The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 15 – Part 3

Guo Jing and Huang Rong waited until the others were well away, then leapt clear of the garden and followed at a distance. Before long they reached the outskirts of the town. The eight women carried the cloth bag into a large house, and the beggars scattered to surround it on all sides.

Huang Rong tugged Guo Jing’s hand and dashed to the rear wall. They vaulted over and found themselves in an ancestral hall.¹ Countless spirit tablets² were enshrined in the main hall, and beneath the beams hung plaques inscribed with the titles of clansmen who had won official rank. Four or five red candles burned brightly in the hall. A man sat in the middle, gently waving a folding fan. Guo Jing and Huang Rong had guessed it would be Ouyang Ke,³ and now the sight confirmed it. They shrank back outside the window, not daring to stir, and thought, I wonder whether Li Sheng⁴ is a match for him?

The eight women bore the cloth bag into the main hall and announced, “Young Master, we have fetched Young Mistress Cheng.”

Ouyang Ke gave two cold laughs, raised his head and called out of the hall, “Friends, since you have done me the honour of calling, why not come in and show yourselves?”

The beggars hidden along the tops of the walls and at the corners of the roofs knew they had been detected. But without a command from Li Sheng, none of them stirred.

Ouyang Ke tilted his head and glanced at the bag on the floor. He sneered, “Who would have thought the beauty’s gracious presence could be had so easily?” He stepped forward unhurriedly, and with a light flick of his folding fan⁵ he had closed it into something like an iron stylus.

When Huang Rong and Guo Jing saw the gesture and the look on his face, both started. They knew he had seen that an enemy lay hidden in the bag and was about to strike to kill. Huang Rong held three steel needles poised in her hand, ready to fire the instant his fan descended, to save Li Sheng. Suddenly two sleeve-arrows⁶ shot through the window lattice with a whistling hiss, flying straight at Ouyang Ke’s back. The beggars outside had likewise recognised the danger and struck first.

Ouyang Ke flipped his left hand. His index and middle fingers clamped one arrow, and his palm shifted slightly, his ring finger and little finger catching the other. Two sharp cracks, and the short arrows snapped into four pieces. The beggars were aghast.

Yu Zhaoxing⁷ shouted, “Li shishu,⁸ come on out.” Before his voice had faded, a sharp rip split the air. The cloth bag tore open and two flying daggers shot out. Through a flash of steel Li Sheng rolled low out of the bag, seized it and shook it wide as a shield before him, then sprang to his feet. He had long known that Ouyang Ke’s martial arts were formidable, and that a head-on fight might not end in his favour. His plan had been to hide inside the bag and launch a surprise attack. Who could have guessed the other man would see through it all the same?

Ouyang Ke laughed. “The beauty has turned into an old beggar. A fine cloth-bag trick, very fine indeed!”

Li Sheng shouted, “In three days four girls have vanished from this district. So that was your handiwork, sir?”

Ouyang Ke smiled. “Baoying County⁹ isn’t poor, is it? So why have the constables turned into beggars?”

Li Sheng said, “I wasn’t begging here to begin with. But yesterday a young beggar told me that four girls had been snatched in this town, so this old beggar came over on a whim to take a look.”

Ouyang Ke drawled, “Those girls aren’t much to speak of. Since you want them, and we all belong to the one wulin,¹⁰ I’ll give them to you out of regard for you. A beggar eating dead crabs will say every one is good, so you’ll probably treat those four girls like treasures.” He waved his right hand. Several female disciples went inside and brought out four young women, each with dishevelled clothes and haggard faces, their eyes red and swollen from weeping.

When Li Sheng saw them in that state, anger flared in his chest. He barked, “Friend, what is your honoured name, and whose disciple are you?”

Ouyang Ke kept his air of careless indifference. “My surname is Ouyang. And what would you have of me, old brother?”

Li Sheng barked, “Let’s you and I trade a few moves.”

Ouyang Ke replied, “Nothing would please me more. Come on, then.”

