The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 13 – Part 5

Wanyan Kang said, “I am an imperial envoy of the Great Jin. They dare not harm me lightly. But held here like this, I shall fail in the great affairs of war and state my royal father entrusted to me. What is to be done? Little sister, help me with one thing.”

Mu Nianci asked, “What?”

Wanyan Kang said, “Untie the golden seal from around my neck.”

Mu Nianci reached to his collar and felt the small seal, then loosened the silk ribbon that held it. Wanyan Kang said, “This is the seal of the Great Jin’s imperial envoy. Take it at once to Lin’an and seek an audience with the Song chancellor, Shi Miyuan.”

Mu Nianci said, “Chancellor Shi? I am a common woman of no rank. Why would the Chancellor receive me?”

Wanyan Kang laughed. “The moment he sees this golden seal, he will be tripping over himself to welcome you. Tell him I have been seized by bandits on Lake Tai and cannot go to him in person. I want him to remember one thing: if any Mongol envoy comes to Lin’an, he must on no account see them, but seize them and have their heads off at once. This is the secret edict of His Majesty of the Great Jin. He must carry it out.”

Mu Nianci said, “Why?”

Wanyan Kang said, “These are matters of state. You would not understand even if I explained. Just deliver those words to the Chancellor and you will have done me a great service. If the Mongol envoys reach Lin’an first and meet with the Song court, it will be a grave disadvantage to our Great Jin.”

Mu Nianci said angrily, “What do you mean, ‘our Great Jin’? I am a loyal subject of the Great Song. If you do not explain yourself clearly, I will not do this errand for you.”

Wanyan Kang smiled. “Will you not be a princess of the Great Jin someday?”

Mu Nianci rose to her feet in a flash. “My adoptive father is your own flesh-and-blood father. You are a true Han, through and through. Do you truly mean to be some Jin prince? I always thought…I always thought you…”

Wanyan Kang said, “Thought what?”

Mu Nianci said, “I always took you for a man of both wisdom and courage. I believed you served the Jin court in pretence only, waiting for your chance to do some great deed for the Great Song. You, you really mean to recognise thieves as your father?”

Wanyan Kang heard her tone change completely and her voice catch in her throat. She was plainly beside herself with anger, and he said nothing.

Mu Nianci went on, “More than half the Great Song’s territory has been seized by the Jin. Our Han people are plundered and slaughtered, bullied and beaten, and you do not care at all? You…you…” She could go no further. She flung the golden seal to the ground, covered her face and walked away.

Wanyan Kang called after her, his voice trembling, “Little sister, I was wrong. Come back.”

Mu Nianci stopped and turned. “Well?”

Wanyan Kang said, “Once I am out of this danger, I’ll be done with this wretched envoy business, and I won’t go back to the Jin. I’ll go south with you and live quietly on the land. That is better than this ache in my heart day after day.”

Mu Nianci breathed a long sigh and stood without speaking. Since their contest of martial arts, she had given him her whole heart, convinced he was a hero and a man of valour beyond compare. His refusal to acknowledge his true father must, she reasoned, hide some deeper purpose. When he took office as the Jin envoy, she had made excuses for him again: he must be placing himself where he could act, planning some bold and glorious enterprise to drive out the enemy and restore the Song. How could she have known that all of it was a young woman’s fond delusion? This man was no hero, no man of valour. He was a shameless traitor, selling his country for glory. The thought cut her to the heart, and all her hopes turned to ash.

Wanyan Kang said softly, “Little sister, what is it?”

Mu Nianci did not answer.

Wanyan Kang said, “My mother said your adoptive father was my own father. Before I could get to the bottom of it, the two of them were dead. It has been weighing on my mind. A matter as great as my own birth can’t just be settled without the truth coming out.”

Mu Nianci felt a little comforted, and thought, He still doesn’t know the truth about himself. I can’t blame him too much. She said, “Don’t speak of taking your golden seal to the Chancellor ever again. I’ll go and find Huang meizi¹ and get the short jian to save you.”

Huang Rong had intended to return the short jian to her there and then, but having overheard Wanyan Kang’s speech, and angry that he should be scheming on the Jin Empire’s behalf, she thought, My father hates the Jin above all things. Let him stay locked up a few days longer.

Wanyan Kang asked, “The paths in this manor are exceedingly strange. How do you find your way?”

Mu Nianci said, “Luckily two masters guided me from the shadows, though I do not know who they are. They refused to show themselves.”

Huang Rong laughed to herself and thought, Jing gege and I, masters? Since when?

Wanyan Kang mused for a moment, then said, “Little sister, if you come again, I’m afraid the manor’s experts will catch you. If you truly mean to save me, go and find someone for me.”

Mu Nianci said crossly, “I am not looking for any dead chancellor or living chancellor.”

