The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 14 – Part 2

Manor Master Lu had never dreamt that Qiu Qianren,¹ famous across the land and so free with his boasts, would crumple at a single blow. He had been caught between exasperation and amusement when Mei Chaofeng² suddenly appeared. He could barely recognise her face now, but from the look of her it could only be she, and fear and grief seized him all at once. Wanyan Kang,³ overjoyed to see his shifu, stepped forward to pay his respects, and the others were astonished to find the two of them calling each other shifu and disciple.

Manor Master Lu cupped his fists and said, “Mei shijie,⁴ we parted more than ten years ago, and today we meet again at last. Is Chen shige⁵ well?”

The Six Eccentrics and Guo Jing⁶ heard him address Mei Chaofeng as shijie and exchanged glances, each feeling a chill. Ke Zhen’e⁷ thought, We have walked into a trap today. Mei Chaofeng alone is hard enough to beat, and now she has her shidi⁸ as well.

Huang Rong,⁹ however, nodded quietly to herself, thinking, This Manor Master’s martial arts and letters, his talk and his ways, are all copied from my father. I suspected long ago that he must have some tie to our family, and sure enough, he is my father’s disciple.

Mei Chaofeng said coldly, “Is that Lu Chengfeng¹⁰ speaking, Lu shidi?”

The Manor Master replied, “It is your brother. Have you been well since we parted, Shijie?”

Mei Chaofeng said, “What do you mean, well? I’m blind. Can’t you see that? And your Xuanfeng shige¹¹ was murdered long ago. Does that please you?”

Lu Chengfeng was shocked and glad at once. Shocked, because the Twin Evils of Dark Wind¹² had run rampant across the land, so how could they have fallen to an enemy? Glad, because one formidable foe was gone and the one who remained was blind. Then he thought of the days when they had learnt their arts together on Peach Blossom Island,¹³ and he could not help sighing. “Who was the enemy who killed Chen shige? Have you avenged him, Shijie?”

Mei Chaofeng said, “I am still searching for them everywhere.”

Lu Chengfeng said, “This younger brother shall lend what strength he has. Once we have avenged our school’s grievance, we can settle the old account between you and me.”

Mei Chaofeng snorted.

Han Baoju¹⁴ slapped the table and leapt up, bellowing, “Mei Chaofeng, your enemies are right here.” He was about to hurl himself at her when Quan Jinfa¹⁵ hastily held him back.

Mei Chaofeng started at the sound and stammered, “You… you…”

Guo Jing’s palm had hurt Qiu Qianren to the very core, and only now was the pain beginning to ease. He said in a ringing voice, “Revenge? Settling scores? You don’t even know your own shifu has been murdered, and you still play the hero and the brave man?”

With a twist of her hand Mei Chaofeng seized his wrist. “What did you say?” she cried.

Her grip hurt Qiu Qianren to the marrow. “Let go, quick!” he cried.

Mei Chaofeng ignored him. “What did you say?”

Qiu Qianren said, “The Master of Peach Blossom Island, Huang Yaoshi,¹⁶ has been killed!”

Lu Chengfeng cried out, “Is that true?”

Qiu Qianren said, “Why would it not be true? Huang Yaoshi was surrounded and killed by the Seven Zis of Quanzhen,¹⁷ the disciples of Wang Chongyang.¹⁸”

The moment he said it, Mei Chaofeng and Lu Chengfeng threw themselves down and wept aloud. Huang Rong went over backwards with a thud, chair and all, and fainted. No one had believed at first that a martial artist as peerless as Huang Yaoshi could be killed, but when they heard that the Seven Zis of Quanzhen had set on him together, they could not help believing it. With Ma Yu,¹⁹ Qiu Chuji,²⁰ Wang Chuyi and the others joining their strength against him, Huang Yaoshi could very likely not have held them off.

Guo Jing hastily gathered Huang Rong up in his arms, calling again and again, “Rong-er, wake up!” Her face was deathly pale and her breath no more than a thread, and he cried out in panic, “Shifu, Shifu, quick, save her.”

Zhu Cong²¹ came over and felt her breath at her nostrils. “Don’t be afraid. Grief has been too much for her and she has fainted, that’s all. She won’t die!” Putting strength into his fingers, he rubbed the Laogong acupoint²² in her palm a few times.

Huang Rong slowly came to and wailed, “Where is my father? Father, I want my father!”

