The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 23 – Part 2

That a wineshop in this forsaken village should hide the workings of a black shop, and that a pauper girl caked in filth could trade a dozen moves with Huang Rong, astonished them all. Zhou Botong, who loved anything new and amusing, saw the fierce wind of Huang Rong’s palms and heard Silly Girl¹ crying “ouch” again and again as she failed to hold her off, and he called, “Hey, Rong-er, don’t kill her. Let me have a fight with her.” Hearing Hong Qigong and Guo Jing call her Rong-er, he had long since taken to calling her Rong-er, Rong-er all along the road, without troubling himself with polite forms such as Miss Huang or Young Mistress Huang.

Guo Jing, though, feared that Silly Girl might have accomplices hidden in the dark, ready to spring out and strike, and he stood close beside Hong Qigong and dared not leave him.

A few more moves, and a palm caught Silly Girl on the left shoulder, and her left arm dropped limp and useless. Had Huang Rong wanted to hurt her now, a flat-palmed push would have done it, but she held her hand and called, “Kneel at once and I’ll spare your life.”

Silly Girl cried, “Then you kneel too!” Swish, swish, two palms came at Huang Rong without warning, the two opening moves of the Azure Wave Palm Technique. They were clumsy, with not a trace of the nimbleness the technique cannot do without, yet the palms surged like waves, and their angles and postures were Peach Blossom Island martial arts beyond any doubt.

Huang Rong had no doubt left at all. She knocked the palms aside and cried, “Where did you learn that Azure Wave Palm Technique? Who is your shifu?”

Silly Girl laughed. “You can’t beat me now, ha ha!”

Huang Rong’s left hand flicked up, her right slashed across, her left elbow feinted a ram, her right shoulder slanted to draw her on, four feints one after another. The fifth, a two-handed hooking grab, was a feint as well, but the hook of her foot was real. Silly Girl went sprawling and yelled, “You cheated, that doesn’t count. Let’s fight again.” She was already trying to scramble up as she shouted.

Huang Rong was not about to let her up. She pounced and pinned her, tore a strip from the girl’s own clothes and tied her hands behind her back. “Well? Aren’t my skills better than yours?”

Silly Girl only shouted the same thing over and over. “You cheated, I won’t play. You cheated, I won’t play.”

Guo Jing went out of the door, sprang onto the roof and looked all about. There was no one in sight. He came down again and walked round the house. The wineshop stood on its own, with the nearest houses several dozen feet off and nowhere around it for anyone to hide. Only then was he easy.

When he came back in, Huang Rong had the point of her short jian between Silly Girl’s eyes and was threatening her. “Who taught you martial arts? Tell me now. If you don’t, I’ll kill you.” She made two feints at her with the jian as she spoke.

In the firelight Silly Girl only grinned from ear to ear. There was no courage or fury in her face, no wild defiance. She was simply too dim to know she was in danger, and seemed to think Huang Rong was playing a game with her. Huang Rong asked again, and Silly Girl laughed, “Kill me and I’ll kill you too.”

Huang Rong frowned and said, “Let’s go into the hole and see. Big Brother Zhou, you guard Shifu and this girl. Jing gege and I will go in…”

Zhou Botong cried, “No, I’m coming with you.”

Huang Rong said, “Well, I won’t have you coming.”

Zhou Botong pleaded, “There’s a good girl. I’ll do as you say from now on.”

Huang Rong smiled faintly and nodded.

Zhou Botong was overjoyed. He found two big sticks of pine, lit them and thrust them into the mouth of the hole, and kept them smoking there a long while until the stench had been driven out. Huang Rong threw one of the burning sticks in. It struck the far wall with a clack and dropped to the floor, so the hole was not deep. Peering in by its light, they could see no one inside and hear nothing. Zhou Botong could not wait a moment longer and squeezed in first. Huang Rong followed him in. It was only a small room.

Zhou Botong cried out, “Swindled, swindled. That’s no fun.”

Huang Rong suddenly cried out. On the floor lay a skeleton, neatly laid out on its back, its clothes rotted away. In the eastern corner was another, slumped face down over a big iron chest, with a long, pointed knife driven between its ribs and into the lid.

Zhou Botong found the room small and dirty, and two heaps of dead men’s bones held nothing new or amusing for him. Seeing Huang Rong examine them with such care, he held his patience a while, not daring to say he wanted to leave for fear of making her cross. But after a time he really could bear it no longer and ventured, “Rong-er, there’s a good girl, can I go out now?”

Huang Rong said, “All right. Go and send Jing gege in instead.”

