The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 10 – Part 2

Huang Rong¹ was about to speak when she saw the monk bring out a pair of copper cymbals² from beneath his robe. His hands came together with a clang that all but deafened her. It was not the sound of copper. They had to be steel cymbals plated with brass. Then her eyes blurred, and the pair came flying at her, one high and one low, their edges glinting and wickedly sharp. If they struck her, they would slice her body into three. She took fright, but the cymbals were already close, far too close to dodge. At once she sprang up and darted forward instead. Her right palm pushed up beneath the upper cymbal, her left foot stamped off the lower, and she shot through the gap between them. It was a deadly risk. She had escaped the cymbals, but her leap had carried her right up to Venerable Lingzhi.³

Up came his huge palm, slapping at her with the Five Finger Secret Blade.⁴ Huang Rong seemed unable to check herself. She kept hurtling forward, straight into her enemy’s arms. A cry of alarm went up from every throat. It looked as though this girl, lovely as a flower, was about to have her sinews snapped, her bones broken and her organs burst by that huge palm. Ouyang Ke⁵ shouted, “Spare her!” He meant to leap in and save her, but how could he be in time?

Lingzhi’s huge palm had already landed on her back, yet at once he snatched it away with a loud, strange cry. Huang Rong had ridden the force of the blow and flown out of the hall. From afar came the sound of her clear laughter, as though she had suffered no harm at all. The onlookers had expected Venerable Lingzhi’s palm to strike with devastating force, yet somehow, the moment his hand reached her body, it had sprung back with uncanny speed, as though the force of the palm had had no time to strike out.

While the others were still gathering their wits, Lingzhi roared again and again with rage. He held up his hand. His right palm was streaming with blood, pierced with more than a dozen tiny holes. All at once he understood, and shouted, “The Soft Hedgehog Armour!⁶ The Soft Hedgehog Armour!” His cry was full of shock, fury and pain.

Peng Lianhu⁷ cried in alarm, “The girl is wearing the Soft Hedgehog Armour? That’s the treasure that guards Peach Blossom Island⁸ in the Eastern Sea!”

Sha Tongtian⁹ said in surprise, “She’s just a child. How could she have come by the Soft Hedgehog Armour?”

Ouyang Ke, anxious for Huang Rong, leapt out of the door. There was no one to be seen in the darkness, and he had no idea where she had fled. He gave a long whistle and led his concubines off to search for her, glad and relieved at heart, and thought, If she could run away, she can’t have been hurt. One way or another I’ll have her in my arms.

Hou Tonghai¹⁰ asked, “Shige,¹¹ what is this Soft Hedgehog Armour?”

Peng Lianhu answered before Sha Tongtian could speak. “You’ve seen a hedgehog?”

“Of course I have.”

“She wears a soft vest beneath her outer clothes. The vest is proof against blade and spear, and it is covered in barbs, just like a hedgehog. Anyone who strikes her or kicks her gets the worst of it!”

Hou Tonghai stuck out his tongue. “Thank Heaven I never hit that stinking brat!”

Sha Tongtian said, “I’ll go and bring her back!”

Hou Tonghai said, “Shige, she… she mustn’t be touched.”

“Do you think I need telling? I’ll grab her by the hair and drag her back.”

“Right, right. Why didn’t I think of that? Shige, you really are clever.”

The two fellow disciples and Peng Lianhu ran out after her together.

By now the Prince of Zhao, Wanyan Honglie,¹² had had urgent word from his son that the Princess had been carried off. Shocked and furious, father and son called out their personal guard and set off from the estate in pursuit. The captain of the guard, Tang Zude,¹³ charged ahead of them all, leading his men in a hue and cry after the assassins. Inside and out, the estate was turned upside down.

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Guo Jing¹⁴ encountered Liang Ziweng¹⁵ by the wall once more. Terrified, he turned and ran wildly, with no idea of north, south, east or west, diving into whatever was darkest. Liang Ziweng had set his heart on drinking his blood and would not fall half a step behind. Luckily Guo Jing’s qinggong¹⁶ was excellent and it was night. After running a good while he found himself where no lamp or candle shone, with no idea where he was. Suddenly the ground was all brambles underfoot, and jagged rocks stood up like countless stone jians stuck point-first in the earth. Why there should be brambles and rubble in the Prince’s estate, Guo Jing had no time to wonder. The thorns tore painfully at his calves, but he had only to think of the white-haired old man’s teeth closing on his throat, and never mind a few little thorns, he would have plunged without a moment’s hesitation into a mountain of knives and a forest of blades.

All at once there was nothing under his feet. “Aiyo!” he cried, and he was already falling. He seemed to drop forty or fifty feet before he reached the bottom. It was a very deep hole.

