The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 22 – Part 3

Ouyang Feng waited a moment. There was no sign of life in the pine, but from behind the hill came a whooshing of wind, as if someone were practising fist work. He hurried towards the sound, and when he rounded the slope he was astounded. There was Hong Qigong,¹ plying his moves in a fight with Guo Jing,² palms flying and feet lashing out, the bout tight and fast. Huang Rong³ saw that her shifu could not only walk on his own but seemed to have recovered his neili⁴ as well, and she was all the more amazed and delighted. She heard him call, “Jing-er, look out for this one!” He pushed out a palm. Guo Jing raised his own palm to meet it, but before the two palms touched, his body suddenly flew backwards and hit a pine with a heavy thud. The tree was not very big, but it was as thick as the mouth of a bowl, and with a loud crack the force of Hong Qigong’s push snapped it clean through the middle. The upper half went flying and crashed to the ground.

The crash itself was no great matter, but it left Ouyang Feng⁵ open-mouthed and staring.

Huang Rong cried admiringly, “Shifu, what a Sky-Splitting Palm!⁶”

Hong Qigong called, “Jing-er, circulate your neili to protect yourself, or my palm force will injure you.”

“I know!” said Guo Jing. The words were barely out when Hong Qigong’s palm force came again, and with another crack Guo Jing crashed into a second pine and brought it down. One launching the blows, the other taking the force, in a matter of moments Hong Qigong’s Sky-Splitting Palm had sent Guo Jing smashing through ten great trees, one after another.

Huang Rong called out, “That’s ten trees already.”

Guo Jing was panting hard. “I can’t get my breath.”

Hong Qigong laughed and drew back his palm. “The skills of the Nine Yin Manual⁷ really are miraculous. I was so badly hurt that I thought my neili would never come back, and yet this morning I trained by its method, and it actually worked.”

Ouyang Feng’s suspicions were thoroughly roused. He bent to examine the places where the trunks had broken, and was more alarmed still. Apart from a round core an inch or so across at the centre, the outer ring of each had broken off extraordinarily smoothly, more cleanly than a sharp saw could have cut it. He thought, Can the martial arts recorded in that manual really be as miraculous as this? It looks as if the old beggar’s skill is even greater than it was before. If the three of them join forces, how could I hold them off? There’s no time to lose. I must hurry and train in the manual’s skills too. He shot the three of them a sidelong glance and raced back to the cave, where he took from inside his robe the text Guo Jing had written out, wrapped layer upon layer in oiled paper and oilcloth and sealed on the outside with wax, and bent his whole mind to studying it.

Hong Qigong and Guo Jing watched until Ouyang Feng had disappeared from sight, then looked at each other and roared with laughter.

Huang Rong said happily, “Shifu, this manual really is marvellous.”

Hong Qigong smiled and did not answer, and Guo Jing got in first. “Rong-er, we were only pretending.” And he told her the whole story from start to finish.

What had happened was that Guo Jing had first used the short jian⁸ and the golden dao to cut a deep ring round each trunk, nearly severing it but leaving the centre joined. There had been no force at all behind Hong Qigong’s palms. It was Guo Jing who put his strength into his back and broke the trees by crashing into them. It would never have occurred to Ouyang Feng that with the force of the Void Clarity Fist⁹ a short jian and a golden dao could cut through trees, so naturally he could not see through the trick.

Huang Rong had been beaming, but after hearing Guo Jing’s explanation, she fell silent for a long while, her brow slightly furrowed.

Hong Qigong laughed. “That the old beggar can walk again at all is a stroke of luck by Heaven’s grace, so who cares whether the skill is real or sham? Rong-er, you’re afraid the Western Venom¹⁰ will see through it in the end, aren’t you?”

Huang Rong nodded.

Hong Qigong said, “Old Venom¹¹ has such sharp eyes, how could we fool him for long? But there’s no telling how things will turn out, and there’s no point fretting about it now. I’ll tell you what. In the text Jing-er recited, there’s a chapter called something like Tendon-Transmuting Bone-Tempering¹² that sounded rather interesting. We’ve nothing else to do, so let’s give it a try.”

He said it lightly, but Huang Rong knew how urgent things were. If her shifu had singled out this chapter, he must have good reason. “All right, Shifu. Teach us quickly.”

Hong Qigong had Guo Jing recite the Tendon-Transmuting Bone-Tempering Chapter twice, then taught the two of them to train as it directed, while he himself went off to hunt and fish, light the fire and cook. Every time Guo Jing and Huang Rong came to lend a hand, he stopped them.