“Good!” Li Sheng raised his right hand and was about to strike when, without warning, a white blur flickered before his eyes and a gust of wind stirred behind his back. He sprang forward in haste, but his opponent had already brushed the nape of his neck. Had he been a hair slower, the vital acupoint there would have been seized. Li Sheng was an eight-bag disciple¹¹ of the Beggars’ Guild,¹² a man of high seniority and formidable skill. The beggars of the Huainan East and West Circuits all served under his command. He was a big name in the Guild, yet at the very first exchange he had nearly been taken down. Heat rose to his face. Without turning, he lashed out with a reverse palm-strike.

Huang Rong whispered in Guo Jing’s ear, “He knows the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing too!”

Guo Jing nodded.

Seeing how ferocious the blow was, Ouyang Ke did not dare meet it head-on and sprang aside. Only then did Li Sheng turn to face him. He stepped forward, both hands cupped before his chest as if holding something, and whirled round in a circle.

Guo Jing murmured beside Huang Rong’s ear, “That’s a move from the Carefree Wandering¹³ fist technique, isn’t it?”

Huang Rong nodded too, but noticed that Li Sheng’s fist-work was heavy and lacked the light, flowing grace that Carefree Wandering should carry.

Ouyang Ke saw that his footwork was steady, his hands heavy and his moves subtle and unusual, and did not dare take him lightly. He tucked the folding fan into his waist sash, dodged the circular strike, and fired a fist like a flash of lightning at Li Sheng’s right shoulder. Li Sheng deflected it with “Reach Out When Rice Comes,”¹⁴ a move from Carefree Wandering. Ouyang Ke hooked his left fist in, waiting for the other man to raise his arm to block. In an instant he had darted behind him, the five fingers of each hand bunched into a sharp point, and the two points drove together at the vital acupoints on Li Sheng’s back.

Huang Rong and Guo Jing both started, thinking, That one will be hard to stop.

The beggars stationed outside, seeing Li Sheng engaged in combat, surged into the hall. In the lamplight they caught sight of Li Sheng in peril and tried to rush to his aid, but it was already too late.

Li Sheng heard the wind of the attack behind him and already felt the faintest touch at his clothes. In that single instant he whipped his arm back in a horizontal strike, the very move he had used before, Divine Dragon Sweeps Its Tail¹⁵ from the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing.

This move drew from the “Lü” hexagram of the Book of Changes.¹⁶ In the original Twenty-Eight Palms of Dragon Subduing it had been called “Treading the Tiger’s Tail,”¹⁷ like coming at a tiger from behind and treading on its tail, so that the tiger turns its head and bites back, and nothing could be more ferocious than that. Later heirs to the art altered the move a little, made the strike still more ferocious, and renamed it “Divine Dragon Sweeps Its Tail.” Ouyang Ke did not dare receive that palm. He threw his body backwards and just managed to dodge.

Li Sheng cried out silently to himself, That was close! He turned to face his opponent again. His skill was far less refined than Ouyang Ke’s. After thirty or forty exchanges he had already been pushed to the brink five or six times, and each time he pulled through with that single move, “Divine Dragon Sweeps Its Tail.”

Huang Rong whispered to Guo Jing, “Qigong has only taught him one palm.”

Guo Jing nodded. He remembered the day he had fought Liang Ziweng¹⁸ with a single stroke of “Proud Dragon Repents,”¹⁹ and reflected that Hong Qigong had taught even the senior figures of his own Guild only one palm, while he himself had been granted fifteen. A surge of gratitude rose in him.

Ouyang Ke stepped forward, pressing the attack, forcing Li Sheng back step by step into the corner of the hall. He had seen through the secret: the man had only one palm that carried real power, and that palm was always launched from behind, with a reverse-body turn. So he drove him into the corner where there was no room to wheel around.

Li Sheng saw through the plan and tried to step out of the corner and into the centre of the hall. He had barely taken one step when Ouyang Ke let out a long, ringing laugh, drove forward with a straight fist, and slammed it into his jaw with a thud. The pain jolted Li Sheng, and alarm seized him. He raised his arm to block, but Ouyang Ke’s left fist was already there. In moments he took five or six blows to the head and chest. His head spun and his limbs went soft. He swayed a few times and fell to the ground.