Zhou Botong was overjoyed. He leapt out and said to Guo Jing, “Quick, in you go. It’s great fun in there.” He was terrified that Huang Rong would call him back to keep her company, so he had to find a scapegoat. Guo Jing squeezed into the room.

Huang Rong held up the burning pine so that Guo Jing could see both skeletons clearly, and asked, “How do you think these two died?”

Guo Jing pointed to the skeleton slumped over the iron chest and said, “This one seems to have been about to open the chest when someone stole up behind him and stabbed him dead. The one on the floor has both rows of ribs snapped clean across. Killed by the force of a palm, by the look of it.”

Huang Rong said, “I think so too. But there are several things I can’t make out.”

Guo Jing asked, “What?”

Huang Rong said, “This Silly Girl is plainly using our Peach Blossom Island Azure Wave Palm. She knows only six or seven moves, and those not properly, but the moves and their order are exactly right. Why did these two die here? And what have they to do with Silly Girl?”

Guo Jing said, “Let’s go and ask the young lady again.” He was often called a silly boy himself, and so he would not call the girl Silly Girl.

Huang Rong said, “If you ask me, the girl really is simple. Questioning her is a waste of breath. If we search this place properly, we may find some clue.” She held up the burning pine and went back to the two skeletons. Something glittered by the foot of the iron chest. She picked it up and found it was a gold plaque, with an agate the size of a thumb set in its centre. On the back a line was engraved: By imperial grant: Wugong Dafu, Defence Commissioner of Zhongzhou, Bearer of the Imperial Arms, Shi Yanming.²

Huang Rong said, “If this plaque was the dead fellow’s, he was no small official.”

Guo Jing said, “A great official dying in a place like this. That really is strange.”

Huang Rong went to look at the skeleton lying on the floor and saw something raised among the ribs of its back. She poked at it a few times with the end of her burning stick, the dust scattered, and an iron disc came to light. Huang Rong gave a low cry of surprise and snatched it up.

Guo Jing saw what she held and also cried out. Huang Rong asked, “Do you recognise this?”

Guo Jing said, “Yes. It’s the Iron Eight Trigrams³ of Manor Master Lu, from Returning Clouds Manor.⁴”

Huang Rong said, “It’s an Iron Eight Trigrams, but it isn’t necessarily Lu shige’s.”

Guo Jing said, “Right! Of course it isn’t. Their clothes and flesh have rotted clean away. These two have been dead ten years at the very least.”

Huang Rong stood stunned for a long moment. Then a thought came to her. She darted across and pulled the knife out of the iron chest, and when she held it close to the fire she saw the character Qu carved on the blade.

The words burst out of her. “The one lying on the floor is my shige. It’s Qu shige.”

Guo Jing gave a cry and did not know what to say.

Huang Rong said, “Lu shige said Qu shige was still alive, and all the time he had died here, long ago… Jing gege, look at his leg bones.”

Guo Jing bent down to look. “Both his legs are broken. Ah, your father broke them.”

Huang Rong nodded. “His name was Qu Lingfeng.⁵ My father once said that of his six disciples, Qu shige was the strongest in martial arts, and a man of letters too, and of all my father’s many skills he learned the most…” There she broke off and dashed out of the hole all at once, and Guo Jing came out after her.

Huang Rong ran to Silly Girl and asked, “Your surname is Qu, isn’t it?”

Silly Girl giggled and did not answer.

Guo Jing asked gently, “Miss, may I ask your honoured surname?”

Silly Girl said, “Honoured surname? Hee hee, honoured surname!”

The two of them were about to ask again when Zhou Botong began to shout. “I’m starving to death, starving to death.”

Huang Rong answered, “Yes, let us eat first.” She untied Silly Girl and asked her to eat with them. Silly Girl did not stand on ceremony. She gave a smile, took up her bowl and fell to.

Huang Rong told Hong Qigong what they had found in the secret chamber. Hong Qigong thought it strange too. “It looks as though this great official surnamed Shi struck down your Qu shige, little knowing he had not yet breathed his last, and your Qu shige threw the knife and killed him.”

Huang Rong said, “That is most likely what happened.” She showed the knife and the Iron Eight Trigrams to Silly Girl, asking, “Whose are these?”

Silly Girl’s face changed all at once. She turned her head aside and thought hard, as though something had come back to her, but after a long while the blank look returned and she shook her head. Yet she held on to the knife and would not let it go.

Huang Rong said, “She seems to have seen this knife before, but it has been so long she cannot remember.”

When they had eaten and seen Hong Qigong settled for the night, she went back into the room with Guo Jing to look further.

