The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 13 – Part 2

By now he had shed his fisherman’s clothes for a scholar’s robe and cap. He held a spotless white goose-feather fan, and he greeted them with a smile and cupped hands. Guo Jing and Huang Rong went in and sat down, but Lu Guanying did not dare sit and stood to one side.

Huang Rong looked about the study. It was crammed with books of poetry, histories and classics, and on the tables and stands were arranged many bronze vessels and jade carvings, all apparently antiquities. On the wall hung an ink painting of a middle-aged scholar standing in the courtyard on a moonlit night, one hand resting on the hilt of his jian, his face lifted to the sky as he sighed, his bearing lonely and forlorn. In the upper left corner was inscribed a poem:

Last night the cold crickets would not cease their cry. They woke me from a dream a thousand li away. Already it was the third watch. I rose and walked alone around the steps. All was silent, beyond the curtain the moon shone hazy-bright.

My hair has whitened in pursuit of fame and merit. The pines and bamboo of my old mountain have grown old, the way home is barred. I would confide my heart to the jade zither, But few understand, the strings break, who will hear?

Huang Rong’s father had taught her this poem, and she knew it was Yue Fei’s Xiao Chong Shan.¹ The signature line read, in eight characters, Scrawled in illness by the Cripple of the Five Lakes.² This “Cripple of the Five Lakes”, she supposed, must be the sobriquet of the master of the manor. The brushwork of both the calligraphy and the painting bristled with sharp, angular strokes, like jians and halberds, not merely powerful enough to pierce the paper’s back, but as though they would tear through and fly off the page entirely.

Manor Master Lu³ saw Huang Rong studying the painting closely and asked, “Brother, what do you think of this picture? Give me your judgement.”

Huang Rong said, “This insignificant one will make so bold as to speak his rash mind. Please don’t take offence, Manor Master.”

The Manor Master said, “Say whatever you like, Brother.”

Huang Rong said, “The Manor Master’s painting captures the mood of Yue Wumu⁴ when he composed this Xiao Chong Shan, the feeling of high ambition thwarted, of searching for a way forward and finding none. Yet Yue Wumu’s great ambitions were for the sake of country and people. The line ‘My hair has whitened in pursuit of fame and merit’ may have been meant to keep him clear of suspicion while he lay low. At that time the Emperor and his ministers all wanted to make peace with the Jin. Yue Fei argued hard against it, but sadly few would listen to him. ‘But few understand, the strings break, who will hear?’ These two lines are said to refer to just this matter. It was a mood of helpless frustration, not an open defiance of the court. Yet when the Manor Master painted and wrote, it seemed a flood of rage and grievance poured from the brush. The stroke is powerful beyond measure, but the edge is fully exposed, like one who would fight a great enemy to the death, you or him. I fear this departs somewhat from Yue Wumu’s original intent of mourning for his country and grieving for the times. I have heard it said that when brush and ink strain too hard after force, and lose their roundness and restraint, they cannot yet be called the very highest art.”

The Manor Master heard these words and let out a long sigh. His expression grew mournful, and for a long while he did not speak.

Huang Rong saw his demeanour change and thought, I’ve spoken too bluntly. I’m afraid I’ve offended him. But when Father taught me this Xiao Chong Shan and the principles of painting and calligraphy, this was precisely how he explained it. She said aloud, “I am young and ignorant, talking nonsense. I beg the Manor Master to forgive me.”

The Manor Master started, then his face lit up with pleasure. “What are you saying, Brother Huang?” he said warmly. “Today, at last, you have seen into my heart. You may truly be called the first friend in all my life who has understood me. As for the brushwork being too much like drawn jians and bent bows, that is a great fault I have never been able to cure. Thank you for the lesson, Brother. You are right, quite right.” He turned to his son. “Have a feast laid, quickly.”

Guo Jing and Huang Rong hastily declined, saying, “There is no need to trouble yourself.”

But Lu Guanying had already left the room.

The Manor Master said, “With so discerning an eye, Brother, your learning must run deep in the family. Your honoured father must be some eminent scholar. May I ask his name?”