Wanyan Kang said, “Not a chancellor. I want you to find my shifu.”

Mu Nianci gave a soft cry of surprise.

Wanyan Kang said, “Take this belt from me. On the golden ring of the belt, carve thirteen characters with the point of a dao, ‘Wanyan Kang in peril, Returning Clouds Manor, west shore of Lake Tai.’ Then go thirty li north of Suzhou to a barren mountain. Find nine human skulls piled together: one on top, three in the middle, five at the base, and lay the belt beneath the first skull.”

Mu Nianci listened in growing bewilderment. “What is this for?”

Wanyan Kang said, “My shifu is blind. When she feels the characters carved on the golden ring, she will come and rescue me. That is why the characters must be cut deep.”

Mu Nianci said, “Isn’t your shifu the Perfected One Changchun, Daoist Elder Qiu? How could his eyes be blind?”

Wanyan Kang said, “Not that Daoist surnamed Qiu. Another shifu of mine. After you leave the belt, do not linger. Leave at once. My shifu has a peculiar temper. If she finds anyone standing near the skulls, she may harm you. Her martial arts are of the highest order. She will certainly rescue me. Wait for me before the Xuanmiao Temple in Suzhou.”

Mu Nianci said, “You must swear an oath. Never again to recognise thieves as your father, never to sell your country and harm the people.”

Wanyan Kang flushed with displeasure. “Once I have the whole truth, I will act as my conscience dictates. What use is it to force an oath out of me now? If you will not go and seek help for me, that is your choice.”

Mu Nianci said, “Very well! I will go and carry your message.”

She untied the belt from his person.

Wanyan Kang said, “Little sister, you are leaving? Come here and let me kiss you.”

Mu Nianci said, “No!” She rose and walked towards the door.

Wanyan Kang said, “I fear that before my shifu arrives to save me, they will have killed me first. Then I shall never see you again.”

Mu Nianci’s heart softened. She sighed and drew close, nestling against him, letting him kiss her face several times. Then all at once she said, with flat finality, “If you do not turn out a good man in the end, I shall have no remedy, and can only blame my own ill fate. I will die before your eyes.”

Wanyan Kang held soft jade in his arms. All he wanted was to coax her with tender words and win her back to taking the golden seal to the Chancellor. He felt her body tremble, her breathing quicken, her feelings plainly stirred, and he had never dreamt she would say anything so final. He froze, and in that moment Mu Nianci rose and went out of the door.

When she emerged, Huang Rong guided her as before along the paths. Mu Nianci ran to the perimeter wall and called out softly, “Senior, since you will not show yourself, this humble woman can only kowtow to the empty air in thanks for your great kindness.” She knelt and bowed her head three times against the ground.

There was a sweet little laugh, and a clear voice said, “Oh my, I really don’t deserve that!”

Mu Nianci raised her head. Stars filled the sky and the shadows of flowers covered the ground. There was not a soul in sight. She wondered greatly. The voice had sounded much like Huang Rong, but how could she be here, and how would she know the manor’s labyrinthine paths? She pondered the question all the way out, and though she walked more than ten li from the manor, she could arrive at no answer. She dozed beneath a great tree until dawn, then took a boat across Lake Tai and reached Suzhou.

Suzhou was a seat of splendour in the southeast, then called Pingjiang Prefecture.² Though it could not match the capital Lin’an, it was a city brocaded from gate to gate, its roads bright with blossoms. The emperor and ministers of the Southern Song, content to live at ease on half a realm south of the river, had long forgotten the peoples of the north who groaned beneath Jin iron heels. Suzhou and Hangzhou had always been rich, as the saying goes, “Above there is Heaven, below there are Su and Hang,” and now all the revenues of the lands south of the Huai River were gathered here too. In the beauty of their gardens and the splendour of their people, no other city in the realm could match them.

Mu Nianci had no mind for such sights. She found a hidden corner, drew out Wanyan Kang’s belt, and carefully carved the thirteen characters upon the golden ring. She stroked the belt, remembering that only a short while ago it had girded his waist, and she hoped that he would come through safe and sound and wear this golden belt again. Still more she hoped that he might yet understand where his duty lay, so that she could be joined to him in marriage and fasten this belt on him with her own hands. She sat dreaming a while, then tied the belt on under her clothes, and her heart could not help fluttering as she thought, This belt is just like his arm, round my waist. At once her face flushed crimson, and she dared not let her thoughts go further. She ate some noodles at a small shop, and when the sun slanted west she set out for the northern suburbs, following Wanyan Kang’s directions to find his shifu.

The further she went, the wilder the road became. The sun sank behind the hills and strange bird-calls sounded from the distance. She could not help feeling uneasy. She left the main path and searched among the valleys on the far side of the hills. But night fell full and still she had found no sign of the pile of skulls Wanyan Kang had described. She considered whether there might be a house nearby where she could beg lodging for the night and resume her search at dawn. She climbed a knoll and looked about. In the west, by the shoulder of a hill, she made out the shape of a building. Her spirits rose and she ran towards it.

