The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 12 – Part 7

Huang Rong gave an “Mm” and turned it over in her mind. After a while she said, “There’s nothing wrong with my father. Why call him the Eastern Heretic? I don’t like that nickname.”

Hong Qigong laughed. “Your father rather likes it himself. He’s a strange, crafty one, all crooked byways, scorning Confucius and the sages and reviling the court. Isn’t that heretical? Mind you, he goes his own way and never gives men of power and influence a second look, and Old Beggar has always respected him for it. But when it comes to martial arts, the Quanzhen Order¹ is broad and upright, the true orthodox school, and Old Beggar grants them that with all his heart.” He turned to Guo Jing. “You’ve learned Quanzhen neigong,² haven’t you?”

Guo Jing said, “Daoist Elder³ Ma Yu taught me for two years.”

“That explains it,” said Hong Qigong. “Otherwise how could you have got my Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing⁴ to this level in little more than a month?”

Huang Rong asked, “Then who is the Southern Emperor?”

“The Southern Emperor is an emperor, of course.”

Both Guo Jing and Huang Rong were taken aback. Huang Rong said, “The emperor of the Song court in Lin’an?”

Hong Qigong roared with laughter. “That emperor brat in Lin’an has just about neili⁵ enough to lift one golden rice bowl to eat from. Two bowls would be too much for him. Not the Song emperor! That Southern Emperor is so formidable that your father and I are both a little wary of him, and since southern fire overcomes western metal, he’s the very bane of the Old Venom, Ouyang Feng,⁶ besides.”

Guo Jing and Huang Rong did not really follow, and seeing Hong Qigong suddenly lost in a daze, they did not dare ask more.

Hong Qigong stared at the sky, frowning in thought for a long while, as if he had some great problem on his mind. After a while he turned and went into the inn. There was a ripping sound. His sleeve had caught on a small iron nail beside the door and torn wide open.

Huang Rong cried, “Ah!” but Hong Qigong seemed not to notice.

“I’ll mend it for you,” Huang Rong said. She borrowed needle and thread from the innkeeper’s wife and came back to sew up the tear.

Hong Qigong was still lost in thought. When he saw Huang Rong coming towards him with the needle in her hand, he gave a sudden start, snatched the needle from her and ran out of the door. Puzzled, Guo Jing and Huang Rong ran after him. They saw his right hand flick, there was a faint glint, and the sewing needle shot away.

Huang Rong followed the needle’s path with her eyes and saw it stuck in the ground, pinning a grasshopper. She could not help clapping and cheering.

Hong Qigong’s face lit up. “That’s it, that’s the way.” Guo Jing and Huang Rong stared at him. Hong Qigong said, “The Old Venom Ouyang Feng has always loved keeping poisonous snakes and creatures. To command a whole great swarm of vicious green snakes at will like that is really no easy thing. He must be using drugs.” He paused. “I don’t think much of that Ouyang lad. When he sees his uncle he’s bound to stir up trouble, and when we two old friends meet again, Old Beggar will need something to deal with those snakes.”

Huang Rong clapped her hands. “You’re going to pin the snakes to the ground one by one with needles.”

Hong Qigong gave her a look and smiled. “You really are an imp of a girl. Someone says the first half and you know the second.”

Huang Rong said, “Haven’t you got medicine? Mix it with wine and spray it out, and the snakes won’t dare come near.”

Hong Qigong said, “That only holds them for a while. I want to practise the Sky-Blanketing Blossom Rain⁷ technique and see how it works with steel needles. When thousands of snakes come surging in, if Old Beggar has to pin them one at a time, by the time he’s nailed the lot, ten days or a fortnight will have dragged by, and Old Beggar will have starved to death too.”

Guo Jing and Huang Rong both burst out laughing. Huang Rong said, “Cut the poisonous heads off the snakes and you can make snake soup. Add chicken broth, chrysanthemum petals and lemon leaves, and it tastes very good.”

Hong Qigong nodded again and again, the index finger of his left hand twitching hard.

Huang Rong said, “I’ll go and buy needles for you.” With that she ran towards the town.

Hong Qigong shook his head and sighed. “Jing-er, why don’t you get her to share a bit of her cleverness with you?”

Guo Jing said, “Cleverness? You can’t share that out.”

About as long as it takes to eat a meal later, Huang Rong came back from the town and took two big packets of sewing needles out of her vegetable basket. She laughed. “I’ve cleaned the town out of sewing needles. Tomorrow every man here will be nagged half to death by his wife.”

Guo Jing said, “Why?”

Huang Rong said, “For being useless, of course! Going all the way to town and not even able to buy one needle.”

Hong Qigong roared with laughter. “Old Beggar is the clever one after all. No wife, so no woman to torment him. Come, come, come, let’s go and practise. Would you two children be this keen if you didn’t want Old Beggar to teach you this hidden-weapon technique?”

