The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 12 – Part 6

Hong Qigong said nothing and thought for a long while. “We used to be about even, but these twenty years…twenty years, and he’s worked harder than me, not like Old Beggar, so fond of his food and so lazy about practice. Heh, heh, but it won’t be that easy for him to beat Old Beggar.”

Huang Rong said, “Then he certainly can’t beat you, sir.”

Hong Qigong shook his head. “Not necessarily. We’ll see. Well, since the Old Venom Ouyang Feng’s¹ nephew means to make trouble for you, we mustn’t be careless. Old Beggar will eat your little dishes for another fortnight. But let’s be clear from the start. If in this fortnight I get any dish twice, Old Beggar dusts off his backside and leaves. And the dishes you cook have to be the very best of your best. Then even if some villain carries you off one day, what he eats won’t be better than what Old Beggar has had, and there’s no harm in that.”

Huang Rong was overjoyed. Eager to show what she could do, she not only never repeated a dish, but put such ingenuity into the noodles and rice as well that no two meals were the same: potstickers, shaomai, steamed dumplings, boiled dumplings, wontons, vegetable rice, fried rice, rice in soup, New Year cake, flower rolls, rice noodles, bean threads, shredded dried bean curd, mung-bean sheets, scallion pancakes, chive buns, in endless variety.

Hong Qigong, for his part, roused himself to teach Guo Jing and Huang Rong how to respond to an enemy’s changes and how to defend themselves and stay alive. But the last three moves of the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing he still did not teach. Guo Jing came to understand the fifteen palms more deeply, and the martial arts he had learned from the Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan² gained a good deal of power besides. Before he was thirty-five, Hong Qigong’s martial arts had been a very mixed bag, and he knew a great many fist and palm techniques. Now he picked out all manner of strange and freakish ones to teach Huang Rong, though in truth he was only amusing himself with her. For all their endless variety, their power to defeat an enemy came nowhere near that of the fifteen plain, honest moves of the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing. Huang Rong, for her part, was only in it for the fun and did not really apply herself.

One evening Guo Jing was practising his palm technique in the pine wood. Huang Rong was gathering pine nuts, saying she would add bamboo shoots and salted plums to make an original little dish, which she had already named “Three Friends of Winter”.³ With only chicken broth added, it would be “Pine and Crane for Long Life”.

Listening to her, Hong Qigong kept swallowing. Suddenly he turned, gave a soft “Eh?”, bent and made a grab in the grass, and between two fingers he held up a green snake about two feet long.

Huang Rong had just cried “Snake!” when Hong Qigong’s left palm pressed lightly against her shoulder and pushed her several feet away.

The grass rustled, and more snakes shot out. Hong Qigong’s bamboo staff swept again and again, every blow landing on the vital spot nine inches behind a snake’s head, and wherever the staff fell, a snake died at once. Huang Rong was just about to cheer when two snakes shot up silently behind her and bit her in the back.

Hong Qigong knew that these green snakes, small as they were, were deadly beyond compare. He was alarmed, and he was about to find some way to draw out the poison when he heard an unbroken hissing. A hundred feet and more ahead of them a thousand heads were swarming. A great host of snakes had come.

Hong Qigong seized Huang Rong’s belt with his left hand and Guo Jing’s hand with his right and hurried out of the pine wood to the front of the inn. When he bent to look at Huang Rong, her colour was perfectly normal. Startled and delighted, he asked quickly, “How do you feel?”

Huang Rong laughed. “I’m fine.”

Guo Jing saw that the two snakes were still clamped onto her, and in his alarm he reached out to pull them off. Hong Qigong was about to stop him and tell him to be careful, but Guo Jing, frantic with worry, had already seized one by the tail and pulled it off. Its head was streaming with blood. It was dead. Hong Qigong was taken aback, then understood. “Of course, your old man’s Soft Hedgehog Armour⁴ went to you.” Both snakes had bitten on the spikes of the armour, broken their heads and died.