Seven days flew by. Guo Jing and Huang Rong trained with fierce energy and made rapid progress, while in the cave Ouyang Feng too toiled over the text and pondered it deeply. On the eighth day Hong Qigong said with a laugh, “Rong-er, how do you like the wild goat your shifu roasts?”

Huang Rong laughed, pulled a face and shook her head.

Hong Qigong laughed. “I can hardly get it down myself. You two have mastered the first section, so today you ought to loosen up your muscles and bones, or your breath may stagnate and do you harm. I’ll tell you what. Rong-er, you see to the food, and Jing-er and I will build a raft.”

Guo Jing and Huang Rong both cried, “Build a raft?”

Hong Qigong said, “Yes. Do you want to spend the rest of our lives on this desert island keeping Old Venom company?”

Guo Jing and Huang Rong were overjoyed, said yes, yes, again and again, and set to work at once. The hundred logs Guo Jing had felled that night lay neatly piled to one side, and all they had to do was twist bark into ropes and lash the logs firmly together. As they were tying them, Guo Jing gave a hard tug, and a thick rope snapped with a crack. Thinking it had been badly made, he took another, but at the slightest pull this tough, thick bark rope broke in two as well. Guo Jing stood there dumbfounded, unable to say a word.

Over on the other side, Huang Rong came running up with a shout, holding a wild goat in both hands. She had gone out hunting with a few pebbles to throw at a goat’s head, but after only a few steps, without realising it, she was already ahead of the animal. She turned round and simply grabbed it, moving faster and striking more surely than she would ever have imagined.

Hong Qigong laughed. “So there really is a great deal in the Nine Yin Manual. All those heroes and brave men¹³ who gave their lives for it didn’t die for nothing.”

Huang Rong said happily, “Shifu, can we go and give Old Venom a good thrashing now?”

Hong Qigong shook his head. “We’re a long way from that. It would take another eight or ten years of training at the very least. His Toad Skill¹⁴ is no small matter. Apart from the Innate Skill and One Yang Finger that Wang Chongyang¹⁵ had in his day, no martial art can break it.”

Huang Rong pouted. “Then even if we practise for eight or ten more years, we may not be able to beat him.”

Hong Qigong said, “That’s hard to say. Perhaps the martial arts in the Manual are even more powerful than I expect.”

Guo Jing said, “Rong-er, don’t be impatient. Training can only do us good.”

Several more days went by. Guo Jing and Huang Rong finished the second section of the Tendon-Transmuting Bone-Tempering Chapter, and the raft was built. The three of them wove a small sail out of bark, and fresh water and food had all been carried onto the raft.

By that night everything was ready, and they had only to set sail the next day. As they were settling down to sleep, Huang Rong said, “Shall we say goodbye to them tomorrow?”

Guo Jing said, “We should fix a meeting with them ten years from now. After being bullied like this, how can we just leave it at that?”

Huang Rong clapped her hands. “Exactly! Let’s beg Heaven, first, to keep those two villains safe all the way back to the Central Plains, and second, to give Old Venom a long life, so that he lives to see ten years from now. Or else, if Shifu’s neili comes back quickly and he can deal with him within a year or two, that would be even better.”

Before daybreak the next morning Hong Qigong, who woke early as old men do, heard faint noises from the beach and said quickly, “Jing-er, what’s that noise on the beach?”

Guo Jing swung down from the tree and ran out to look towards the sea, then gave a great shout of curses and went racing down after them. Huang Rong was awake by now and chased after him. “Jing gege, what is it?”

Guo Jing shook his head. “Those two villains have got onto our raft.”

Huang Rong was startled. By the time the two of them reached the water’s edge, Ouyang Feng had already carried his nephew onto the raft and raised the light sail, and they were several dozen feet out. In a fury, Guo Jing was about to leap into the sea after them, but Huang Rong held him by the sleeve. “We’ll never catch them.”

Ouyang Feng roared with laughter. “Many thanks for your raft!”

Guo Jing stamped with rage and kicked out hard at a red sandalwood tree beside him. Huang Rong had a sudden inspiration. “I’ve got it!” she cried. She picked up a big rock and rested it against a branch of the sandalwood on the seaward side. “Pull it back hard, and we’ll fire our cannon.”

Guo Jing was delighted. He braced both feet against the roots, gripped the branch with both hands and hauled it back. Red sandalwood is hard and tough, and it only bent backwards without breaking. Suddenly Guo Jing let go, and with a whoosh the rock went flying out to sea and landed beside the raft, sending up a plume of spray ten feet high.

“What a shame!” cried Huang Rong. She loaded another cannonball, and this time her aim was true and it struck the raft squarely. But the raft was lashed together so firmly that the blow did it no real harm. They fired three more shots one after another, but all of them missed and fell into the water.