Close to, it was a ruined temple. A broken board above the door bore the three characters Earth God Temple.³ She pushed at the door and it fell backwards with a crash, sending up a cloud of dust and ash. The temple had long been forsaken. She entered the hall. The images of the Earth God and his wife were thick with cobwebs and grime. She pressed hard on the offering table a couple of times, and to her relief it was still sound. She gathered some straw, wiped it clean, propped the broken door upright, ate some of her dry provisions, laid her bundle on the table for a pillow, and stretched out to sleep.

Once her mind was still, her thoughts went straight to Wanyan Kang and the kind of man he was. She was grieved for herself, and sorry for him, and the tears came. Then she remembered his tender words and a sweetness stole through her. So she was pulled between east and west, her heart turned a hundred ways, until the second watch⁴ before sleep took her at last.

Deep into the night, through a haze of dreams, she heard a strange hissing outside the temple. Startled awake, she sat upright. The sound was louder now. She ran to the door and looked out. Her heart hammered. Under the bright moon, green snakes in their hundreds and thousands were winding away eastward, and a rank, fishy smell poured through the cracks in the door. After a long while the stream of snakes thinned. Then came footsteps. Three men in white, each carrying a long pole, were bringing up the rear of the snakes. She shrank behind the door, afraid of being seen, and listened until the footsteps passed. Then she peered again through the crack. The last of the snakes had gone. The wilderness was silent. It might have been a dream. She could scarcely believe what she had seen with her own eyes.

Slowly she pushed open the broken door and looked about. A few steps in the direction the snakes had gone, and the white-clad men were already out of sight, and she felt a little easier. She turned back towards the temple. And then she saw it. Where the moonlight fell on a distant rock, lay a heap of white things, most uncanny in shape. She drew close and cried out softly. It was a neat pile of human skulls. One on top, three in the middle, five at the base. Nine white bone skulls, neither more nor less.

She had spent the whole day searching for these nine skulls, yet to come upon them suddenly in the dead of night, their aspect so ghastly, set her heart pounding. She stepped closer, drew Wanyan Kang’s belt from her robe, and reached out with her right hand to take the topmost skull. Her arm trembled. The moment her fingers touched bone, all five sank into five small holes at the crown of the skull, as if the skull had opened its mouth and bitten her hand. It was so utterly unexpected. She wrenched her arm back and the skull came with it. She screamed, spun, and ran. Three steps later she understood her own panic and could not help laughing at herself. She set the belt on top of the three middle skulls and pressed the crown skull down over it. She thought, His shifu really is strange. I wonder how frightful she looks?

She prayed silently, Venerable shifu, may you find the belt and go to his rescue at once, and make him turn from evil and be a good man from this day on.

Her mind filled with the image of Wanyan Kang, iron chains coiled about him, iron shackles on his wrists, handsome of face, moving in speech, when she felt a light tap on her shoulder.

It gave her no small fright. She dared not turn. Her right foot kicked off and she leapt clear of the skull pile, palms raised before her chest. Only then did she whirl. The instant she faced about, a hand tapped her shoulder again from behind.

Mu Nianci spun round and saw a man in scholar’s dress, waving a folding fan, his bearing easy and elegant. It was Ouyang Ke,⁵ one of the men who had driven her adoptive father and mother to their deaths in the Central Capital. Rage and terror surged together. She knew she was no match for him, and turned to flee.

Ouyang Ke had already circled in front of her. He spread his arms and waited with a smile. Another step and she would have thrown herself into his embrace. Mu Nianci checked herself hard and darted left. She ran only a few dozen feet before he was before her again. She tried one direction after another. There was no shaking him.

Ouyang Ke saw her face drained of colour and was all the more amused. He knew he could seize her with a single reach, but chose to toy with her at leisure. Mu Nianci, seeing the danger, drew the Willow-Leaf Dao from her waist and slashed twice at his head.

Ouyang Ke laughed. “Oh dear, none of that!” He leaned slightly aside. His right hand swept her arms wide, and his left darted through and locked about her waist.

Footnotes

1. 妹子 — mèizi. The colloquial form of 妹妹, little sister; after a name it marks affection, not kinship. ↩

2. 平江府 — Píngjiāng Fǔ. The Song-era name for Suzhou, one of the wealthiest cities of the Southern Song. ↩

3. 土地庙 — Tǔdì Miào. Literally earth god temple. A small shrine to the Earth God, the local deity who watches over a place and its people. ↩

4. 更 — gēng. A night watch, one of the five periods of about two hours into which the night was divided. ↩

5. 欧阳克 — Ōuyáng Kè. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