The beggars of the Guild surged forward to rescue him. Ouyang Ke turned, seized the two beggars who had dashed in foremost, and hurled them at the wall. They slammed into it and were knocked senseless. The rest dared not advance.

Ouyang Ke sneered, “Who do you think the Young Master is? You think I’d fall into the trap of a pack of stinking beggars? Let me show you someone!” He clapped his hands. Two female disciples pushed a woman out from the inner hall. Her hands were bound behind her back and she looked utterly spent. Tears streamed ceaselessly down her jade-white cheeks. It was Young Mistress Cheng.²⁰

This caught everyone completely off guard. Huang Rong and Guo Jing were as puzzled as the rest.

Ouyang Ke waved his right hand and the female disciples led Young Mistress Cheng back inside. He said with a self-satisfied air, “The old beggar was up on the second floor wriggling about in his cloth bag, never knowing that this humble one was guarding the staircase. So I invited Young Mistress Cheng to come back here ahead of you, and waited for you to arrive.”

The beggars exchanged glances, thinking that this time they had suffered a complete defeat.

Ouyang Ke shook his folding fan. “The Beggars’ Guild has quite a name, but seeing it today is enough to make a man laugh his teeth out. Your Chicken-Stealing Dog-Filching Fist, your Rice-Begging Snake-Catching Palm, you bring them all out and make fools of yourselves. Do you still dare meddle in the Young Master’s affairs? For the sake of your Guild Chief²¹ Hong, I’ll spare the old beggar’s life. I’ll only borrow his two eyes as a keepsake.” With that he extended two fingers and thrust them towards Li Sheng’s eyes.

Suddenly a voice shouted, “Wait!” A figure leapt into the hall and thrust a palm towards Ouyang Ke.

Ouyang Ke felt a fierce gust of palm-wind slam into his chest. He dodged sideways, but the wind still caught him. He staggered back two steps and thought in alarm, Since leaving the Western Regions, I’ve run into expert after expert. Who is this man, to have such neili?²² He looked more closely and was even more astonished. The young man standing between him and Li Sheng was none other than Guo Jing, the very youth who had sat at the same banquet with him at Prince Zhao’s estate. His martial arts were ordinary. How could that palm just now have been so heavy and fierce?

Guo Jing said, “You have done evil without end, and instead of hurrying to mend your ways, you want to harm good people too. Are Guild Chief Hong’s men yours to bully as you please?”

Ouyang Ke decided the palm had been a fluke and paid the youth no real heed. He glanced at him sidelong and smiled, “Are you one of the Beggars’ Guild too?”

Guo Jing said, “I’m not worthy to rank among the Guild’s brave men. But I take the liberty of advising you: release Young Mistress Cheng and go back to the Western Regions soon, of your own accord.”

Ouyang Ke laughed. “And if I don’t take your advice, my young friend?”

Before Guo Jing could reply, Huang Rong’s voice rang in from outside the window, “Jing gege,²³ beat that rotten scoundrel!”

At the sound of Huang Rong’s voice, Ouyang Ke’s heart and mind were thrown into turmoil. He smiled, “Miss Huang, if you want me to release Young Mistress Cheng, that’s easy enough. Just come along with me. Not only Young Mistress Cheng, I’ll free every woman I have with me, and I promise never to bother another one. How does that sound?”

Huang Rong vaulted through the window into the hall and laughed, “That sounds lovely. A trip to the Western Regions would be rather fun. Jing gege, don’t you think?”

Ouyang Ke shook his head, still smiling. “I only want you to come with me. What would I do with this stinking boy tagging along?”

Huang Rong flared with anger. She backhanded him, crying, “You’re calling him stinking? You’re the stinking one!”