Huang Rong smiled and fell in behind him.

Guo Jing, however, said, “Qigong,⁸ I won’t learn it.”

Hong Qigong asked in surprise, “Why not?”

Guo Jing said, “You’ve taught me so many skills, sir, I can’t practise them all for a long while yet.”

Hong Qigong was taken aback, then understood. The boy did not want to grab more than his share. Hong Qigong had said he would teach no more martial arts, and now that something unexpected had forced him to teach after all, whoever received it would look rather as if he were taking advantage of the situation. He nodded and said to Huang Rong, “Let’s go and practise.”

Guo Jing went off to the hill behind to practise the fifteen palms of Dragon Subduing he had newly learned. The more he studied them, the more subtle he found their variations, as if he could never get to the bottom of them.

Another ten days or so went by, and Huang Rong had learned the knack of Sky-Blanketing Blossom Rain Golden Needles. With one throw she could send a dozen and more needles into a man’s vital points at once, though she had not yet learned to strike several men with one handful. With the ingredients right there to hand, she seized the chance to make stir-fried snake slices, braised snake pieces and clear-stewed snake soup for Hong Qigong to try. There was one dish, Red-Braised Whole Snake, in which she made the snake draw its head in, its body coiled, with the head tucked underneath it.

Huang Rong said, “Like a true man, this snake knows when to bend and when to stretch. This dish is called ‘Proud Dragon Repents’!”⁹

Hong Qigong and Guo Jing roared with laughter.

One day Hong Qigong threw a handful of sewing needles, and every one of them stuck in the ground twenty feet in front of him. Pleased with himself, he threw back his head and laughed, but he broke off halfway, raised his head and stood thinking, muttering to himself, “What does the Old Venom mean by training this snake formation?”

Huang Rong said, “With martial arts as great as his, he wouldn’t need any snake formation to deal with other people.”

Hong Qigong nodded. “Quite right. It must be for dealing with the Eastern Heretic, the Southern Emperor and Old Beggar. The Beggars’ Guild and the Quanzhen Order both have numbers and strength. The Southern Emperor has the majesty of a monarch, with soldiers and guards beyond counting under him. Your father’s learning is vast, with his strange arts of formation and concealment, changing past all foreseeing, and with the lie of the land to help him he’s a match for hundreds by himself. Man to man, the Old Venom is as good as anyone alive, but if everyone set on him together, the Old Venom, all on his own, wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Huang Rong said, “So he keeps poisonous creatures to help him.”

Hong Qigong sighed. “We beggars catch snakes and keep snakes too. It’s one of the ways we earn our bread, and catching seventeen or eighteen snakes to trick a few rich young ladies and young masters out of their money is hard enough. Who’d have thought the Old Venom could drive thousands at once? That’s really something. Rong-er, that skill has cost the Old Venom no end of time and pains, and he isn’t doing it for fun.”

Huang Rong said, “If he’s gone to all that trouble, he certainly means no good. Luckily his nephew is a dud, and he gave the game away first, showing off.”

Hong Qigong nodded. “True. That Ouyang lad is rash and frivolous and will never amount to anything. Of course those snakes couldn’t have been driven ten thousand li from the Western Regions. He must have gathered them in the hills near here. And that Ouyang lad was most likely up to something besides showing off.”

Huang Rong said, “It’s bound to be something bad. Still, it’s lucky it happened this way and we saw it, so you can get a way of dealing with the snake formation ready, sir, and the Old Venom won’t catch you unprepared.”

Hong Qigong said thoughtfully, “But what if he keeps me so busy I’ve no hand free to throw needles, and drives these thousands of poisonous snakes in to surround me? What then?”

Huang Rong thought for a moment but could see no way either. “Then you’d just have to fall back on the thirty-six stratagems,¹⁰ sir!”

Hong Qigong laughed. “Pah, no backbone! Turn tail and take to your heels, what kind of way is that?”

After a while Huang Rong suddenly said, “Now I’ve got it. I really do have a good idea.”

Hong Qigong was delighted. “What idea?”

Huang Rong said, “All you have to do, sir, is keep the two of us with you all the time. When we meet the Old Venom, you fight the Old Venom, Jing gege fights his nephew, and I throw sewing needles by the handful to kill the snakes. Only Jing gege has learned just the Eighteen-Minus-Three Palms of Dragon Subduing, so he probably can’t beat that grinning villain.”

Hong Qigong glared at her. “You’re the grinning little villain, always scheming to cheat me out of those three palms for your Jing gege. With Guo Jing’s character and his heart, there’d be nothing wrong in my teaching him all eighteen. But then wouldn’t he become Old Beggar’s disciple? The boy’s far too slow. If Old Beggar had a stupid disciple like that, people would laugh at me, and I’d lose face!”