Lu Chengfeng was astounded, and then he understood. He thought, If she were not Shifu’s daughter, how could she have known of the Nine Flower Jade Dew Pills?²³ Tears streaming down his face, he cried aloud, “Little Shimei,²⁴ let’s go and fight those thieving Daoists of the Quanzhen Order to the death. Mei Chaofeng, will you… will you come or not? If you won’t, I’ll fight you first! It was all… all your doing. You killed our shifu.”

Lu Guanying²⁵ saw that grief had made his father incoherent, and hurried to steady him. “Father, don’t grieve so. Let us think this through carefully.”

Lu Chengfeng wept aloud, “Mei Chaofeng, you wretched woman, you have brought me bitter suffering. You shamelessly took a lover, and that was bad enough, but why did you have to steal our shifu’s Nine Yin Manual?²⁶ In his fury Shifu broke the leg bones of all three of us and drove us off Peach Blossom Island. All I hoped was that one day he would relent, take pity on me for being dragged down by the two of you, and take me back into the shimen.²⁷ Now he is dead, and my one hope, to serve him again and repay all he did for me, is gone for good.”

Mei Chaofeng cursed, “I called you spineless before, and I call you spineless still. Time and again you brought people against my husband and me, until we had nowhere to turn, and that was why we came to grief in the Mongol desert. And now, instead of planning how to avenge our shifu, you blubber and whimper and settle old scores with me. Let’s go after those seven thieving Daoists. If you can’t walk, I’ll carry you on my back.” All the while she spoke, she wept without stopping.

Huang Rong could only cry, “Father, I want my father!”

Zhu Cong said, “Let us first get to the bottom of this.” He walked over to Qiu Qianren and brushed the dust from his clothes. “My young disciple knew no better and has given great offence. I beg you to forgive him, Senior.”

Qiu Qianren said angrily, “I am old and my eyes are dim. I slipped for a moment. It does not count. Let us try again.”

Zhu Cong patted him lightly on the shoulder and gave his left hand a squeeze, smiling. “Your skill is superb, Senior. There’s no need for another bout.” Still smiling, he went back to his seat, picked up a wine cup in his left hand, pinched its rim between two fingers of his right and turned it round and round. Suddenly his right hand shot out flat, and the edge of his palm struck the rim. There was a tock, and a ring of porcelain about half an inch high flew off and landed on the table. He set the cup down with his left hand. Its rim was perfectly level, a band lower than before. It was exactly what Qiu Qianren had done a little earlier, and everyone was astonished.

Zhu Cong laughed. “Your skill is remarkable indeed, Senior, and this junior has stolen it from you. My apologies, my apologies, and many thanks, many thanks.”

Qiu Qianren’s face changed completely. Everyone could tell there was a trick to it, though for the moment none of them could see how it worked.

Zhu Cong called, “Jing-er, come here. Shifu will teach you this skill, so you can frighten and deceive people in future.”

Guo Jing stepped forward. Zhu Cong removed a ring from the middle finger of his left hand and said, “This belongs to Esteemed Senior Qiu. I borrowed it just now. Put it on.”

Qiu Qianren was at once startled and furious, unable to understand how a ring that had plainly been on his own hand had ended up on Zhu Cong’s finger.

Guo Jing put the ring on as instructed. Zhu Cong said, “There’s a diamond set in this ring, and nothing is harder. Grip the cup hard with the diamond pressed against it, then turn the cup with your right hand.”

Guo Jing did as he was told. By now everyone understood, and Quan Jinfa and the others could not help laughing. Guo Jing tapped the cup’s rim lightly with his right palm, and a ring of porcelain fell away at once. The diamond in the ring had scored a deep groove right round the cup. There had never been any profound neigong²⁸ at all.

Huang Rong found it so funny that she laughed through her tears, but then she thought of her father and began to weep again.

Zhu Cong said, “Don’t cry just yet, young lady. Esteemed Senior Qiu here loves fooling people. His words are like an old dog passing wind. They don’t necessarily smell sweet.”

Huang Rong was puzzled. Zhu Cong smiled. “Your honoured father, Mister Huang, has no equal in martial arts anywhere. How could anyone kill him? Besides, the Seven Zis of Quanzhen are all men who keep to the rules, and they have no feud with your father. Why would they come to blows with him?”

Huang Rong said urgently, “It must be over Zhou Botong,²⁹ the shishu of Qiu Chuji and those other ox-nosed Daoists.”

Zhu Cong asked, “How so?”