Both were sure that the key must lie in the iron chest. They lifted away the skeleton lying over it and raised the lid, which came up at a touch, for it was not locked. In the firelight the dazzle was blinding. The chest was full of pearls, jade and precious curios. To Guo Jing it meant little, but Huang Rong knew every piece for a treasure of the greatest value.

She scooped up a handful of jewels, opened her fingers, and let them trickle back into the chest one by one. The pearls and jade struck each other with clear, bright tinkling sounds. She sighed. “These jewels have a remarkable history. If Father were here, he could certainly say where each of them came from.”

She named them one by one for Guo Jing. This was a jade belt ring, this a box of rhinoceros hide, that an agate cup, and that a jadeite plate. Guo Jing had grown up in the wilds of the desert, and he had never seen such things, or even heard of them. He thought, All that effort to get hold of these baubles. What can they be for?

Huang Rong felt about in the chest again and her hand met a hard board, so she knew there was another layer. She pushed the jewels aside, and there, sure enough, was a ring on each side of the inner wall. Hooking her little fingers into both rings, she lifted the upper layer. Below lay objects crusted with green patina, ancient bronzes. She had heard her father explain the shapes of ancient vessels and recognised what appeared to be a Dragon-Pattern Ding, a Shang Yi, a Zhou Pan, a Zhou Dun, and a Zhou Ju Lei, though she could not say for certain. If pearls and jade were priceless, these bronze vessels were beyond all price.

Huang Rong grew more astonished still. She lifted another layer and found scrolls of painting and calligraphy.

She asked Guo Jing to help her unroll one and was startled. It was Presenting the Child to the Heavenly King, painted by Wu Daozi.⁶ Another scroll was Herding Horses by Han Gan.⁷ A third was Figures Crossing Water among Woods and Springs by Li Houzhu of the Southern Tang.⁸

In all the chest held more than twenty scrolls, long and short, and as they unrolled them, every one proved the work of a great master. Several were calligraphy and paintings by Huizong,⁹ and several more were by living artists, every one of them a fine piece. Among these were two splashed-ink figures in sparing brushwork by Liang Kai,¹⁰ Painter-in-Attendance at the Imperial Academy, so full of life that they looked almost a little like Zhou Botong.

When she had looked at half the scrolls, Huang Rong looked no further. She put everything back in the chest, closed the lid, and sat on it hugging her knees, lost in thought. She thought, Father has been collecting all his life, and for all the antiques and paintings he has gathered, I doubt his treasures can match what is in this chest. How could Qu shige have had the means to come by so many rare treasures? And why leave them here? Try as she might, she could not work out the reason.

Whenever Huang Rong was deep in thought, Guo Jing never dared break in on her. But now Zhou Botong was shouting outside. “Hey, come out, quick. We’re off to the old emperor’s house to eat Yuanyang Wuzhen Kuai!¹¹”

Guo Jing asked, “Tonight?”

Then they heard Hong Qigong say, “Every day sooner is a day better. Leave it too late, and I’m afraid I won’t last.”

Huang Rong said, “Shifu, don’t listen to the Old Wild Child’s drivel. Whatever happens, we can’t go tonight. We’ll go into the city first thing tomorrow. If the Old Wild Child comes up with any more harebrained ideas, he won’t be allowed into the palace tomorrow.”

Zhou Botong said, “Hmph. My fault again, is it?” And he lapsed into a sulky silence.

Footnotes

1. 傻姑 — Shǎgū. Literally silly girl. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 石彦明 — Shí Yànmíng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 铁八卦 — Tiě Bāguà. An iron disc cast with the Eight Trigrams. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

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

6. 吴道子 — Wú Dàozǐ. A celebrated painter of the Tang dynasty, renowned for his fluid brushwork. See Wikipedia. ↩

7. 韩干 — Hán Gàn. A Tang dynasty painter famed for his depictions of horses. ↩

8. 李后主 — Lǐ Hòuzhǔ. Literally Li the last ruler. Li Yu (937—978), the last ruler of the Southern Tang, celebrated as a poet of ci lyrics. ↩

9. 徽宗 — Huīzōng. Emperor Huizong of Song (r. 1100—1126), renowned for his calligraphy and painting but disastrous as a ruler. See Wikipedia. ↩

10. 梁楷 — Liáng Kǎi. A Southern Song painter of the Imperial Painting Academy, famed for his splashed-ink figures. ↩

11. 鸳鸯五珍脍 — Yuānyāng Wǔzhēn Kuài. Literally mandarin-duck five-delicacy mince, a dish of the Song imperial kitchen. ↩