Huang Rong giggled. “I’m off to buy food!” She knew that this time there would be no keeping Hong Qigong, and that they would soon be parting, so at the market she chose her ingredients with special care, meaning to make a few especially fine dishes to repay him.

With the basket in her left hand she strolled back to the inn, her right hand flinging at the empty air again and again as she practised the Sky-Blanketing Blossom Rain technique.

As she neared the inn she heard the jingle of harness bells, and a dappled grey horse came galloping along the main road. A woman dressed in plain white was riding it. She rode up to the inn, dismounted and went in.

Huang Rong looked, and it was Mu Nianci,¹¹ Yang Tiexin’s foster daughter. Remembering that this girl was promised to Guo Jing in marriage, she stood by the road lost in thought. She thought, What’s so good about this girl? Yet Jing gege’s six shifus and those ox-nosed Quanzhen Daoists all keep forcing him to marry her. The more she thought about it the angrier she grew, and she thought, I’ll go and give her a beating to let off steam.

She carried her basket into the inn. Mu Nianci was sitting by a square table looking full of sorrow, and a serving boy was asking her what she would eat.

Mu Nianci said, “Boil me a bowl of noodles and cut four liang¹² of cooked beef.”

The serving boy said he would and went off.

Huang Rong broke in, “What’s so good about cooked beef?”

Mu Nianci looked up, saw Huang Rong and started. She recognised her as the girl who had gone off with Guo Jing in Zhongdu, and hurriedly stood up. “So you’re here too, little sister? Do sit down.”

Huang Rong said, “Are those stinking Daoists, and the fat little dwarf, and the grubby scholar, all here too?”

Mu Nianci said, “No, I’m on my own. I’m not with Daoist Elder Qiu and the others.”

Huang Rong was rather wary of Qiu Chuji and the others herself, so when she heard that Mu Nianci was alone, her face lit up. Smiling, she looked her up and down. Mu Nianci wore little boots and mourning clothes, with a white velvet flower in her hair by her temple. Her face was much thinner than when they had last met, but her air of delicate pathos made her all the prettier. Huang Rong saw a short jian stuck in her belt, and a thought struck her. She thought, That’s the betrothal token Jing gege’s father and her father gave them.

She said, “Big sister, may I borrow that short jian of yours for a look?”

The short jian was a keepsake that Bao Xiruo had taken out from her clothes as she was dying, and when Yang Tiexin and his wife were both dead, it had come to Mu Nianci. Seeing the odd look on Huang Rong’s face, she had meant not to hand it over, but Huang Rong had come right up to her with her hand out, and there was no way to refuse. She had to unfasten the short jian and hand it over, scabbard and all.

Huang Rong took it and looked first at the hilt. On it were carved the two characters of Guo Jing’s name. Her heart gave a jolt. She thought, This is Jing gege’s. How can it be given to her? She drew it from the scabbard, and a breath of cold struck her face. She thought admiringly, A fine jian! She put it back in the scabbard, tucked it into her clothes and said, “I’ll go and give it back to Jing gege.”

Mu Nianci stared. “What?”

Huang Rong said, “The hilt of the short jian has ‘Guo Jing’ carved on it, so of course it’s his. I’m taking it back to him.”

Mu Nianci was angry. “It’s the only thing my parents left me. How could I give it to you? Give it back, quick.” She stood up.

Huang Rong cried, “Come and get it, if you can!” and ran out of the inn. Knowing that Hong Qigong was asleep in the pine wood in front and Guo Jing was practising his palms in the hollow behind the hill, she ran off to the left.

Mu Nianci was frantic, afraid that once the girl was on the red horse there would be no catching her. She shouted after her and raced in pursuit.

Footnotes

1. 全真教 — Quánzhēn Jiào. Literally complete truth order. Daoist martial-monastic order founded by Wang Chongyang, one of the most influential orthodox factions. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

3. 道长 — dàozhǎng. Literally Daoist elder. A respectful form of address for a Daoist priest. ↩

4. 降龙十八掌 — Xiánglóng Shíbā Zhǎng. Literally eighteen dragon-subduing palms. Hong Qigong’s palm technique. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

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

7. 满天花雨掷金针 — Mǎntiān Huāyǔ Zhì Jīnzhēn. Literally the whole sky a rain of blossoms, casting golden needles. A needle-throwing art Hong Qigong teaches Huang Rong, a dozen needles loosed at once. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 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. ↩

9. 亢龙有悔 — Kàng Lóng Yǒu Huǐ. Literally the proud dragon has cause to repent. A move of the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing, named from a line of the Book of Changes. ↩

10. 三十六着 — sānshíliù zhāo. Literally the thirty-six moves, short for the saying 三十六计，走为上计: of the thirty-six stratagems, running away is the best. ↩

11. 穆念慈 — Mù Niàncí. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 两 — liǎng. A traditional unit of weight, one-sixteenth of a jin, and the unit in which silver was reckoned. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