Huang Rong said, “What do I know, to earn such praise from the Manor Master? My father keeps a village school. He is unknown to fame.”

The Manor Master sighed. “A man of talent who never meets his chance. That has been the lament of every age.”

The feast was lavish in the extreme. After the wine they went back to the study to sit a while, and when they had talked a little longer the Manor Master said, “The Zhanggong and Shanjuan⁵ caves here are among the wonders of the world. You two might stay at my humble estate for a few days and admire them at leisure. But it grows late. Perhaps you wish to rest?”

Guo Jing and Huang Rong rose and took their leave. Huang Rong was just about to leave the room when suddenly, lifting her head, she saw nailed above the doorframe of the study eight iron plates arranged in the shape of the Eight Trigrams. Yet they were not laid out neatly like ordinary trigram diagrams. They were scattered, skewed and asymmetrical. Her heart gave a start, but she betrayed nothing, and followed the manor servant to the guest quarters.

The guest chambers were elegantly appointed, two beds facing each other, pillows and quilts immaculate. The servant brought fragrant tea, then said, “If you two sirs need anything, pull this bell-cord by the bed and we will come. But you must not go out at night for any reason.” With that he withdrew, closing the door softly behind him.

Huang Rong asked in a low voice, “What do you make of this place? Why did he tell us not to go out at night?”

Guo Jing said, “The manor is so vast, and the paths wind and twist through it. Perhaps he’s afraid we’ll lose our way.”

Huang Rong smiled faintly. “This manor is built very strangely.

“And what sort of man do you take this Manor Master Lu to be?”

Guo Jing said, “Some retired high official, I’d say?”

Huang Rong shook her head. “That man must know martial arts, and he must be a master too. Did you see the iron Eight Trigrams in his study?”

Guo Jing said, “Iron Eight Trigrams? What’s that?”

Huang Rong said, “They are used to train the Sky-Splitting Palm.⁶ Father taught me that palm technique, but I found it tedious and gave it up after less than a month. I never thought I would come across it again here.”

Guo Jing said, “The Manor Master certainly means us no harm. Since he hasn’t told us, let’s just act as if we don’t know.”

Huang Rong nodded with a smile. She chopped her palm through the empty air towards the candlestick. There was a hiss, and the flame died with the stroke.

“Fine palm work!” Guo Jing whispered. “Is that the Sky-Splitting Palm?”

Huang Rong laughed. “I only got this far. It’s amusing to play with, but utterly useless for striking an opponent.”

In the middle of the night a low moaning sound came suddenly from far away, and Guo Jing and Huang Rong both woke with a start. They listened hard. It seemed someone was blowing a conch shell. After a while the sound came again, one call answering another. It was not one person. The callers were far apart from one another, clearly signalling and responding.

Huang Rong whispered, “Let’s go and take a look.”

Guo Jing said, “Let’s not stir up trouble.”

Huang Rong said, “Who said anything about trouble? I said let’s take a look.”

The two pushed open the window softly and looked out. In the courtyard many people were carrying lanterns, and a good many more were coming and going, busy with who knew what. Huang Rong raised her head and saw on the roof three or four dark figures crouching there. As the lanterns shifted and a flash of light passed over them, weapons gleamed in their hands. They waited a while. All the people below began moving towards the outer gate of the manor. Huang Rong’s curiosity was roused. She pulled Guo Jing around to the west window. Seeing no one outside, she leapt lightly out. The men on the roof noticed nothing.

Huang Rong signalled to Guo Jing and set off the other way, towards the back. The paths through the manor wound east and west, turning and twisting. Most peculiar of all, the railings, pavilions and kiosks at every turning were exactly alike. After a few turns, how could one tell east from west, north from south? Yet Huang Rong moved as though through her own home, striding forward without hesitation. Sometimes there appeared to be no path ahead, but she would dart into a rockery or skirt a flowerbed, and somehow find herself in a covered corridor again. Sometimes it seemed they had reached a dead end, only for some secluded nook to open up behind a screen or beyond a great tree. A moon gate standing wide open across the path she would pointedly pass by, and instead push open a door in the wall that showed no trace of being there at all.

