The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 22 – Part 1

Riding a shark, roaming free

Huang Rong watched Ouyang Feng carry his nephew ashore in his arms, streaming mud and water. That habitually sinister face was actually wreathed in smiles, and yet he would not bring himself to say one word of thanks to her or to Guo Jing. She tugged at Guo Jing’s sleeve at once, and the two of them went back into the rock cave.

Guo Jing saw the worry in her face. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“I’m thinking about three things,” Huang Rong said, “and they have me in a real quandary.”

“You’re so clever, you’ll always find a way.”

Huang Rong gave a faint smile. After a long while her brows knitted slightly again.

Hong Qigong said, “The first thing, well, never mind that. But the second and third really do leave one at a loss.”

Guo Jing was surprised. “Eh? How do you know which three things she’s thinking about?”

“I’m only guessing at Rong-er’s mind. The first must be how to cure my injury. There’s no physician here and no medicine, still less anyone of outstanding neigong¹ to help. This old beggar leaves it to Heaven and waits to see whether he lives or dies.”

“Shifu, in the Nine Yin Manual² there is a section called the Healing Chapter.³ It seems to describe methods for treating damage to the internal breath, but the wording is very strange and I can’t understand it. I’ll recite it for you, and you can puzzle it out.”

He began slowly to recite the Healing Chapter. Since he could not tell which parts mattered and which did not, he recited a long stretch on either side of it as well.

Hong Qigong listened in silence, then said, “Enough. A pity, but it won’t do!”

“How so?” Huang Rong asked.

“The Manual says that internal injuries of every kind, whether the jingmai⁴ are shaken and damaged, or the dantian⁵ is harmed, or the internal breath has gone astray, every sort of injury to one’s neigong, may be treated by this method. Even if a man cannot be fully restored, he is sure to be much improved. Being bitten by the snake was an external wound and poison, and that I could live with. The worst of it is the palm blow I took from Old Venom’s⁶ Toad Skill.⁷ He knocked my jingmai into disorder.”

Huang Rong was delighted. “Shifu, that’s wonderful! The Nine Yin Manual’s method is exactly the cure for it.”

Hong Qigong shook his head slowly. “The Manual says one must find a secluded place where there is no chance at all of being disturbed by enemies, idlers or wild beasts. Someone who understands the circulation of internal breath presses one palm against one of the injured man’s palms, and the injured man drives his breath round the Greater and Lesser Heavenly Circuits.⁸ If his breath falls short, the helper passes his own breath across through the palm to aid him, and together they slowly set the disordered jingmai to rights. Kept up for seven days and seven nights, with the Greater and Lesser Circuits run thirty-six times forwards and backwards, the internal injury will largely heal. But while the circuits are turning, the two palms must never part, or the danger is extreme. At best the injury never heals, at worst there is death on the spot. So during the healing, if they are unlucky enough to be set upon by enemies, foes, savage beasts or venomous creatures, the two of them can only take what comes and leave their fate to Heaven. The healing itself is not hard. What is hard is that not the slightest disturbance can be allowed. Here on this island, with Old Venom and his nephew lurking close by, never mind seven days and seven nights, we couldn’t have a single day and night of peace. If this old beggar leaves the injury alone, he may yet drag out a wretched life a while longer. The moment he tries to heal it, that uncle and nephew are bound to come and interfere, and this old life will be finished there and then.”

Guo Jing said, “Shifu, during those seven days and seven nights the helper and the sufferer cannot part their palms at all, not even to relieve themselves? That would be hard.”

Hong Qigong laughed. “Only while the sufferer’s Greater and Lesser Circuits are completing their revolutions must the palms stay joined. At other times they need not be stuck together.”

Huang Rong said, “This is healing with neigong. Do you think it’s schoolwork? Skiving at every turn, telling the teacher you need the privy, then wandering off outside to play for a while?”

Guo Jing laughed.

“If we can return to the Central Plains quickly enough,” Huang Rong went on, “we’ll surely find a quiet place. Best of all would be Peach Blossom Island,⁹ where no one wicked can easily set foot. Then Jing gege and Shifu press palm to palm and circulate the breath, and I stand guard outside with the Dog-Beating Staff.¹⁰ Wicked men, savage beasts, vicious dogs, venomous creatures, whatever comes, I’ll beat the whole lot of them away. Shifu, what are the second and third problems?”

