The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 22 – Part 8

Huang Yaoshi’s mind was thrown into turmoil. He swayed, and his face went white. After a while he asked, “Is this true?” They had all seen Huang Rong leave the ship only a short time before, but hearing Venerable Lingzhi deceive him like this, every one of them took a malicious pleasure in it and wanted to see Huang Yaoshi’s grief, so they all kept quiet.

Venerable Lingzhi said coldly, “Beside the girl’s body there were three other dead men. One was a young lad with thick brows and big eyes, one was an old beggar with a big red gourd on his back, and the other was a fellow with a long beard and long hair.”

He was describing precisely Guo Jing, Hong Qigong, and Zhou Botong.

By now, how could Huang Yaoshi have the least doubt left? He looked sidelong at Ouyang Feng, thinking, You knew my daughter. Why didn’t you say so sooner?

Ouyang Feng saw his face and knew that he was grieving beyond all bearing, and that the moment he raised a hand he would kill. He himself would not come off worst, but such an onslaught would not be easy to withstand. So he said, “I came aboard this ship only a little while ago, and this is the first time I have met any of these people. The floating body the Great Master saw need not have been your daughter.” Then he sighed. “A fine girl like your daughter, if she really died so young, it would be a very great pity. When my nephew hears of it, he will be heartbroken.”

With these few words he shifted the burden off himself without offending either side.

To Huang Yaoshi, however, they seemed to make it more certain still, and in an instant every hope turned to ashes. He had always been given to venting his anger on others. Otherwise, when the Twin Evils of Dark Wind¹ stole his manual all those years ago, why should Lu Chengfeng and the others, who had done nothing wrong, have had their legs broken and been driven out of the shimen?² Now his breast went icy cold one moment and boiling hot the next, just as it had on the day his beloved wife died. His hands were shaking, and his face was now white as snow, now flushed red.

Everyone watched him in silence, their hearts full of dread. Even Ouyang Feng felt uneasy. He gathered his qi in his dantian³ and stood on his guard, every sense alert, and for a while the deck was utterly still.

Then suddenly they heard him laugh, a long, drawn-out laugh, its sound like a dragon’s cry, lingering without end.

It was so unexpected that they all started. He threw back his head and laughed wildly, louder and louder, yet within the laughter there was a hidden chill, and the longer they listened the more desolate it sounded to them, until, without their noticing, the laughter had turned to weeping. He was sobbing aloud with terrible grief, and without meaning to, they all felt as if they too must weep with him.

Of them all, only Ouyang Feng knew how wild and unconventional he had always been, singing and weeping as the mood took him, so he did not find it so very strange. But listening to him weep as if heaven and earth were grieving, he thought, Weeping like this is bound to do Old Heretic Huang⁴ harm. In days of old, when Ruan Ji lost his mother, he wept until he coughed up more than a dou⁵ of blood, and Old Heretic Huang has just that spirit of the men of the Jin dynasty. What a shame I lost my iron zither when the boat overturned. Otherwise I could play it and spur him on in his grief. A man who gives way to his feelings as freely as he does would very likely lose all control and do himself a grave internal injury, and then at the second Huashan Sword Summit there would be one great rival fewer. Ah, a golden chance thrown away. What a pity, what a pity!

Huang Yaoshi wept for a while, then raised his jade flute and beat time on the ship’s side, and began to sing:

“When the Lord on High sends down our fates, why is the measure of our years so hard? Some live to grey hairs and end their days, and some meet with calamity still in the womb. Before the old grief has ended, a new disaster comes again. Like the morning flower that opens late, like the dawn dew that is first to dry. I grieve that the departed cannot be followed, my heart is lost and knows no measure. Heaven is high and has no stairs, and to whom can I tell this sorrow?”

With a crack, the jade flute snapped in two.

Without a backward glance, Huang Yaoshi walked towards the bow.

Venerable Lingzhi sprang forward and barred his way with both arms. “What’s all this laughing and crying and carrying on like a madman?” he sneered.

Wanyan Honglie called, “Venerable, don’t…”

Before he could finish, Huang Yaoshi’s right hand shot out and once again Venerable Lingzhi was seized by the lump of fat at the back of his neck. Huang Yaoshi swung him half round, turned him head down and feet up, and hurled him downwards with all his force. With a thud, the fat, shiny bald head went straight into the deck planks, buried right up to the shoulders.

The fact was that in the martial arts Venerable Lingzhi practised, the back of the neck was the weak spot. The moment he moved, great masters like Ouyang Feng, Zhou Botong and Huang Yaoshi could see it at once, and so all three had gone for that weakness the moment they struck, and each had caught him at the first grab.

Huang Yaoshi sang:

“Heaven is long and earth endures, but how long is the life of man? Before or after, we shall not know it, and my day to follow you will come.”

There was a flicker of blue, and he had leapt aboard his own ship, put the helm about, hoisted the sail and gone.

They were about to pull Venerable Lingzhi out and see whether he was alive or dead when there was a sudden click, a plank lifted, and a young man came up out of the hold. He had red lips, white teeth and a face as fair as jade. It was Yang Kang, Wanyan Honglie’s heir, whose name had once been Wanyan Kang.

After he had fallen out with Mu Nianci, all he could think of was Wanyan Honglie’s promise that his wealth and honour would know no bounds. He made contact with the Jin officials in Huaibei, soon found the prince his father, and came south with him. When Guo Jing and Huang Rong came aboard, he had caught sight of them at once and hidden in the hold, not daring to come out, but he had peered through the cracks between the planks and seen everything that went on up on deck. While the others drank and talked, he was afraid that since Ouyang Feng had arrived in Guo Jing’s company, he might not be trustworthy, so he did not join the feast but listened to their talk from the hold. Only when Huang Yaoshi had gone did he know there was nothing to fear, and he lifted the plank and came out.