Huang Rong wept. “You don’t know.” Clever and wary as she was, she would not normally have believed what she was told so readily. But for one thing, this was her own father, and for another, there truly was a grave quarrel between Huang Yaoshi and Zhou Botong. That the Seven Zis of Quanzhen should join forces against her father was something she could not help believing.

Zhu Cong said, “Be that as it may, I still say there’s a bit of a stink to this doddering old fool’s words.”

Huang Rong said, “You say he’s passing dog… dog…”

Zhu Cong said with a perfectly straight face, “Quite right, dog farts! And he has a whole lot of sneaky things up his sleeves. Guess what they’re for.” He took them out one by one and laid them on the table: two bricks, a tightly bound bundle of dry thatch, a piece of tinder, a fire-steel and a flint.

Huang Rong picked up a brick and squeezed, and it crumbled in her hand. She rubbed it a few times and it turned to powder. Zhu Cong’s reasoning had eased her grief a great deal, and a smile dimpled both her cheeks. “These bricks are made of flour, and just now he was showing off his superb neigong by crushing a brick to powder!”

Qiu Qianren’s old face turned green one moment and white the next. He wished the ground would swallow him. He had fabricated the news of Huang Yaoshi’s death hoping to slip away in the confusion, but now every one of his deceptions had been laid bare by Zhu Cong. He turned on his heel and made swiftly for the door. Mei Chaofeng reached back, seized him and slammed him to the floor. “You said my shifu is dead. Is it true or not?” she cried. The throw was a tremendous one. Qiu Qianren groaned and whimpered, unable to speak for a long while.

Huang Rong noticed that the bundle of dry thatch had scorched marks at its tips and understood at once. “Second Shifu, light this bundle and hide it in your sleeve, then take a puff and blow it out.”

The Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan had held something of a grudge against Huang Rong, but now that they were all set against Qiu Qianren, they shared a common enemy. Zhu Cong had always rather liked Huang Rong’s sly, quirky ways, which suited his own temper, and when he heard her call him “Second Shifu” he was more delighted still. He did exactly as she said, even closing his eyes and wagging his head with an air of great solemnity.

Huang Rong clapped and laughed. “Jing gege, when we watched this doddering old fool practising his neigong just now, wasn’t it exactly like this?” She walked to Qiu Qianren’s side and said with a bright smile, “Get up.” She offered her hand to help him stand, then suddenly flicked her left hand and struck the Shendao acupoint³⁰ beneath his fifth thoracic vertebra with the Orchid Acupoint-Tracing Hand.³¹ “Is my father dead or not? If you say he’s dead, I’ll have your life.” With a flick of her hand, a gleaming steel Emei piercer was pressed against his chest.

The others found her question amusing. She was asking for information, yet forbidding him to say that Huang Yaoshi was truly dead.

Qiu Qianren felt waves of aching and itching run through him, more than he could bear. He said in a shaking voice, “I dare say he may not be dead after all.”

Huang Rong beamed. “That’s more like human talk. I’ll spare you.” She squeezed his Quepen acupoint³² a few times and freed him.

Lu Chengfeng thought, Little Shimei is asking only what she wants to hear, and it gets us nowhere. He asked, “You say my shifu was killed by the Seven Zis of Quanzhen. Did you see it with your own eyes, or is it hearsay?”

Qiu Qianren said, “I heard it from someone.”

Lu Chengfeng asked, “Who?”

Qiu Qianren hesitated. “Hong Qigong.”³³

Huang Rong asked urgently, “When did he say this?”

“A month ago.”

Huang Rong asked, “Where was Qigong when he told you?”

“On the summit of Mount Tai.³⁴ I was fighting him. He lost to me, and he happened to mention it.”

Huang Rong was overjoyed. She leapt forward, grabbed the front of his robe with her left hand, and plucked several hairs from his white beard with her right, giggling. “Qigong lose to a doddering old fool like you? Mei shijie, Lu shige, don’t listen to his… his…” Being a girl, she could not bring herself to say the coarse word.

Zhu Cong finished for her, “His grandmother’s stinking dog farts!”

Huang Rong said, “A month ago Hong Qigong was here in Jiangnan³⁵ with Jing gege and me. Jing gege, give him another palm!”

Guo Jing said, “Right!” and made to spring at him.

