The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 18 – Part 7

Guo Jing gave a start, and thought, Can what Big Brother Zhou made me learn by heart be this very book? How does Island Master Huang come to have a copy too, and why does he say his wife is choosing the son-in-law herself?

Huang Yaoshi saw him sitting lost in a daze and assumed the boy had long since grown dizzy-headed from reading. He paid him no mind and continued turning the pages, one by one, at his leisure.

Ouyang Ke could remember the first few lines, but after that the text grew deep and obscure, full of Daoist terms, and since he had never studied this branch of neigong,¹ not one line made sense to him. The further he read, the harder the text became, until even half a line was difficult to hold, and he sighed inwardly in dismay. He thought, “Five fingers send out force, nothing so hard it is not broken, smash the enemy’s head as if piercing rotten earth.” What sort of nonsense is that? Can the Nine Yin Manual² really be so bizarre? Then he thought again, No matter what, I’m bound to remember more than this idiot. I’ve won this round for certain. At the thought his heart leapt for joy, and he could not help glancing towards Huang Rong.

He saw her stick out her tongue and pull a face at him, then suddenly say, “House Brother Ouyang, you carried off my Mu jiejie and shut her in a coffin in that ancestral hall, and stifled her alive. Last night she came to me in a dream, her hair all loose and her face covered in blood. She said she was coming for your life.”

Ouyang Ke had quite forgotten about the matter. Hearing her raise it so abruptly, he started and blurted, “Oh no, I forgot to let her out!” He thought, It’s a shame to have smothered the little wench. But seeing Huang Rong’s smiling face, he knew at once she was making it up, and asked, “How did you know she was in the coffin? Did you rescue her?”

Ouyang Feng could see that Huang Rong meant to distract his nephew so that he could not fix the text in memory. He said, “Ke-er, pay no heed to other matters. Concentrate on memorising the book.”

Ouyang Ke started and replied, “Yes.” He hurriedly turned his head back to the pages.

Guo Jing saw that every line in the booklet was something Zhou Botong had already taught him to recite. He had no need to read them again, for he knew them all.

What Huang Yaoshi had given the two young men to read and learn by heart was the lower volume of the Nine Yin Manual that Mei Chaofeng³ had returned not long before. He had reasoned that while the two recited, Ouyang Feng and Hong Qigong would be listening. It would not matter if Hong Qigong heard, but if Ouyang Feng heard and picked up some of the key principles and secret formulas of the first volume, a man of his talent and attainment might well advance his martial arts by them. And even if Ouyang Feng did not hear, Ouyang Ke need only have a tenth of the memory Huang Yaoshi’s late wife had had to retain a good deal of the text and write it out for his uncle to study with him, and that too would store up great trouble for the future. That was why he had given them the lower volume. Without the general principles of the first volume to guide the reader, the arts in the lower volume would read as a bewildering muddle, with no telling what any of it meant. And the final passage especially, with its gibberish strings of jumbled, senseless syllables, offered no logic whatsoever for the reader to grasp.

Years ago, after reading it, his wife had gone back to her room and at once written it out from memory, beginning with this very passage of gibberish, and even so she had been helpless. Matchless as her memory was, it held fast only to writing that made sense, which she never forgot once she had seen it. A long incantation thrown together at random, without the least sense to it, she simply could not remember clearly, try as she might. So in Madame Huang’s first transcription the text of both volumes was set down without a single error, except for this passage of gibberish in the lower volume, which came out confused and jumbled, crossed out and rewritten again and again, until she herself could not tell which lines were right and which were utterly wrong. Huang Yaoshi supposed that most of it was wrong to begin with, and that even if Ouyang Ke saw it, he could not possibly learn it by heart. It would be error on error, so it was no cause for concern.

Huang Yaoshi turned the pages slowly. Every sheet bore many stains and fingerprints. Sometimes the characters themselves were half obscured. When he reached the final passage, it was all gibberish without meaning. Ouyang Ke read a few characters and said, “Maha Polo, Jiedi Gulo… House Uncle Huang, this whole long passage is gibberish. I don’t understand a word of it. I can’t learn it by heart.”