Guo Jing grew more amazed with every step. He whispered, “Rong-er, the paths in this manor are really strange. How do you know the way?”

Huang Rong gestured for him to be silent. They turned seven or eight more corners until they reached the wall of the rear courtyard. Huang Rong surveyed the terrain, counted on her fingers silently several times, then paced out steps on the ground. Guo Jing heard her murmuring, “Zhen one, Zhun three, Yi five, Fu seven, Kun…” He could not make sense of it. Huang Rong counted and walked. At one spot she stopped and said, “This is the only place we can get out. Everywhere else is rigged with traps.” She leapt up onto the wall, and Guo Jing followed her over.

Only then did Huang Rong say, “This manor is built according to the layout of Fu Xi’s Sixty-Four Hexagrams.⁷ These arts of the Strange Gates and Eight Trigrams are my father’s speciality. The Manor Master might puzzle an outsider, but he cannot puzzle me.” She was quite pleased with herself.

The two climbed a small hill behind the manor and looked east. They saw a line of people bearing lanterns and torches, walking towards the lake. Huang Rong tugged at Guo Jing’s sleeve, and the two of them sped after them by qinggong.⁸ When they were near, they crouched behind a boulder. Along the lakeshore was moored a row of fishing boats. People streamed aboard, and as soon as they boarded they doused their lanterns. The two waited until the last group had boarded and the shore lay dark, then slipped out quietly and landed on the stern of the largest covered boat. Amid the sound of poles being raised and boats casting off, they climbed onto the bamboo canopy roof and peered down through the gaps in the bamboo. Below, a single figure sat in the centre of the cabin, none other than the Young Manor Master Lu Guanying.

The boats rowed out a li or so.⁹ From the lake came once more the moaning call of the conch shell. A man on the large covered boat stepped to the bow and also blew a conch. They rowed out several li further. The surface of the lake was covered with small boats. As far as the eye could see, they were thick as ants, beyond counting, like a great sheet of green paper splattered with ink-dots. The man at the bow of the large boat blew three long blasts on the conch. The great boat dropped anchor in the middle of the lake. More than a dozen small boats came flying in from all directions.

Guo Jing and Huang Rong watched in astonishment, not knowing whether a battle was about to begin. They looked down at Lu Guanying, however, and saw he sat calm and composed, showing no sign of facing an imminent fight.

Before long the boats drew close. From each boat, men came across in ones and twos, or groups of three or four. All entered the cabin of the great boat and paid their respects to Lu Guanying before taking their seats. They were most deferential towards him, and the seating order seemed to have been fixed long before. Some who arrived first sat further down, while some who came later took the places of honour. In no more than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, all were settled. These men were rough and bold in bearing, their movements fierce. Though dressed as fishermen, every one of them was plainly trained in martial arts. These were no ordinary fishing folk.

Lu Guanying raised his hand and said, “Big Brother Zhang, what have you found out?”

A thin, small man in the assembly stood and said, “Reporting to the Young Manor Master: the Jin Empire’s imperial envoy is to cross the lake tonight, travelling through the night. Military Commander Duan will arrive in a little over a shichen.¹⁰ This time he has used the pretext of welcoming the Jin envoy to plunder his way here, which is why he comes late.”

Lu Guanying said, “How much has he squeezed from them?”

The man said, “Every prefecture and county has paid tribute. His soldiers have also been looting in the villages. When I watched him board the boat, his personal attendants were carrying more than twenty crates of goods, and all of them looked heavy.”

Lu Guanying said, “How many troops has he brought?”

The man said, “Two thousand horse. The ones crossing the lake are all foot soldiers. There aren’t enough boats, so about a thousand of them have embarked.”

Lu Guanying turned to the assembly. “Brothers, what do you all say?”

All cried in unison, “We await the Young Manor Master’s orders.”

Lu Guanying clasped his hands to his chest and said, “This wealth was wrung from the people’s blood and sweat. It is ill-gotten, and it is coming by way of Lake Tai. Not to take it would be an offence against Heaven’s way. We shall take every last bit of it. Half shall be distributed among the poor along the lakeshore. The other half shall be divided among the stockades.”