He had summoned his strength while still in mid-air, meaning to land on his feet and save himself a hurt, but where his feet came down there was nothing but round balls. They rolled, he lost his footing, and he went over flat on his back. As he pushed himself up to sit, his hand touched one of the balls and he started. A few more fumbling touches told him what they were. These big balls were dead men’s skulls. This deep hole, it seemed, was where the Prince of Zhao’s household threw the bodies of the people it killed.

He heard Liang Ziweng call down from the mouth of the pit above, “Boy, come up here at once!”

Guo Jing thought, I’m not stupid enough to come up there and get myself killed! He groped about him. Behind him there was only empty space, so he backed away a few steps in case Liang Ziweng jumped down after him.

Liang Ziweng cursed and shouted for a while. Convinced Guo Jing would not climb up, he bellowed, “Run all the way to King Yama’s hall, and I’ll still catch you.” He leapt down.

Guo Jing took fright and backed away a few more steps, and still, to his surprise, there was room. He turned and stretched his hands before him, feeling his way forward step by step. It was a tunnel.

Liang Ziweng soon found it was a tunnel too. Bold as his skill was great, he had no fear of a trick from Guo Jing, though it was pitch dark and he could not see his hand before his face. He set off after him, delighted rather than otherwise, and thought, A turtle caught in a jar. You won’t get away now, boy. This time I’ll drain every drop of blood in you.

Guo Jing groaned inwardly, This tunnel must end somewhere. I can’t get away!

Liang Ziweng laughed aloud. He spread his arms wide, feeling both walls of the tunnel, and advanced slowly, step by step, in no hurry at all.

Guo Jing fled another thirty feet or so. Suddenly he felt open space ahead. The tunnel had ended, and he had come into an earthen chamber. Liang Ziweng was on him in a moment. “Stinking brat,” he laughed, “where will you run now?”

From a corner on the left came a cold voice, “Who dares make a disturbance here?”

The two men had never expected to find another person in this lightless hole beneath the earth. The voice was soft, yet to their ears it rang like a peal of thunder. Guo Jing’s heart pounded in terror. Even Liang Ziweng felt the hairs on his neck rise.

The voice spoke again, bleak and chilling. “Enter my cave and you will not leave alive. Are you tired of living?” The voice seemed to belong to a woman, yet she spoke in gasping breaths, as though grievously ill.

Hearing that the voice did not sound like a ghost or demon, their fear lessened somewhat. Hearing her reproach, Guo Jing hurried to explain. “I fell in by accident. Someone is chasing me…” Before he had finished, Liang Ziweng had located him by his voice and lunged forward, reaching out to seize him. Guo Jing heard the wind of his palm and leapt aside. Liang Ziweng missed, and grabbed again and again, while Guo Jing ducked left and right. In the pitch dark one of them clutched at random and the other dodged blind. Suddenly there was a rip, and Liang Ziweng had torn Guo Jing’s left sleeve.

The woman said angrily, “Who dares seize people here?”

Liang Ziweng cursed. “You’re playing at ghosts and spirits, but do you think you’ll frighten me?”

The woman said, panting, “Hmph. Young man, come and hide here by me.”

Guo Jing was cornered and in deadly danger, and at her words he sprang towards her without a thought. Five ice-cold fingers shot out and clamped on his wrist with uncanny strength. At her pull he pitched forward and crashed into a heap of dry grass.

The woman was breathing hard. She said to Liang Ziweng, “There’s no little force in those grappling moves of yours. You’re from beyond the Pass, aren’t you?”

Liang Ziweng was badly shaken, and thought, I can’t see a single hair of her, so how has she recognised my school of martial arts? Can she see in the dark? This woman is strange indeed! He did not dare take her lightly, and said in a ringing voice, “This humble one is a ginseng man from east of the Pass, surnamed Liang. This boy stole something important of mine. I must recover it. I ask you not to interfere.”

The woman said, “Ah, so it is the Ginseng Immortal Liang Ziweng who honours me with a visit. Even someone who knows nothing and blunders into my cave by chance has committed an offence beyond forgiving. But you, Old Eccentric Liang, are the grand master of a school. Surely you know the rules of the wulin?¹⁷”

Liang Ziweng grew more astonished. “May I ask your name?”

The woman said, “I… I…”

Guo Jing felt the hand that held his wrist shake violently, and slowly the fingers let go. He heard her stifling her moans, as though she were in great pain, and he asked, “Are you ill?”

Liang Ziweng, confident in his own martial arts and hearing her moans, reasoned that even if this person had some extraordinary skill, she was either sick or wounded and nothing to fear. He summoned his strength into his arms and clawed at Guo Jing’s chest with both hands. His fingers had just touched the boy’s clothes and were about to close when a great force fastened on his wrist and dragged it to the left. Liang Ziweng was alarmed. His left hand wheeled round to counter-grab the enemy’s arm.