In terror, Qiu Qianren turned and ran, and seeing Mei Chaofeng at the door, he fled deeper into the hall instead. Lu Guanying stepped in to stop him, but one shove sent him staggering aside. Qiu Qianren may have been a fraud who deceived the world, but he still possessed genuine martial arts. Otherwise how would he have dared to take on the Six Eccentrics and Guo Jing? Lu Guanying was no match for him.

Huang Rong sprang over, spread her arms and asked, “You walked across the water with an iron vat on your head. What skill is that?”

Qiu Qianren said, “That is a qinggong³⁶ all my own. My epithet is ‘Iron Palm Skims the Water’,³⁷ and that was the ‘Skims the Water’.”

Huang Rong laughed. “Ah, still making things up as you go. Are you going to talk or not?”

Qiu Qianren said, “I am old now, and my martial arts are not what they were, but I have not let my qinggong go.”

Huang Rong said, “Good. There’s a big goldfish vat in the courtyard outside. Show us your ‘Skims the Water’ and open all our eyes. Did you see it? Out of the hall door, under that osmanthus tree on the left.”

Qiu Qianren said, “How can anyone show off a skill in a vat of water…”

Before he could finish, something flashed before his eyes, his feet were caught tight, and he was hanging upside down. Mei Chaofeng shouted, “Death is at your door and you’re still lying.” Her White Python Whip³⁸ held him coiled in mid-air. Following the directions Huang Rong had given, she gave the silver whip a light shake, and with a splash he plunged into the vat.

Huang Rong ran to the edge of the vat and flourished her Emei piercer. “If you don’t talk, I won’t let you out, and Skims the Water will turn into Burrows Under It.”

Footnotes

1. 裘千仞 — Qiú Qiānrèn. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 梅超风 — Méi Chāofēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 完颜康 — Wányán Kāng. See Wuxia Wiki (spoiler). ↩

4. 师姐 — shījiě. Female senior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Jiě means older sister. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

6. 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. ↩

7. 柯镇恶 — Kē Zhèn’è. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 师弟 — shīdì. Male junior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Dì means younger brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 黄蓉 — Huáng Róng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 陆乘风 — Lù Chéngfēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 陈玄风 — Chén Xuánfēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 黑风双煞 — Hēifēng Shuāngshà. Literally twin evils of the dark wind. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

14. 韩宝驹 — Hán Bǎojū. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 全金发 — Quán Jīnfā. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 黄药师 — Huáng Yàoshī. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 全真七子 — Quánzhēn Qīzǐ. Literally the seven zi of Quanzhen, zi being an honorific for a master. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

18. 王重阳 — Wáng Chóngyáng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

19. 马钰 — Mǎ Yù. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

20. 丘处机 — Qiū Chǔjī. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

21. 朱聪 — Zhū Cōng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

22. 劳宫穴 — Láogōng Xué. Literally palace of toil. An acupoint in the centre of the palm. ↩

23. 九花玉露丸 — Jiǔhuā Yùlù Wán. Huang Yaoshi’s elixir, compounded with the dew of nine kinds of flower and hard to make. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

24. 师妹 — shīmèi. Female junior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Mèi means younger sister. ↩

25. 陆冠英 — Lù Guānyīng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

26. 九阴真经 — Jiǔyīn Zhēnjīng. Literally true scripture of the nine yin. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

27. 师门 — shīmén. Literally the teacher’s gate. The house of one’s shifu: the master, the fellow disciples, and the rules and obligations binding them. ↩

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

29. 周伯通 — Zhōu Bótōng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

30. 神道穴 — Shéndào Xué. Literally spirit path. An acupoint on the spine, beneath the fifth thoracic vertebra. ↩

31. 兰花拂穴手 — Lánhuā Fú Xuè Shǒu. Huang Rong’s hereditary art of brushing the acupoints with the fingers, prized for being fast, accurate, strange and clear. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

32. 缺盆穴 — Quēpén Xué. Literally broken basin point. An acupoint in the hollow above the collarbone. ↩

33. 洪七公 — Hóng Qīgōng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

34. 泰山 — Tài Shān. Mount Tai, the eastern of the Five Sacred Mountains, in Shandong. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

35. 江南 — Jiāngnán. Literally south of the river. Prosperous region south of the Yangtze River, encompassing modern-day southern Jiangsu, northern Zhejiang, and Shanghai. ↩

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

37. 铁掌水上飘 — Tiězhǎng Shuǐshàng Piāo. Literally iron palm floating on water. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

38. 白蟒鞭 — Báimǎng Biān. Literally white python whip. Mei Chaofeng’s extremely long whip. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