The crowd roared its approval.

Only now did Guo Jing and Huang Rong understand. These men were all bandit chiefs of Lake Tai, and this Lu Guanying appeared to be the supreme leader of all the stockades.

Lu Guanying said, “There’s no time to lose. We move at once. Big Brother Zhang, take five small boats and scout ahead again.” The thin man accepted the order and left the cabin. Lu Guanying continued assigning roles: who would lead the vanguard, who would serve as reinforcement, who would command the divers to bore holes in the enemy boats’ hulls, who would seize the goods, who would take the officers prisoner, all arranged with perfect order. Guo Jing and Huang Rong marvelled silently. Just now, sharing a feast with him, they had seen a refined and courteous young man, elegant in speech, the very picture of a nobleman’s son raised in comfort. Who would have guessed he could command a host of heroes and direct them with such assurance?

Lu Guanying had finished his orders and the men were about to disperse to their tasks, when a man in the assembly rose to his feet and said coldly, “We’re in the business that needs no capital. Living off rich merchants and big traders is enough for us. Go to war with the government on this scale, and can we stay on the lake afterwards? And the envoy of the Great Jin is the last man we can afford to cross.”

The voice sounded very familiar to Guo Jing and Huang Rong. They looked hard and saw it was none other than Ma Qingxiong,¹¹ the Soul-Devouring Whip, disciple of Sha Tongtian and one of the Four Ghosts of the Yellow River.¹² How he had come to be mixed in here, they could not say.

Lu Guanying’s face changed colour. Before he could reply, three or four of the bandits cried out in rebuke. Lu Guanying said, “Big Brother Ma is new here and does not know our customs. But since we are all of one mind to carry this out, even if we were utterly destroyed, we would die without regret.”

Ma Qingxiong said, “Fine, fine. You do your business. I’m not wading into this muddy water.” He turned and made to leave the cabin.

Two men barred the doorway, crying, “Big Brother Ma, you cut off the cockerel’s head and swore the oath with us. We share good fortune and we share hardship!”

Ma Qingxiong flung out both arms and cursed, “Out of my way!” The two men went tumbling aside. He was about to duck through the cabin door when suddenly he felt a gust of palm-wind strike at his back. He twisted sideways to dodge, and his left hand had already drawn a dagger from his boot. He stabbed backwards with it. Lu Guanying’s left hand shot out and knocked Ma Qingxiong’s left arm wide, and he stepped in with a palm strike. Ma Qingxiong swept his right hand to parry, and his left hand drove the dagger forward. The two fought at close quarters in the narrow cabin.

Footnotes

1. 岳飞 — Yuè Fēi (1103—1142). The most celebrated Song general of the wars against the Jin, executed on false charges. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 五湖废人 — Wǔhú Fèirén. Literally cripple of the Five Lakes. ↩

3. 陆庄主 — Lù Zhuāngzhǔ. Literally manor master Lu. See Wuxia Wiki (spoiler). ↩

4. 岳武穆 — Yuè Wǔmù. Yue Fei (1103—1142), the Song general, by his posthumous name Wumu, meaning martial and solemn, granted after his rehabilitation. See Wikipedia. ↩

5. 善卷 — Shànjuǎn. A legendary recluse of high antiquity who declined the throne offered to him by Shun. The Shanjuan Cave near Yixing bears his name. ↩

6. 劈空掌 — Pīkōng Zhǎng. Literally air-splitting palm. A palm strike that reaches its target without contact. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 伏羲六十四卦 — Fúxī Liùshísì Guà. The sixty-four hexagrams of the Book of Changes, whose trigrams legend credits to the sage-king Fu Xi. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

9. 里 — lǐ. A traditional unit of distance, about 500 metres or one-third of a mile. ↩

10. 时辰 — shíchén. Traditional Chinese unit of time equal to two hours; the day was divided into twelve shichen. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 马青雄 — Mǎ Qīngxióng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 黄河四鬼 — Huánghé Sìguǐ. Literally four ghosts of the Yellow River. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