Venerable Lingzhi had been driven in very hard indeed, but his hard skills were formidable and his skull was a solid one, so although his bald head had bored a hole in the deck, his head itself was unhurt. He only felt a wave of giddiness. He collected himself, pressed down hard on the planks with both hands and sprang out. Seeing a perfectly round hole in the deck where there had been none before, they looked at one another in alarm, and then they wanted to laugh, but it would hardly do, so each of them forced it back, looking thoroughly awkward.

Wanyan Honglie had only just said, “My son, come and pay your respects to Mister Ouyang,” when Yang Kang was already down on his knees before Ouyang Feng and reverently kowtowing four times. Everyone was surprised to see him suddenly perform so solemn a ceremony.

Back in Prince Zhao’s Estate, Yang Kang had greatly admired Venerable Lingzhi’s abilities, and yet today he had watched Ouyang Feng, Zhou Botong and Huang Yaoshi one after another seize the man and toss him about as if he were a baby. He remembered how he had been captured and humiliated at Returning Clouds Manor⁶ on Lake Tai, and how Guo Jing and Huang Rong had frightened him out of his wits in the Liu family ancestral hall in Baoying,⁷ and all because his skill was not up to theirs. Here before him was a master of the highest order, the very man to take as his shifu. When he had made his obeisance to Ouyang Feng, he said to Wanyan Honglie, “Father, I would like to take Mister Ouyang here as my shifu.”

Wanyan Honglie was overjoyed. He rose and bowed to Ouyang Feng. “My son has always loved the martial arts, but he has never found a good teacher. If you would not think him beneath you, sir, and would be willing to instruct him, father and son alike would be deeply in your debt.”

The others thought that to become the young prince’s shifu was a chance beyond one’s wildest hopes, but to their surprise, Ouyang Feng returned the bow and said, “This decrepit old man’s school has always had a rule that its martial arts are handed down to a single heir in each generation, never to any side branch. I have already passed them on to my nephew, so I cannot break the rule and take another disciple. I beg Your Highness’s pardon.”

Wanyan Honglie saw he would not agree and could only let it rest. He ordered the cups and plates set out anew. Yang Kang was sorely disappointed.

Ouyang Feng laughed. “For the young prince to become my disciple is an honour I cannot accept, but to point out a few skills to him would be no trouble at all. We can explore them together at our leisure.”

Yang Kang had seen a good many of Ouyang Ke’s concubines and knew that Ouyang Ke had taught them all some martial arts, but since they were not true disciples, their skill was very ordinary. So when he heard Ouyang Feng say this, his heart was not in it at all, though he had to thank him with his lips. Little did he know that Ouyang Feng’s martial arts were in a different class from his nephew’s, and that a hint or two from him would be more than enough to make a man a power in the wulin.⁸ Reading his face, Ouyang Feng could see that he had no real wish to learn from him, and let the matter drop.

Over the wine, they spoke of Huang Yaoshi’s arrogance and discourtesy, and all praised Venerable Lingzhi for tricking him well.

Hou Tonghai said, “That fellow’s martial arts really are high. So that stinking little brat was his daughter. No wonder she had a few devilish tricks.” As he spoke he fixed his eyes on Venerable Lingzhi’s bald head and looked at it for a while, then craned round to stare at the lump of fat at the back of it, crooked his right hand to grab the back of his own neck, and sniggered. “Shige, all three of them grabbed him like this. What kind of skill is that?”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Sha Tongtian snapped.

Venerable Lingzhi could endure no more. Suddenly he reached out his left hand and seized the three fleshy bumps on Hou Tonghai’s forehead.

Hou Tonghai yelled with pain, ducked away and slid under the table. Everyone roared with laughter and joined in trying to calm them down.

Hou Tonghai crawled out, sat back in his chair and said to Ouyang Feng, “Old Ouyang, your martial arts are mighty high! Will you teach me that trick of grabbing people by the fat at the back of the neck? How about it?”

Ouyang Feng smiled and said nothing. Venerable Lingzhi glared furiously.

Hou Tonghai turned and asked again, “Shige, what was that Huang Yaoshi singing about, crying and shouting like that?”

Sha Tongtian stared, at a loss for an answer. “Who cares about the ravings of a madman?”

Yang Kang said, “He sang a poem composed in the Three Kingdoms period by Cao Zijian. Cao Zijian lost a daughter and composed two laments. The poem says that some live till their hair turns white, and some infants die before they are born. Why is Heaven so unjust? He only grieves that Heaven is high and has no stairs, and though his heart is full of sorrow and hatred, he cannot climb up and weep before Heaven. At the last he says: I am greatly grieved, and the day when I follow you is not far off.”

The fighting men all said admiringly, “The young prince is a man of letters, and a fine scholar too. How could rough fellows like us understand such things?”

Footnotes

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

2. 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. ↩

3. 丹田 — dāntián. Literally cinnabar field. The primary energy centre below the navel in internal cultivation. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 黄老邪 — Huáng Lǎoxié. Literally old heretic Huang. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 斗 — dǒu. A unit of dry measure, about ten litres. ↩

6. 归云庄 — Guīyún Zhuāng. Literally returning clouds manor. The Lu family manor on Lake Tai. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

8. 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. ↩