Huang Yaoshi said, “That is of no consequence. Read and recite it as it is. It is difficult, to be sure, but if it were not difficult, it would not show off two such great talents.”

Guo Jing, when he had been made to memorise this “Maha Polo” gibberish, had been unable to eat or sleep properly for three days, tormented beyond measure. He had spent nearly ten whole days of sheer brute-force memorisation before he could recite it. Now, seeing it again, the words rose in his mind as naturally as flowing water.

Huang Yaoshi turned slowly to the last page. After the gibberish incantation, he saw several lines written in a crooked, slanting hand. He knew the first line at once: Even when first we met, my heart was already yours. How much more so now. The second line: When I wake from the wine, you are gone. A thousand petals, if not borne off by the stream, then borne away on the wind. The third line: One has grown old, all affairs have changed. Among the flowers, not drinking, tears dampen the robe. Now I wish only to close the gate and sleep, leaving the plum blossoms to fly like snow. And then, set apart by several lines, a few characters written in a still more crooked hand: Shifu, Shifu, kill me quickly. I have wronged you. I want to die at your hands. Shifu, Shifu.

When he had recovered the lower volume from Mei Chaofeng, he had seen that the transcript was spotted with tear stains and blotched with blood, and he knew his disciple had suffered greatly because of it. Pity had risen in him unbidden. Now, turning to the last page and seeing those lines, he recalled how she had once taken hold of his left hand, shaking it gently, coaxing and pleading in her wheedling way, crying, “Shifu, Shifu!” and he could not help heaving a long sigh.

Those lines of verse, from Ouyang Xiu and Zhu Xizhen, he had once set down in his own hand. His eldest disciple Qu Lingfeng⁴ had seen them and passed them on to Mei Chaofeng, who had kept them in her heart ever after. Later she had written them at the end of the Manual. The ink had bitten deep, though some strokes were worn away by sand. He judged she had written them while her eyes still saw, for the characters stood straight and the brushwork was clear. The text followed hard upon the gibberish incantation, and the hand was altogether unlike his late wife’s. Had she written them after going blind, the lines could never have run so true, nor avoided overlapping the incantation above.

After his marriage, he and his wife had loved each other deeply, and he had never said a word more to Mei Chaofeng than he needed to. Now, recalling those old days, he thought too of how the illicit attachment between his two disciples, Chen and Mei, had been discovered by Qu Lingfeng, and how the fight between Qu and Chen had followed. After that, he had taken little further notice of either of them, teaching them no more arts. Their theft of the Nine Yin Manual could be said to have been forced on them, and half of it was his own doing, and their plight had been a pitiful one too. At the thought, a desolate sadness came over him.

When Ouyang Ke and Guo Jing reached the last part, Ouyang Ke was still reading “Jiedi Gulo…” and had not finished, but Huang Yaoshi, not wishing either of them to see what Mei Chaofeng had written, closed the booklet and said, “Those strange characters are exceedingly hard to memorise. There is no need to read further.”

Seeing the blank look on both their faces, Huang Yaoshi asked, “Which of you will recite first?”

Ouyang Ke thought to himself, The text in the booklet is so abstruse that I do not understand the first word of it, and remembering it is near impossible. If I go while it’s still fresh in my mind, I can surely recite more. So he said quickly, “Let me go first.”

Huang Yaoshi nodded, then said to Guo Jing, “Go over to the edge of the bamboo grove. Do not listen to his recitation.” Guo Jing did as he was told and walked several dozen paces away.

Huang Rong saw her opening and thought, This is our chance to slip away. She started towards Guo Jing on tiptoe.

Huang Yaoshi called out, “Rong-er, come here. You listen to them recite, so no one can say I am biased.”

Huang Rong said, “You are biased already. There is no need for anyone to say it.”

Huang Yaoshi laughed and scolded, “No manners at all. Come here!”

Huang Rong said out loud, “I won’t, so there.” But she knew her father too well. Once his attention was fixed, there would be no slipping away. She must think of something else. She strolled over slowly, gave Ouyang Ke a dazzling smile, and said, “House Brother Ouyang, what’s so good about me that you’re so fond of me?”