As Guo Jing reached for the other snake, several more snakes came wriggling out of the pine wood. Hong Qigong took a large cake of yellow medicine from inside his robe, put it in his mouth and chewed hard. Hundreds of green snakes came winding out of the wood, with an unbroken stream behind them, and there was no telling how many more there were.

Guo Jing said, “Qigong,⁵ let’s get away, quick.”

Hong Qigong did not answer. He took the gourd from his back, pulled out the stopper and drank a great mouthful of wine, mixed it with the medicine he had chewed up, opened his mouth, and shot out a jet of medicated wine like an arrow. He swung his head from left to right, and the jet drew an arc on the ground in front of the three of them. The foremost snakes smelt the medicated wine, fainted at once and lay stiff and still. The snakes behind them dared come no further and bunched together. But still more snakes kept pouring out of the pine wood behind, while those in front were turning back, and at once the whole snake formation was in chaos.

Huang Rong clapped and cheered. Then from the pine wood came several strange whistles, and three men in white ran out of the trees, each carrying a wooden pole about twenty feet long. Shouting, they prodded among the snakes with their poles, just like herd boys driving cattle and sheep.

At first Huang Rong found it amusing, but when she saw nothing in front of her but green snakes squirming, she felt sick, her throat crawled, and she opened her mouth to retch.

Hong Qigong grunted. He flicked a green snake up off the ground with his bamboo staff, caught its head between the first and middle fingers of his left hand, ran the nail of his right little finger along its belly, slitting it open, and took out a green gall bladder. “Swallow it, quick. Don’t bite it, it’s very bitter.”

Huang Rong swallowed it as he said, and in a moment her chest felt better. She turned to Guo Jing. “Jing gege, do you feel dizzy?”

Guo Jing shook his head. He had drunk the medicinal blood of a great python and was proof against every poison. There were green snakes everywhere in the pine wood, but they went only after Hong Qigong and Huang Rong. When they smelt Guo Jing, they could not get away from him fast enough.

Huang Rong said, “Qigong, someone keeps these snakes.”

Hong Qigong nodded, glaring furiously at the three men in white. Seeing Hong Qigong take a snake’s gall for Huang Rong to eat, they were furious too. They put the snake formation into some order and rushed forward. One of them shouted, “You three wild ghosts, do you want to die?”

Huang Rong shouted straight back, “That’s right, you three wild ghosts, do you want to die?”

Hong Qigong was delighted. He patted her lightly on the shoulder and praised her for a good retort.

The three were enraged. The one in the middle, a sallow-faced man of middle years, levelled his long pole and sprang at Huang Rong with a thrust. The pole carried a rush of wind, and there was no little strength behind it.

Hong Qigong reached out his bamboo staff and laid it on the pole, and the thrust stopped dead. The man was startled and hastily pulled back with both hands. Hong Qigong gave a shake of his hand and shouted, “Off you go!” The man was flung backwards and fell flat on his back among the snakes, crushing more than ten of them. Luckily he had taken some rare drug and the snakes dared not bite him, or he would never have lived.

The other two, badly shaken, stepped back several paces and asked together, “Are you all right?”

The man tried to leap up, but the fall had been a heavy one and he ached all over. He got only halfway up and fell again, crushing more than ten more snakes. The fair-faced man beside him held out his pole for him to grab, and so pulled him up.

After that, none of the three dared fight. They all drew back and stood among the snakes. The one who had fallen shouted, “Who are you? Leave your name if you’ve got the guts.”

Hong Qigong roared with laughter and paid no attention.

Huang Rong called, “Who are you? Why are you driving out all these poisonous snakes to harm people?”

The three glanced at one another and were about to answer when a scholar in white came strolling out of the pine wood, waving a folding fan. He walked straight through the snakes and came forward.