Hong Qigong said, “The second is how to withstand Ouyang Feng’s malice. His martial arts really are formidable, and the two of you are nowhere near a match for him. The third is how to get back to the Central Plains. Rong-er, am I right?”

“Yes. The most pressing thing right now is to find a way to subdue Old Venom, or at the very least to make him afraid to do harm.”

“By rights we ought to pit our wits against his. Old Venom is cunning, but he is enormously conceited, and a conceited man does not think things through. Tricking him should not be so very hard. But once he has been taken in, he has the skill to adapt and break free at once, and the counter-stroke that follows is deadly.”

The two of them thought hard. Huang Rong reflected that there had never been much to choose between the Western Venom and her father or her shifu. Even if her father were here, he might not beat him, so how could she ever be a match for him? Unless she could finish him at a single stroke, merely making him fall for a few nasty tricks would get them nowhere in the end.

The mental strain told on Hong Qigong. A sudden pain gripped his chest, and he broke into a violent fit of coughing.

Huang Rong hurried to help him lie flat. At that moment a shadow fell across the mouth of the cave, cutting off the sunlight. She looked up. Ouyang Feng stood there, Ouyang Ke cradled in his arms, and his hoarse voice snarled, “All of you, out. This cave is for my nephew to heal in.”

Guo Jing’s anger flared. He leapt to his feet. “This is where my shifu is staying!”

“Even if the Jade Emperor lived here,” Ouyang Feng said coldly, “he would have to move.”

Guo Jing, blazing, opened his mouth to argue. Huang Rong tugged the hem of his robe, bent to raise Hong Qigong, and walked out of the cave.

As they came level with Ouyang Feng, Hong Qigong opened his eyes and smiled. “What a fine show of might, what murderous spirit!”

Ouyang Feng flushed faintly. A single blow would have killed the man where he stood, and yet, he could not have said why, he sensed in him an upright spirit so stern that it could not be affronted. Without meaning to he turned his head aside to avoid his gaze. “And bring us something to eat later! If you two little wretches play any tricks with the food, mind those three lives of yours.”

The three of them left the cave and went a good way off. Guo Jing kept up a stream of curses, but Huang Rong was silent, lost in thought.

“Shifu, rest here a while,” Guo Jing said. “I’ll go find us a place to stay.”

Huang Rong helped Hong Qigong to sit down beneath a great pine. Two little squirrels went skittering up the trunk and came straight back down again, stopping a few feet from her to stare at the pair of them with round little eyes. Huang Rong found them charming. She picked up a pine cone from the ground and held out her hand. One squirrel approached, sniffed at the cone, cradled it in its fore-paws and walked off. The other climbed straight up Hong Qigong’s sleeve.

Huang Rong sighed. “No one can ever have come here. Look, the little squirrels aren’t afraid of people at all.”

The squirrels, startled by her voice, darted back up the branches. Huang Rong’s gaze followed them upward. The pine’s canopy was dense and wide, rounded like a parasol, with green vines winding through the boughs. An idea struck her.

“Jing gege, stop looking, we’re going up the tree.”

Guo Jing halted and studied the pine. It was indeed a fine refuge. They broke branches from neighbouring trees and lashed a platform among the boughs of the great pine. Each slipped a hand under one of Hong Qigong’s armpits, and with a shout of “Up!” they sprang together and set him down safe and sound on the platform.

Huang Rong laughed. “We’ll be birds in the branches, and they can be beasts in the cave.”

Guo Jing said, “Rong-er, do we take them food or not?”

“We can’t think of anything clever for now, and we can’t beat Old Venom, so we’ll just have to do as we’re told.”

Guo Jing was thoroughly glum.

Behind the hill the two of them killed a wild goat, lit a fire, roasted it and tore it in two. Huang Rong threw one half on the ground. “Piss on that.”

Guo Jing laughed. “They’ll know.”

“Never mind that. Go on, piss!”

Guo Jing went red. “No!”

Huang Rong said, “Why not?”

Guo Jing mumbled, “I can’t piss with you standing there.”

Huang Rong laughed so hard she nearly fell over.

From the treetop Hong Qigong called, “Throw it up, I’ll do it!”

Guo Jing took the half-goat and leapt laughing onto the platform, and let Hong Qigong piss on the meat. Then, roaring with laughter, he carried it off towards the cave.

“No,” Huang Rong called, “take this half.”

Guo Jing scratched his head. “This one’s clean.”

“Exactly. It’s the clean one we’re giving them.”