Ouyang Ke felt his head swim. “Little sister, you… you…” he said, grinning, but for the moment he could get no further.

Huang Rong went on, “Don’t be in such a hurry to go back to the Western Regions. Stay on Peach Blossom Island a few more days. It’s very cold in the Western Regions, isn’t it?”

Ouyang Ke said, “The Western Regions are vast. There are cold places in plenty, to be sure, but in some spots the wind is warm and the sun bright, just like Jiangnan.”

Huang Rong laughed. “I don’t believe you! You just love telling fibs.”

Ouyang Ke was about to argue when Ouyang Feng said coldly, “Child, there’s time enough later for idle talk. Recite the book, quickly!”

Ouyang Ke started. With Huang Rong’s interruption, much of what he had forced into his memory had already slipped away. He collected himself and slowly began to recite, “The Way of Heaven takes from what is in excess and gives to what is deficient. Therefore the void overcomes the solid, and deficiency overcomes excess…”

He was indeed gifted beyond the ordinary. The opening lines setting out the general principles he recited without a single error. But of the deep Daoist methods that followed, for cultivating neigong, circulating neili,⁵ turning the breath and harmonising yin and yang, he understood nothing, and he managed barely a tenth of them. And with Huang Rong beside him constantly breaking in with “No, that’s wrong!”, by the end he could not manage even half of that, while of the strange gibberish at the back he could not produce a single line.

Huang Yaoshi smiled. “To recite as much as that, you have done very well indeed.” He raised his voice and called, “Worthy nephew Guo, come over and recite!”

Guo Jing walked over. Seeing the self-satisfaction on Ouyang Ke’s face, he thought, This man is truly talented. He read it through just once and remembered all those passages. I could never do that. I can only recite what Big Brother Zhou taught me. It will surely be wrong, but there is nothing for it.

Hong Qigong said, “Silly boy, they’re set on making fools of us. The two of us had better admit we’re beaten.”

Huang Rong suddenly stamped her foot, leapt up onto the bamboo pavilion, and with a twist of her wrist pressed a dagger to her own breast. She cried, “Father, if you insist on making me go off to the Western Regions with that stinking brat, then I’ll kill myself before your eyes today.”

Huang Yaoshi knew his precious daughter was one who did what she said. He called, “Put down the dagger. We can talk this through.”

Ouyang Feng slammed his staff into the ground. With a strange, moaning sound, a bizarre projectile shot from the staff’s tip and flew straight at Huang Rong. The hidden weapon was so fast that she had not even seen it coming. There was a sharp clang, and the dagger was knocked from her hand to the ground.

Huang Yaoshi leapt up onto the pavilion and put his arm about his daughter’s shoulder. He said gently, “If you truly do not wish to marry, then so be it. You can stay on Peach Blossom Island and keep your father company for your whole life.”

Huang Rong stamped her feet and wept. “Father, you don’t love Rong-er, you don’t love Rong-er.”

Hong Qigong could not help roaring with laughter to see Huang Yaoshi, the great demon who in years past had roamed the lakes and seas at will and killed without blinking, so tied in knots by a little girl that he did not know what to do.

Ouyang Feng thought to himself, Let me settle the matter first and be rid of the old beggar and that boy surnamed Guo. What follows will be easy enough. What does it matter if a girl is being petulant? He said, “Worthy nephew Guo’s martial arts are formidable and his neili most unusual. He is a true young hero, and his powers of memorisation must be excellent as well. Brother Yao, pray let him recite.”

Huang Yaoshi said, “Quite right. Rong-er, if you carry on like this, you will only throw worthy nephew Guo’s thoughts into confusion.” Huang Rong fell silent at once.

Ouyang Feng, bent on watching Guo Jing make a fool of himself, said, “Worthy nephew Guo, please begin. We are all here to listen.”

Guo Jing flushed crimson with embarrassment, and thought, There’s nothing for it. I’ll just have to stumble through what Big Brother Zhou taught me.

