This time two people ate their dinner without caring for its taste: one person was eating while thinking how to have a peerless martial art in the world; while the right hand grabbed a steamed bun the left hand threw some fists, both hands were very busy; sometimes they were fighting each other while the mouth was chewing; the other person wanted to eat as fast as he could so that he could see what Huang Rong had hidden inside the wax pill.
Zhou Botong ate the steamed bun with some effort; with a noisy sound he finished the soup too. The old servant cleaned up and took the basket away. Guo Jing hurriedly pulled out the wax pill, crushed it and took the paper hidden inside. It was indeed Huang Rong’s handwriting. It said, ‘Brother Jing, please do not worry. Father and I are reconciled. I will slowly ask him to release you.’ The letter was closed with two characters, ‘Rong’er’. Guo Jing was ecstatic; he showed the letter to Zhou Botong.
Zhou Botong laughed. “Leave it to me,” he said. “He can’t not release you. We will compel him to; don’t need to ask him nicely. If he refuses, I will imprison him in this hole for fifteen years. Aiyo! That’s not right! What if in fifteen years he found the secret of mutual hands combat?”
The sky was gradually turning dark. Guo Jing sat cross-legged and was going to cultivate his energy. But his mind kept wandering back to Huang Rong. He could not concentrate for a long time. Finally he was able to calm himself and his chest was relieved; he started to breath evenly. A sudden thought came to his mind: if he could divide his mind to control two hands using two different martial arts, why not try dividing his breathing into two? So he closed one of his nostrils and practice breathing using only one nostril.
He had practiced for about an hour and felt that he had made some progress when he heard some rustling sound. He opened his eyes and could see in the dark somebody with long hair and long beard was moving around: Zhou Botong was practicing martial arts. He opened his eyes wide and looked closely. He saw Zhou Botong’s left hand was doing the seventy-two stance of Vacant Fist, while his right hand was doing some other Quan Zhen Sect’s fist technique. The fists moved slowly, but they created gusts of wind that created the rustling sound he heard earlier. Guo Jing admired this amazing skill.
While he was half watching and half lost in thought, suddenly he heard Zhou Botong cried anxiously, “Aiyo!” then busily brushed something from his body. A long black and shiny thing flew from his body and hit a distance tree; like he was throwing a secret projectile of some sort. Guo Jing saw Zhou Botong was shaking; he was startled, hurriedly came near and called out, “Big Brother, what happened?”
“I am bitten by a viper! I am dying!” Zhou Botong shouted.
Guo Jing was shocked. Immediately he held Zhou Botong’s body. His expression had changed; he leaned on Guo Jing’s shoulder and slowly walked back to the cave. Guo Jing quickly tore a piece of his clothes and tightly wrapped it around Zhou Botong’s thigh to prevent the venom from entering the heart.
Guo Jing took a flint from his pocket and lighted a paper fire. Under the bright firelight he could see more clearly. His heart jumped to his throat. Zhou Botong’s calf was swollen really bad.
“This island does not have this kind of green venomous viper. I wonder where it came from?” Zhou Botong weakly said. “The snake wouldn’t be able to bite me when I practice regularly. But this time I was practicing two sets of fist technique; I put all my attention to my movements … Ay!”
Guo Jing heard his voice trembled, he knew the poison was severe. If Zhou Botong did not possess a profound internal energy he would have died early on. Nervously he bent his waist and sucked at the wound.
“You can’t do that!” Zhou Botong cried out. “The snake’s venom is extraordinary. It will kill you.”
But Guo Jing was only thinking of saving his life; he did not even care of his own safety. His right arm held Zhou Botong’s body firmly, while his mouth continued sucking. Zhou Botong tried to struggle, but his body was weak; he could not move. A little while later he passed out.
Guo Jing kept sucking the venom out and spat it to the ground. With the poison drained out of his body, plus his profound internal energy Zhou Botong slowly regained his consciousness. His eyes were still heavy. Half awake he said, “Brother, your big brother is going to return to the heaven today. But before leaving this world I can make your friendship, my heart is extremely happy.”
Even though Guo Jing crossed Zhou Botong’s path only a short while ago, but they were of the same straightforward and honest type, so they hit it off immediately. He felt like they have known each other for dozens of years. Right now he saw his dying face and he couldn’t restrain tears from flowing down his cheeks.
Zhou Botong smiled sadly and said, “That Nine Yin Manual was hidden inside a box beneath the stone where I usually sit. I was going to give it to you, but you have sucked deadly venom from the snake, so you will not live long. We two people will walk hand in hand to the underworld. No need to fear we won’t have someone to play with. We will play as four people in the cloud … No, as four ghosts … that would be interesting. The bigheaded ghost and the grim reaper will be baffled looking at us. The ghost world won’t be the same.” Speaking thus he was quite happy.
Guo Jing heard Zhou Botong said that he was going to die, but he did not feel anything unusual. He took the fire to examine himself. The paper fire was about to be burned out, so he took Huang Rong’s letter and burned it. He then looked round the cave entrance to find a dried branch or grass, but amidst the hot summer weather the vegetation around him was green and lush.
He was getting more and more anxious. He groped his pocket to find something that would be used as a torch. But he found nothing, except that leather-like thing wrapped around his dagger that came from Mei Chaofeng. Without giving a second thought he lighted that thing and extended it to examine Zhou Botong’s face. He saw the face was turning gray, no longer ruddy like a child as usual.
Zhou Botong saw the flickering fire, he gave a faint smile. He saw Guo Jing’s countenance did not change, no sign of poison at all. He was confused. He blinked his eyes and looked at the fire. He saw the thing that Guo Jing used as a torch had some characters written all over. He squinted trying to read what was written, but after reading about ten characters or so he was so startled. He recognized the words as taken from the Nine Yin Manual. He didn’t have time to ask any question so he just raised his hand and struck the fire; asking, “Brother, what kind of medicine did you take? How come this deathly poison did not affect you?”