Guo Jing and Huang Rong recognised him as Ouyang Ke,⁶ the Young Master of White Camel Mountain. Seeing him walk at his ease among the snakes, which made way for him on every side, they were both astonished.

The three men went to meet him and said a few words in low voices, their eyes straying to Hong Qigong all the while. They were plainly telling him what had just happened.

A flicker of surprise crossed Ouyang Ke’s face, but he was composed again at once. He nodded, stepped forward and bowed. “My three servants are ignorant fellows and have offended you, Esteemed Senior. I apologise for them.” He turned to Huang Rong with a smile. “So you’re here too, miss. I’ve had a hard time looking for you.”

Huang Rong paid him no attention at all. “Qigong,” she said to Hong Qigong, “this man is a real villain. Teach him a good lesson, sir.”

Hong Qigong nodded slightly and said gravely to Ouyang Ke, “Herding snakes has its territories, its times, its rules and its ways. Whoever heard of herding snakes in broad daylight? What do you mean by such outrageous behaviour?”

Ouyang Ke said, “These little snakes have come a long way and they’re desperately hungry, so we can’t go by the usual rules.”

Hong Qigong said, “How many people have you hurt already?”

“We’ve been herding them in open country. We haven’t hurt many.”

Hong Qigong fixed his eyes on his face and snorted. “Haven’t hurt many! Your surname is Ouyang, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. So the young lady has told you already. And your honourable surname, sir?”

Huang Rong broke in, “There’s no need to tell you this Esteemed Senior’s name. If we did, I’m afraid it would frighten you out of your wits.”

Rebuffed, Ouyang Ke was not in the least annoyed, and eyed her sideways with a smile.

Hong Qigong said, “You’re Ouyang Feng’s son, aren’t you?”

Before Ouyang Ke could answer, the three snake-herders shouted angrily as one, “Old beggar, have you no respect? How dare you speak our old Mountain Lord’s name!”

Hong Qigong laughed. “Other people may not, but I may, and I will.”

The three opened their mouths to curse him again, but Hong Qigong tapped his bamboo staff on the ground and leapt up, swooping at them like a great bird. There were three crisp smacks, and each of them had taken a ringing slap across the face. Before he landed, Hong Qigong tapped the staff again and sprang back.

Huang Rong cried, “A skill as good as that, and you haven’t taught me it yet, Qigong?”

The three men were clutching their jaws, unable to make a sound. As he slapped them, Hong Qigong had used the Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocating Hand⁷ to put their jaws out of joint.

Ouyang Ke was secretly alarmed. “Do you know my uncle, Senior?” he asked Hong Qigong.

“Ah, so you’re Ouyang Feng’s nephew. I haven’t seen your Old Venom⁸ in twenty years. Isn’t he dead yet?”

Ouyang Ke was very angry, but he had just seen what Hong Qigong could do, martial arts so great that he himself could never hope to match them, and the man said he knew his uncle, so he must be a senior and a master. So he said, “My uncle often says that as long as his friends aren’t all dead and gone, he wouldn’t dare go to heaven ahead of them.”

Hong Qigong threw back his head and laughed. “Good lad, you know how to curse a man in a roundabout way. What have you brought this lot of treasures here for?” He pointed at the snakes.

Ouyang Ke said, “This junior has always lived in the Western Regions. On this journey to the Central Plains I was lonely on the road, so I called up a few snakes along the way to play with.”

Huang Rong said, “Lying to my face! With all these women to keep you company, and you claim to be lonely?”

Ouyang Ke opened his folding fan, fanned himself twice and, with his eyes fixed on her, recited with a smile, “Long, long my heart has longed. Are there no others? For your sake alone I have pondered till now!”⁹

Huang Rong pulled a face at him and laughed. “I don’t need your flattery, and I certainly don’t need you pining after me.”

At the sight of her looking so charming, Ouyang Ke felt his soul float away, and for a moment he could not speak.