What Huang Yaoshi had given the two of them to read was the text of the lower volume, which began with “The Way of Heaven”, so Guo Jing left out the first volume and began from “The Way of Heaven” too, reciting, “The Way of Heaven takes from what is in excess and gives to what is deficient…”

The text of the Nine Yin Manual he had gone over no fewer than several hundred times. Now, reciting it aloud, he was perfectly fluent, without the slightest hesitation. He had barely finished half a page before the entire company sat stunned, and each of them thought, Great wisdom looks like folly. So this is how clever he really is. In the time it takes to blink, Guo Jing had recited clean through to the fourth page. Hong Qigong and Huang Rong knew better than anyone that he could possess no such brilliance, and their bewildered joy was mingled with the deepest astonishment.

Huang Yaoshi turned the pages of the transcribed lower volume in his hands, and listened as Guo Jing recited without a single mistake. Several lines in the transcript were missing characters, smeared with blood, water or sweat or worn away by sand and grit, damage that must have been done after Chen Xuanfeng⁶ and Mei Chaofeng stole it, in the hardships of their training. Yet Guo Jing recited straight on without a pause, the sense running smoothly from one line to the next. In some places the text quoted Laozi’s Daodejing and Zhuangzi’s Nanhua Jing,⁷ and though words and phrases were missing, Guo Jing supplied every one of them as he recited. Huang Yaoshi had read those books and knew he had them right. A chill went through him and he broke out in a cold sweat all over, and he thought, Can my departed wife truly have shown her spirit, remembered the text in the netherworld and passed it on to this young man?

He listened as Guo Jing recited on, flowing like a river, until even the final jumbled passage of gibberish incantation came out smooth and fluent. At last, he finished.

Huang Yaoshi was convinced. He raised his head to the sky and murmured, “Aheng, Aheng, your love for me runs so deep that you borrow this young man’s voice to teach me the Manual. Why will you not let me see you, even once? I play the flute for you every night. Can you hear it?”

“Aheng” was his late wife’s childhood name. No one else knew it. The others saw his face change, tears glistening in his eyes, as he muttered who knew what, and they were all puzzled.

Huang Yaoshi stood lost in thought for a moment. Then something occurred to him, and his face hardened as though covered with a layer of frost. He asked sharply, “The Nine Yin Manual that Mei Chaofeng had. When you were with her, you saw it, didn’t you?”

Guo Jing saw the killing intent in his eyes and was thoroughly alarmed. He said, “Senior Mei caught me, and I couldn’t struggle free. She made me her horse… I never saw her Manual. At the time she wanted only to strangle me and avenge her husband. She would never have let me read any Manual.”

Huang Yaoshi saw no trace of cunning in his face. Moreover, what Guo Jing had recited, and above all the final passage of gibberish, was far more than the transcript held. He reflected that his late wife’s memory had been incomplete in life, but now, with a spirit’s powers, she would surely remember it all. For all of Huang Yaoshi’s vast learning and brilliance, he would not ordinarily have credited so improbable a thing as instruction from beyond the grave. But his love for his wife bordered on obsession, his grief on madness. He longed for it to be true, and so his late wife choosing a son-in-law from the netherworld had become the thing he wished to believe. He felt joy and grief together, and said in a clear voice, “Very well. Seventh Brother, Brother Feng, this is the son-in-law my late wife has chosen, and I have nothing more to say. Child, I give Rong-er to you in marriage, and you must treat her well. I have spoilt her, so you must make allowances for her.”

Huang Rong’s heart leapt for joy at his words, and she laughed. “I’m perfectly good as I am. Who says you’ve spoilt me?”

Guo Jing, slow as he was, needed no prompting from Huang Rong this time. He dropped to his knees at once, kowtowed, and said, “Thank you, Father-in-law!”

He had not yet risen when Ouyang Ke suddenly cried, “Hold on!”

Footnotes

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

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

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

4. 曲灵风 — Qū Língfēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

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

7. 南华经 — Nánhuá Jīng. Literally Classic of Nanhua, the honorific title of the Zhuangzi, one of the two founding texts of Daoist philosophy alongside the Daodejing. ↩