The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 19 – Part 2

Huang Yaoshi said not another word. He pointed and led the way, and with a surge of power in his stride he was through into the bamboo grove as if flying. Hong Qigong took Guo Jing by his left hand and Huang Rong by his right, Ouyang Feng took his nephew by the arm, and the two men followed behind with their finest qinggong.¹ Winding and twisting though the path was, in a few moments the six of them were outside Zhou Botong’s cave.

Huang Yaoshi saw from a distance that there was no one in the cave. “Eh!” he exclaimed under his breath, and sprang lightly up as though treading on air. A few bounds took him to the mouth of the cave.

His left foot had barely touched the ground when he felt it drop away into empty space. Caught by surprise, he did not panic in the least. His right foot kicked at the air, and on that impetus he sprang up and darted further in. As he came down his left foot touched the ground lightly, and found another hole where it landed. Now there was nothing under him to push against. He reached back, drew his jade flute² from his collar and braced it sideways against the cave wall, and his body shot backwards out of the cave like an arrow.

Drawing the flute, bracing the wall, turning and leaping back, it had all happened in an instant.

Hong Qigong and Ouyang Feng, struck by the beauty of his movement, cried out in praise together. Then came a soft plop, and they saw that both Huang Yaoshi’s feet had sunk into a deep hole in the ground outside the cave.

He had barely felt something wet and soft and slimy underfoot when his feet touched bottom. A slight push of his toes sent him up into the air. Seeing that Hong Qigong and the others had already walked up to the cave without the ground giving way, he came down beside his daughter. At once a foul stench hit his nose, and when he looked down, both his shoes were smeared all over with dung.

Everyone marvelled in silence. With martial arts as great as Huang Yaoshi’s and wits as quick, how could he have fallen into someone else’s trap?

Huang Yaoshi was beside himself. He broke off a branch and probed the ground with it, tapping here and there, but apart from the three holes he had already fallen into, it was all solid earth. Plainly Zhou Botong had foreseen that he would fall into the first hole as he rushed up to the cave. He had foreseen too that with qinggong as fine as his the first hole would not catch him, and that he would leap further in, so he had dug a second hole inside the cave. Knowing that the second would not catch him either, he had worked out exactly where he would land when he leapt back out, dug a third hole there, and dumped a pile of dung in it.

Huang Yaoshi went into the cave. There was nothing in it but a few earthenware jars and bowls, and on the wall he could just make out several lines of writing.

Ouyang Feng had laughed to himself when Huang Yaoshi fell into the trap. Now, seeing him go up to the wall and peer at it, he thought that every last needle and thread here might bear on whether he could get the Nine Yin Manual,³ and that nothing must be overlooked, so he hurried up close to look as well. Carved into the wall with something sharp were these words.

“Old Heretic Huang, you broke my legs and kept me shut up here for fifteen years. By rights I should break your legs too and get my own back. Then I thought it over and decided to let you off. Herewith a great heap of dung and several jars of stinking piss. Help yourself, help yourself…”

Below the words “Help yourself, help yourself” a leaf had been stuck to the wall, covering what came after.

Huang Yaoshi reached out and lifted the leaf, and saw that a fine thread was attached to it. Without thinking he gave it a tug. There was a sudden rattling overhead, and realising at once what it was, he leapt to the left. Ouyang Feng was just as quick. The moment he saw Huang Yaoshi move, he leapt to the right. But with a clattering crash, several jars fell at the same moment from the roof of the cave on the left and on the right, and both men were drenched in stinking urine from head to foot.

Hong Qigong shouted, “What a lovely smell, what a lovely smell!” and roared with laughter.

Huang Yaoshi, beside himself with rage, broke into a stream of abuse. Ouyang Feng, who never let his feelings show on his face, merely smiled. Huang Rong ran back, fetched clean clothes and shoes for her father, and gave one of his gowns to Ouyang Feng to change into as well.

Huang Yaoshi went back into the cave and examined it carefully, top to bottom and side to side, but there were no more traps. When he looked at the place the leaf had covered, he found two lines of tiny characters carved there.

“On no account pull the leaf, for stinking urine will pour down from above. Whatever you do, whatever you do, don’t say you weren’t warned.”

