Xian Bing nodded. “Indeed… He was the seventh… I was the sixth… And there is one more who has gone into seclusion somewhere in Huaishang¹¹… Fan Zhongxiu¹²… Third Brother Fan… his martial arts abilities was top among the Seven Cultivators. He was always a man of irreproachable conduct. After the burning of Shui Hongshao on Phoenix Mountain¹³… he withdrew from the wulin entirely… It is rumoured that he has settled beneath Qingfeng Ridge¹⁴ in Huaishang… We have not been in contact for many years…”

His breathing had grown so laboured that each gasp seemed as though it might be his last.

Yin Jianping said gently, “I understand the Old Patriarch’s meaning. I shall go at once to notify both elders… and urge them to prepare.”

Xian Bing gave a faint nod. He opened his mouth, but it was plain that his tongue had already begun to stiffen. Yin Jianping knew the old man’s final moments had come. A fresh wave of grief swept over him and his tears welled up anew. He turned at once, strode from the elixir chamber, and entered the main hall.

There the three Hall Elders and seven disciples sat waiting in silence. Yin Jianping’s sudden appearance startled every one of them, and they rose as one.

Xie Shan the Hunyuan Palm stepped forward and said, “How fares the Old Patriarch?”

Yin Jianping wrapped his left hand over his right fist[^baoquan] and said, “It is grave. I beg the seniors to go in to him at once.”

Xie Shan stood frozen for a moment, then let out a heavy sigh. Every man and woman among them fell in behind him as he strode towards the elixir chamber.

Xian Bing was indeed at the very threshold of death. Yet his eyes remained wide open, and by sheer force of will he clung to life, refusing to let go. The sight of it drew tears from every person present.

Xie Shan the Hunyuan Palm leaned close and spoke in a low voice, “Old Patriarch… go in peace. Is there any final instructions?”

“There is…” Xian Bing managed with great effort.

His gaze turned to Duan Nanxi¹⁵ the Eight Drunken Immortals,¹⁶ who oversaw the Splendour Hall.¹⁷ “The item you were ordered to keep sealed in your custody… in your custody…”

Duan Nanxi the Eight Drunken Immortals understood at once. “Does the Old Patriarch mean the Iron Casket Codex?”¹⁸

Xian Bing nodded, and his eyes moved to rest upon Yin Jianping.

Duan Nanxi started. “The Old Patriarch’s meaning is that I should deliver the… Iron Casket Codex to Yin…”

He could not even recall the young man’s full name.

The Iron Casket Codex was a locked iron chest containing the secret manuals of the school’s sixteen supreme arts, the Blood Shroud among them. These texts were nothing less than the most important martial arts that maintains the Yueyang School. Without the zhangmen’s direct command, even the Hall Elder entrusted with their safekeeping was not permitted to so much as glance inside. Small wonder, then, that the elder of the Splendour Hall was stricken with disbelief at the prospect of surrendering them to a youth who had been a member of the school for barely three months.

Duan Nanxi was not alone in his shock. Every face in the room went white, and they exchanged incredulous glances, turning doubtful eyes upon the dying Xian Bing. None of them could believe the order was genuine.

But the answer was beyond dispute.

Xian Bing nodded with visible effort.

Fearful that there remained ambiguity in his response, he forced out one final command, “Yes… give it to Yin… Jianping… You must not… defy me. This is an… an order!”

The word had scarcely left his lips when his whole body was seized by a violent convulsion. His jaw clenched, his eyes rolled back to white, and then he breathed his last.

Every witness was struck with terror, as though a fist had been driven into their chest. For a long time, not one of them could speak.

Footnotes

1. 岳阳门 – Yuèyáng Mén. Literally sunny peak gate. Yueyang carries a deep sense of scholarly-official duty and concern for the nation as a result of Northern Song statesman Fan Zhongyan’s essay Record of Yueyang Tower. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 血罩 – xuè zhào. Literally blood shroud. One of the Yueyang School’s supreme martial arts, included among the sixteen techniques preserved in the Iron Casket Codex. Its exact nature remains closely guarded. ↩

3. 死不瞑目 – sǐ bù míng mù. Literally to die without closing one’s eyes. To die with unresolved grief or unfulfilled duty, unable to find peace even in death. ↩

4. 先天易数 – xiāntiān yìshù. Literally prior heaven change-numbers. A method of divination derived from the Yijing that interprets an individual’s fate through their physiognomy, read against the primordial arrangement of the trigrams. ↩

5. 知彼知己 – zhī bǐ zhī jǐ. From Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: “Know the enemy and know yourself, and in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.” ↩

6. 水红芍 – Shuǐ Hóngshāo. Her name meaning “Water Red Peony”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 七步断肠红 – qībù duàncháng hóng. Literally seven-pace gut-severing red. A lethal contact poison that kills within seven paces of exposure, spread along the ground to create an impassable barrier. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 含沙射影 – hánshā shèyǐng. Literally holding sand and shooting at shadows. An advanced neili technique that allows the practitioner to project toxic qi through the air and into an object or a person without physical contact—killing or injuring at a distance of a hundred paces. The name derives from a legendary venomous creature, the yu (蜮), said to spit sand at the shadows of its prey, causing illness or death. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 武林七修 – wǔlín qīxiū. Literally seven cultivators of the martial forest. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 米如烟 – Mǐ Rúyān. His name meaning “Delicate as Mist”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 淮上 – Huáishàng. The region along the Huai River in eastern China, spanning parts of modern Anhui and Jiangsu Provinces. See Wikipedia. ↩

12. 樊钟秀 – Fán Zhōngxiù. His name meaning “Bell Elegance”. ↩

13. 凤凰山 – Fènghuáng Shān. Literally phoenix mountain. ↩

14. 清风岭 – Qīngfēng Lǐng. Literally clear wind ridge. ↩

15. 段南溪 – Duàn Nánxī. His name meaning “Southern Creek”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 醉八仙 – Zuì Bā Xiān. Literally eight drunken immortals. Referencing the Eight Immortals of Daoist legend. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 采堂 – Cǎi Táng. The Splendour Hall. ↩

18. 铁匣秘笈 – tiěxiá mìjí. Literally iron casket secret compendium. The Yueyang School’s most sacred heirloom, containing the school’s founding martial arts secrets. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