The woman shouted, “Go!” She struck his back with her palm.

With a thud, Liang Ziweng was driven back three steps. Fortunately his neigong¹⁸ was profound, and he escaped unhurt.

He cursed her. “Damned witch! Come over here.”

The woman only gasped for breath and did not move. Liang Ziweng realised that she truly could not move the lower half of her body, and seven-tenths of his fear left him. He crept slowly closer and was about to spring at her when something wrapped round his ankle, something like a soft whip. It came without a sound, swift as the wind. His reactions were marvellously quick. In that same instant he rose with the whip and lashed his right leg at the woman, and with a thump the top of his head hit the earthen wall.

His legwork had always been one of the marvels of the wulin. For more than twenty years he had enjoyed great renown beyond the Pass, and whoever met this kick died on the spot, so truly formidable was it. But just before his toe reached her, as his head struck the wall, he felt a numbness at his Chongyang acupoint.¹⁹ In alarm he pulled the leg back at once. The Chongyang acupoint lies half a foot above the instep, and if an enemy seizes it squarely the whole leg goes numb and useless. He had kicked and recoiled so fast that he just escaped being caught, but he had wrenched the back of his knee painfully, and the knock on his head hurt badly besides.

A thought flashed through Liang Ziweng’s mind, This person sees in the dark as if it were broad day, and seizes acupoints with such accuracy. What can she be but some demon? In his danger he flipped half a somersault out of reach, then swung a backhand palm to knock aside her grab. He knew how formidable she was and put his full strength into the blow, thinking, Gasping like that, she can’t have the neili²⁰ to withstand it.

Suddenly there was a crackle, her arm shot out to an impossible length, and her fingertips were already resting on his shoulder. Liang Ziweng blocked with his left hand. The enemy’s wrist was ice-cold, as though not made of flesh and blood. He dared not trade another move. He rolled away along the ground and fled, and scrambled out of the hole on hands and feet. He let out a long breath and thought, I’ve lived for decades and never met anything so strange. Is she a woman or a ghost? His Highness must know what lies behind this. He hurried back towards the Fragrant Snow Hall.

All the way back he kept thinking, That stinking brat has fallen into the hands of a ghost, or a demon, or whatever she is. Of course she’ll suck his precious blood clean out of him. Is she going to stand on ceremony with me? Ai. I harvested yin to nourish yang and ran into that stinking beggar. I raised a snake to refine its blood and blundered into a female ghost. Twice I’ve all but lost my life. Can it be that cultivating long life truly goes against Heaven, that ghosts and gods hate it, and so I fail on the very brink of success?

Hearing him go, Guo Jing was overjoyed. He knelt and kowtowed to the woman. “Senior, I thank you for saving my life.”

Footnotes

1. 黄蓉 — Huáng Róng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 铜钹 — tóngbó. Literally copper cymbals. A pair of copper or brass cymbals wielded as a weapon. ↩

3. 灵智上人 — Língzhì Shàngrén. Literally the venerable of spiritual wisdom. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 五指秘刀 — Wǔzhǐ Mìdāo. Literally five-finger secret blade. A palm technique. ↩

5. 欧阳克 — Ōuyáng Kè. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 软猬甲 — Ruǎnwèijiǎ. A vest set with tiny barbs, proof against blades and fists, treasured on Peach Blossom Island. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 彭连虎 — Péng Liánhǔ. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 桃花岛 — Táohuā Dǎo. Huang Yaoshi’s island in the East China Sea. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 沙通天 — Shā Tōngtiān. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 侯通海 — Hóu Tōnghǎi. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 师哥 — shīgē. Male senior, the colloquial form of shixiong. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Gē means older brother. ↩

12. 完颜洪烈 — Wányán Hóngliè. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 汤祖德 — Tāng Zǔdé. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 郭靖 — Guō Jìng. His name meaning “to pacify”; paired with Yang Kang’s 康 it recalls the Jingkang Shame of 1127. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 梁子翁 — Liáng Zǐwēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 轻功 — qīnggōng. The martial art of body lightness. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 武林 — wǔlín. Literally martial forest. Those who actually practise, teach or study martial arts. The wulin sits inside the jianghu and is narrower than it: every member of the wulin belongs to the jianghu, but a pedlar or physician of the jianghu who never trained is no part of the wulin. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

18. 内功 — nèigōng. Literally internal cultivation. The practice of developing neili through breathing and meditation. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

19. 冲阳穴 — Chōngyáng Xué. Literally surging yang point. An acupoint on the top of the foot. ↩

20. 内力 — nèilì. Literally internal force. The kinetic manifestation of cultivated qi. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