Huang Yaoshi did not know whether to be angry or to laugh. Then it suddenly struck him that when the urine had poured over his head, it had still been faintly warm. He turned and went out of the cave. “Old Wild Child⁴ left not long ago. Let’s go after him.”

Guo Jing thought, If the two of them come face to face, there’s bound to be a terrible fight. He was about to try to talk Huang Yaoshi out of it, but Huang Yaoshi had already gone off eastwards. Knowing how strange the paths on the island were, the others dared not fall behind and kept close on his heels. They had not been chasing long when, sure enough, they saw Zhou Botong ahead, strolling along.

Huang Yaoshi put on speed, and in a flash he was right behind him, his hand swooping down to seize him by the neck.

Zhou Botong sidestepped to the left, spun round, and called out, “My sweet-smelling Old Heretic Huang!”

That grab held decades of Huang Yaoshi’s hard training. It was swift beyond measure and fierce beyond compare, and maddened as he was by the dung and the urine, he had put his full strength into it. Yet Zhou Botong had avoided it with the most casual turn of his body, as if the heaviest blow were nothing at all. Huang Yaoshi’s heart missed a beat, and he pressed the attack no further. When he looked properly, he saw that Zhou Botong’s hands were tied together with rope in front of his chest, that he was smiling, and that he looked thoroughly pleased with himself.

Guo Jing hurried forward a few steps and said, “Big Brother, Island Master Huang has become my father-in-law. We are all one family now.”

Zhou Botong sighed. “Father-in-law, what father-in-law? Why wouldn’t you listen to me? Old Heretic Huang is as sly and contrary as they come. Do you think his daughter will be easy to get along with? You’ll have misery enough to swallow for the rest of your life. Good brother, let me tell you, a man can do anything at all under heaven, and having a few jars of stinking piss poured over his head every day doesn’t matter either, but the one thing he must never do is take a wife. Luckily you haven’t made the wedding bows with her yet, so slip away quick while you can. Hide yourself far off, where she’ll never find you as long as she lives…”

He was still rattling on when Huang Rong came forward, smiling. “Big Brother Zhou, who’s that coming up behind you?”

Zhou Botong turned to look. There was no one there. Huang Rong flung the smelly clothes her father had just changed out of straight at him. Zhou Botong heard it coming and stepped aside, and with a slap the long gown hit the ground and fell open, spreading its stink all round.

Zhou Botong laughed so hard he rocked back and forth. “Old Heretic Huang, you locked me up for fifteen years and broke both my legs, and all I’ve done is make you tread in a couple of piles of dung and get a head full of piss, and we’ll call it quits. That’s fair to you, surely?”

Huang Yaoshi reflected that there was something in this. It was true that he had made Zhou Botong suffer a great deal, and the revenge was very small. His anger cooled, and he bowed with joined hands. “Thank you, Brother Botong, for your great forbearance. I have wronged you a great deal these years, and I am truly sorry.” Then he asked, “Why have you tied your hands together?”

Zhou Botong said, “This hermit has his reasons. The secrets of heaven must not be revealed.” He shook his head over and over, looking gloomy.

In the years that Zhou Botong had been trapped in the cave, there had been times when he could contain himself no longer and wanted to rush out and fight Huang Yaoshi. But each time he thought better of it: he could not defeat Huang Yaoshi in the end, and if he were killed or had his acupoints sealed, the Nine Yin Manual hidden in the cave would surely be searched out. So he had endured. The Seven Zis of Quanzhen⁵ knew that their shishu treated life as a game and came and went like a ghost, and when there had been no sign of him for more than ten years, they simply assumed he had gone off on some lark of his own, in which case not even the immortals could find him. They never guessed he was imprisoned on Peach Blossom Island, and the thought of searching for him never occurred to them.

That day, prompted by Guo Jing, Zhou Botong had realised that without meaning to he had mastered a supreme martial art, that of dividing the mind and striking with both hands at once, and that however great Huang Yaoshi’s skill, he could not beat two Zhou Botongs. Ever since, he had been turning over in his mind how to take his revenge for fifteen years of torment.