Ouyang Ke had been watching her approach, smiling and chatting, her loveliness beyond compare, with a touch of guileless innocence that made her all the more enchanting. His soul had long since floated away. How could he have expected her to turn on him so suddenly? He was quite off his guard, and the slap was a subtle move from the Peach Blossom Falling Petals Palm.²⁴ With a smack it caught him full on the left cheek. Huang Rong’s neili was not yet deep, so it did not injure him, but his face burned hot and stung fiercely.

Ouyang Ke spat and suddenly reached out with his left hand, clawing at her chest. Huang Rong neither dodged nor yielded. She drove both fists down at the top of his head.

Ouyang Ke was a lecher, and when he saw that she did not dodge, his heart leapt with joy. He was willing to take her two fists on his head if it meant touching her breast. But the instant his fingers brushed her clothing he felt a faint prick, and only then did he realise with a start, Ah, she’s wearing the Soft Hedgehog Armour.²⁵ Luckily he had meant only to take liberties, not to hurt her, and had put no strength into the grab. He hastily raised his arm and fended off her fists.

Huang Rong laughed. “You’ll get nothing out of fighting me. I’m allowed to hit you, but you’re not allowed to hit me.”

Footnotes

1. 祠堂 — cítáng. An ancestral hall, where a clan keeps the spirit tablets of its forebears and performs its rites. ↩

2. 神主牌位 — shénzhǔ páiwèi. Tablets inscribed with the names of the dead, enshrined in an ancestral hall for worship. ↩

3. 欧阳克 — Ōuyáng Kè. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 黎生 — Lí Shēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 折扇 — zhéshàn. Ouyang Ke’s folding fan, used for striking acupoints. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 袖箭 — xiùjiàn. Literally sleeve arrow. A small bolt concealed in the sleeve and released by a spring, a common hidden weapon. ↩

7. 余兆兴 — Yú Zhàoxīng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 师叔 — shīshū. Junior lineage uncle. The shidi or shimei of one’s shifu. Shī means teacher. Shū means father’s younger brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 宝应 — Bǎoyìng. A county in Jiangsu, on the Grand Canal. See Wikipedia. ↩

10. 武林 — wǔlín. Literally martial forest. Those who actually practise, teach or study martial arts. The wulin sits inside the jianghu and is narrower than it: every member of the wulin belongs to the jianghu, but a pedlar or physician of the jianghu who never trained is no part of the wulin. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 八袋弟子 — bādài dìzǐ. Literally eight-bag disciple. A senior rank in the Beggars’ Guild, whose members are ranked by the number of bags they carry. ↩

12. 丐帮 — Gàibāng. Literally beggars’ guild. The largest band in the jianghu, with members throughout the realm. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 逍遥游 — Xiāoyáoyóu. Literally carefree wandering, after the first chapter of the Zhuangzi. A fist technique. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 饭来伸手 — Fànlái Shēnshǒu. Literally rice comes, the hand reaches out: a beggar’s twist on the idiom 衣来伸手，饭来张口, of one waited on hand and foot. A move of Carefree Wandering. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 神龙摆尾 — Shénlóng Bǎi Wěi. Literally divine dragon swings its tail. A move of the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing. ↩

16. 易经 — Yìjīng. The Book of Changes, one of the Five Classics, a divination manual that became a philosophical text on the patterns of change. The line on the arrogant dragon comes from its first hexagram, Qian. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 履虎尾 — Lǚ Hǔ Wěi. Literally treading on the tiger’s tail, from the Lü hexagram of the Book of Changes. ↩

18. 梁子翁 — Liáng Zǐwēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

19. 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. ↩

20. 程大小姐 — Chéng Dà Xiǎojiě. Literally eldest young lady Cheng. ↩

21. 帮主 — bāngzhǔ. Literally guild master. The head of a guild. ↩

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

23. 靖哥哥 — Jìng gēge. Literally elder brother Jing. ↩

24. 桃华落英掌 — Táohuā Luòyīng Zhǎng. Palm technique with palm shadows like scattering peach blossoms. Originally called 落英神剑掌 (Falling Petals Divine Sword Palm) in earlier editions. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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