Hong Qigong shouted, “You and your uncle run riot in the Western Regions and nobody stops you. If you think you can do the same in the Central Plains, you can dream on. For your uncle’s sake I won’t stoop to your level today. Now clear off.”

Ouyang Ke, scolded so harshly, wanted to answer back and fight, but he knew he was no match for him. Yet to slink meekly away galled him, so he said, “I’ll take my leave, then. If in the next few years you don’t fall gravely ill or meet with some disaster, Senior, will you come and stay a while at my humble home on White Camel Mountain?”

Hong Qigong laughed. “Do you think you’re fit to challenge me, boy? Old Beggar never makes appointments with anyone. Your uncle isn’t afraid of me, and I’m not afraid of your uncle. We had a good long trial of strength twenty years ago, and we’re six of one and half a dozen of the other, so there’s no need to fight again.” Suddenly his face darkened. “Now get yourself well away from me!”

Ouyang Ke was startled again. He thought, I haven’t learned even three tenths of my uncle’s martial arts. It looks as though this man is telling the truth. I’d better not anger him and end up with egg on my face. He said nothing more. He pushed the three white-robed men’s jaws back into their sockets one by one, flicked a glance at Huang Rong, turned and withdrew into the pine wood.

The three men in white gave strange whistling cries to drive the green snakes, but their jaws hurt, and their whistles came out blurred and muddled with “eee” and “aah”. The snakes, however, seemed to understand well enough. They turned and wriggled forward like a sheet of fine ripples, pouring into the pine wood, and in a moment they had all withdrawn, leaving nothing but the ground glistening with slime.

Huang Rong said, “Qigong, I’ve never seen so many snakes. Do those men keep them?”

Hong Qigong did not answer at once. He gulped down several mouthfuls of wine from his gourd, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, let out a long breath and said over and over, “That was close! That was close!”

Guo Jing and Huang Rong asked together, “How so?”

Hong Qigong said, “I held these poisonous snakes back for the moment, but if they had really come at us, thousands of them, like a tide, how could we have stopped them? Luckily those fellows were young and green and didn’t know what Old Beggar was really made of, and I scared them off in one go. If the Old Venom had come himself, you two children would have been in a sorry state.”

Guo Jing said, “If we can’t stop them, we run.”

Hong Qigong laughed. “Old Beggar isn’t afraid of him, but if you two children tried to run, how could you ever escape the Old Venom’s clutches?”

Huang Rong said, “Who is that man’s uncle, to be so formidable?”

Hong Qigong said, “Ha, him, not formidable? ‘Eastern Heretic, Western Venom, Southern Emperor, Northern Beggar, Central Divine.’ Your father is the Eastern Heretic, and that Ouyang Feng is the Western Venom. The Perfected One Wang,¹⁰ whose martial arts were the first under heaven, has passed away, and the four of us who are left are much of a muchness. Is your father formidable? Old Beggar’s skill isn’t so small either, is it?”

Footnotes

1. 欧阳锋 — Ōuyáng Fēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 江南六怪 — Jiāngnán Liù Guài. Literally six eccentrics of Jiangnan. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 岁寒三友 — Suì Hán Sān Yǒu. Literally three friends of the cold season: pine, bamboo and plum, emblems of constancy. ↩

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

5. 七公 — Qīgōng. His name meaning “Seven Elder” or “Seventh Elder”: 七 is his rank in his generation and 公 an elder’s courtesy. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 欧阳克 — Ōuyáng Kè. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 分筋错骨手 — Fēnjīn Cuògǔ Shǒu. A method of seizing the joints and wrenching them out of place. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 老毒物 — lǎo dúwù. Literally old venomous thing. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 悠悠我心 — Yōuyōu wǒ xīn. Literally long, long my heart. Lines stitched together from the Classic of Poetry and Cao Cao’s “Short Song” (悠悠我心，岂无他人？唯君之故，沉吟至今). ↩

10. 王真人 — Wáng Zhēnrén. Literally Wang the Perfected One. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