After Guo Jing left, Zhou Botong sat in the cave, and the loves and hates, the debts and grudges of decades past rose in his mind one scene after another. Then from far away came the sound of three things warring together, the jade flute, the iron zither and a long whistling cry. For a moment his mind ran wild and he could not hold himself still. Suddenly he thought, My sworn brother’s skill is nowhere near mine. Why couldn’t Old Heretic Huang’s flute move him?

He had not been able to work it out at the time. But he had spent many days with Guo Jing since then and come to understand his nature, and now, after a moment’s reflection, he saw it at once. He thought, That’s it, that’s it! He’s so young, he knows nothing of all that strange business between men and women, so much fun and so much trouble. Besides, he’s simple and pure by nature. As the saying goes, he who has no desires is strong, and he has never lost the heart of a child. An old fellow my age, why am I still brooding on revenge? So petty, it’s really laughable when I think about it!

Though he was not a Quanzhen Daoist, he had always been steeped in the Quanzhen teachings of purity, stillness and non-action, of a mind indifferent to the world and silent before the mysteries. Now he woke as if from a dream, gave a long laugh and stood up. Outside the cave the sky was vast and clear, white clouds drifted above, and his mind was empty and bright. The fifteen years of torment Huang Yaoshi had put him through shrank at once to the squabble of chickens and insects, a trifling thing that no longer troubled his heart.

But then he thought, Once I shake out my robe and go, I’ll never come back to Peach Blossom Island. If I don’t leave Old Heretic Huang something, what will he have to remember me by? So he tucked the Manual away inside his robe and set to work with great gusto, digging holes, doing his business in them, pissing in jars and hanging them up. Only when he had finished all that did he leave the cave.

He had gone a few steps when he thought, The paths on this island are so strange, I’ve no idea how to find my way out. If Brother Guo stays here, the odds are all against him. I must take him with me. If Old Heretic Huang tries to stop me, ha ha, Old Heretic Huang, when it comes to fighting, one Old Heretic Huang is no match for two Old Wild Children!

Pleased with the thought, he swung out his hand idly, and with a crack it snapped a sapling by the path. He thought with a start, How has my neili⁶ grown like this? This has nothing to do with Ambidextrous Self-Combat.⁷ He leaned on a flowering tree and stood thinking for a while in a daze. Then both his hands lashed out, crack, crack, crack, crack, and seven or eight trees snapped one after another. He thought, shaken to the core, This is the martial art of the Nine Yin Manual. I… I… when did I ever practise it? In an instant he broke out in a cold sweat all over and cried again and again, “There’s a ghost, there’s a ghost!”

He had kept his shixiong Wang Chongyang’s dying injunction firmly in mind and had never dared to practise the martial arts in the Manual. But in teaching Guo Jing, reciting and explaining it every day, he had without knowing it printed the text deep in his mind. In his sleep and his dreams his mind had grasped its meaning, and the wondrous skills had formed of themselves, so that now every move of fist or foot he made matched the principles and methods of the Manual. His martial arts ran deep and his insight into them was extraordinary, and besides, the Nine Yin Manual was pure Daoist learning, one in principle with everything he had studied all his life. He did not want to learn its martial arts, but its martial arts had thrown themselves upon him.

He shouted at the top of his voice, “Oh no, oh no, this is what they call letting a ghost into your body, and now I can’t drive it out. I meant to play a grand joke on Brother Guo, and instead I’ve picked up a rock and dropped it on my own foot.”

He moped for a long while, knocking himself on the head again and again. Then he had a strange idea. He peeled off a few strips of bark, twisted them into a cord, and with the help of his teeth tied his hands together, muttering, “From now on, unless I can forget every last scrap of the martial arts in the Manual, I’ll just have to fight nobody as long as I live. Even if Old Heretic Huang catches up with me, I won’t lift a finger, so as not to break my shixiong’s injunction. Ah, Old Wild Child, Old Wild Child, you’ve brought it on yourself, and this time you’ve really been had.”

Footnotes

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

2. 玉箫 — yù xiāo. Huang Yaoshi’s jade xiao, a vertical flute he plays and fights with. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

4. 老顽童 — lǎo wántóng. Literally old wild child. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

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

7. 双手互搏 — Shuāngshǒu Hùbó. Fighting technique where both hands operate independently, allowing each hand to perform different techniques simultaneously. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