Guo Jing was baffled, but he had always done as Huang Rong told him, so he turned back and exchanged it for the clean half. Huang Rong set the piss-soaked goat beside the fire to smoke and roast, and went off into the undergrowth to gather wild fruit.

Hong Qigong could make no sense of this either and was sorely puzzled. His mouth was watering and he wanted nothing but that goat, yet it was the very meat he had pissed on, so for now he had to bear it.

The roast goat smelled wonderful. Ouyang Feng caught the aroma inside the cave before Guo Jing was anywhere near, came out to meet him and snatched it out of his hands with a look of triumph. Then a thought struck him.

“Where’s the other half?”

Guo Jing pointed behind him. Ouyang Feng strode off to the foot of the pine, grabbed the dirty half and tossed the clean half on the ground. He gave a few cold laughs, turned and went.

Guo Jing knew that his face must give nothing away at that moment, but he could not dissemble, so he turned his head aside and did not look at Ouyang Feng once. When the man had gone some way off, he ran to Huang Rong, astonished and delighted.

“How did you know he’d come and swap them?” he asked, grinning.

Huang Rong laughed. “Father always says, make the empty seem full, and the full seem empty. Old Venom knew we were bound to tamper with the food and wouldn’t be taken in, so I made a point of taking him in all the same.”

Guo Jing agreed again and again. He tore the roast into pieces and took it up to the platform, and the three of them set to.

They were eating happily when Guo Jing said suddenly, “Rong-er, that move of yours was a clever trick, but it was a close shave too.”

“How so?”

“If Old Venom hadn’t come and swapped them, wouldn’t we have had to eat Shifu’s piss?”

Huang Rong was sitting in a fork of the tree. At this she doubled up with laughter and fell out of it, sprang straight back up, and said with a straight face, “Very true, very true. A close shave indeed.”

Hong Qigong sighed. “Silly child, if he hadn’t swapped them, couldn’t you simply have left the dirty meat alone?”

Guo Jing stared. Then he let out a great “Ha” of laughter, pitched head-first off the branch, and tumbled to the ground beneath the tree.

Ouyang Feng and his nephew ate the goat, assuming the rank tang was simply natural to wild goat. They noticed nothing at all, and even praised Huang Rong’s skill at roasting, since it was faintly salty.

Before long the sky darkened. Ouyang Ke’s injury was paining him, and he groaned aloud.

Ouyang Feng came to the foot of the great pine. “Come down, little wench!”

Huang Rong started. She had not expected him to act so soon. “What do you want?”

“My nephew needs tea and water. Go and tend to him at once!”

All three of them in the tree were furious to hear it.

“Hurry up,” Ouyang Feng barked. “What are you waiting for?”

Guo Jing whispered, “Let’s fight it out with him now.”

“Run off into the hills at the back, quickly,” Hong Qigong said. “Never mind me.”

Huang Rong had long since weighed up both courses carefully. Fight or flee, Shifu was certain to die. For now the only thing to do was to swallow the humiliation. She climbed down and said, “Very well. Let me see to his injuries.”

Ouyang Feng grunted. “You, Guo brat, get down here too. Going to have yourself a nice sound sleep, were you? How very cosy.”

Guo Jing swallowed his rage and descended.

Ouyang Feng said, “Tonight you will fetch me a hundred great logs. One short, I break one of your legs. Two short, and I break both!”

“Why do you need logs?” Huang Rong asked. “And where are we supposed to find them in the dark?”

“The little wench has far too much to say,” Ouyang Feng snapped. “What business is it of yours? Hurry up and tend my nephew. If anything at all is lacking, you’ll have plenty of little torments coming your way!”

Huang Rong made a sign to Guo Jing: do as he says, do nothing rash.

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. 疗伤章 — Liáoshāng Zhāng. Literally healing chapter. A section of the Nine Yin Manual on the treatment of internal injuries. ↩

4. 经脉 — jīngmài. Literally meridians. Energy channels through which qi flows. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

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

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

8. 大小周天 — dàxiǎo zhōutiān. Literally greater and lesser heavenly circuits. The two circulations of neili in internal cultivation: the lesser through the Ren and Du vessels, the greater through all the meridians. ↩

9. 桃花岛 — Táohuā Dǎo. Huang Yaoshi’s island in the East China Sea. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 打狗棒 — Dǎgǒu Bàng. The jade-green bamboo staff carried by the Guild Chief of the Beggars’ Guild as the token of his office. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