Seeing that bombardment was getting them nowhere, Huang Rong had a wild idea. “Quick, I’ll be the cannonball!”

Guo Jing stared, not understanding what she meant.

Huang Rong said, “Shoot me into the sea and I’ll deal with them.” She drew her short jian and held it ready. Guo Jing knew she was a superb swimmer and that her qinggong¹⁶ was excellent, so she was in no danger. “Be careful,” he said, and bent the branch back hard once more.

Huang Rong sprang onto the branch and sat tight. “Fire!”

Guo Jing let go. The branch whipped upright, and she shot forwards and flew straight out, turning two somersaults in the air before entering the water lightly several dozen feet from the raft, with extraordinary grace. Uncle and nephew could only stare, at a loss to know what she meant by it.

Huang Rong had taken a deep breath before she hit the water, and once under she did not come up but dived straight for the bottom of the raft. When everything above her went dark, she knew she was beneath it. Ouyang Feng beat about wildly in the water with a wooden oar, but there was no hope of hitting her. Huang Rong raised her short jian and was about to cut through the ropes that held the raft together when a thought came to her. She eased off and only drew the blade lightly across several of the main ropes, cutting two of the three strands in each, so that the raft would not come apart until it was out on the open ocean and battered by the great waves. Then she dived again, and within moments she had swum more than a hundred feet away before she broke the surface, shouting and yelling as though she had failed to catch them.

Ouyang Feng laughed wildly and hoisted the sail. Before long the raft was far away.

By the time she walked up the beach, Hong Qigong had long since arrived and was cursing furiously along with Guo Jing. But when they saw the look of triumph on Huang Rong’s face and asked what had happened, they both cheered.

Huang Rong said, “We’ve sent those two villains to a watery grave, but now we’ll have to start all over again. And when Shifu gets his neili back, he won’t be able to take his revenge on Old Venom!”

The three of them ate their fill and set to work in high spirits, felling trees and lashing a raft. In a few days it was built, and with a strong south-easterly blowing they raised their makeshift bark sail and left the island, heading west.

Huang Rong watched the desert island grow smaller and smaller. She sighed. “The three of us very nearly died on that island, and yet now that we’re leaving, it’s a little hard to go.”

Guo Jing said, “Some day when we’ve nothing to do, shall we come back for another visit?”

Huang Rong clapped her hands. “Good, we definitely will. And you mustn’t back out. Let’s give this little island a name first. Shifu, what should we call it?”

Hong Qigong said, “You pinned that young villain under a great rock on that island, so call it Crush Ghost Island.”

Huang Rong shook her head. “How inelegant.”

Hong Qigong said, “If you wanted elegance, you should never have asked the old beggar. If you ask me, Old Venom ate my piss on that island, so we might as well call it Piss-Eating Island.”

Huang Rong laughed and waved her hands over and over. She tilted her head to think, and saw a bank of rosy clouds on the horizon, dazzling and splendid, spread right over the little island. “Let’s call it Mingxia Island,¹⁷ the Island of Bright Clouds,” she cried.

Hong Qigong shook his head. “No good, no good. That’s too elegant.”

Guo Jing listened to shifu and disciple arguing and only smiled, saying nothing. Elegant or vulgar, he could never have thought up a name for the island himself, and deep down he found “Crush Ghost” and “Piss-Eating” far more fun than “Bright Clouds” or anything of that sort.

Footnotes

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

2. 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. ↩

3. 黄蓉 — Huáng Róng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

5. 欧阳锋 — Ōuyáng Fēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 劈空掌 — Pīkōng Zhǎng. Literally air-splitting palm. A palm strike that reaches its target without contact. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

8. 短剑 — duǎnjiàn. One of the pair of short jian Qiu Chuji gives Guo Xiaotian and Yang Tiexin, engraved with the names of their unborn sons. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 空明拳 — Kōngmíng Quán. The softest fist art in the world, which Zhou Botong drew from the Daodejing. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 西毒 — Xī Dú. Literally western venom. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 老毒物 — lǎo dúwù. Literally old venomous thing. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 易筋锻骨章 — Yìjīn Duàngǔ Zhāng. Internal cultivation method from the Nine Yin Manual. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 英雄好汉 — yīngxióng hǎohàn. Literally heroes and good fellows. A stock phrase for bold, upright men. ↩

14. 蛤蟆功 — Háma Gōng. Ouyang Feng’s hereditary art, practised crouching like a toad. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

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

17. 明霞岛 — Míngxiá Dǎo. Literally island of bright rosy clouds. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