The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 23 – Part 1

Havoc in the imperial palace¹

Huang Yaoshi was consumed by grief and fury. He railed at Heaven and Earth, cursed ghosts and gods, and bitterly reproached fate for its injustice to him. He ordered the boatman to make for the mainland, and once ashore his rage only burned the fiercer. Throwing back his head, he cried to the sky, “Who killed my Rong-er? Who killed my Rong-er?”

Then he thought, It was that brat surnamed Guo. Yes, that brat and no other. But for him, how would Rong-er ever have been on that ship? Yet the brat has died along with Rong-er, so on whom am I to vent this rage? He had always been one to turn his anger on others, and at once he thought of Guo Jing’s shifus, the Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan.² He cried, “Those six eccentrics are the arch-culprits who killed my Rong-er! Had they not taught that Guo brat his martial arts, how could he ever have come to know Rong-er? Until I have hacked off the hands and feet of all six, one by one, the hatred in my heart will never be eased.”

As his anger surged, his grief eased a little. He came to a market town and ate, then turned over how he might track down the Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan. He thought, Their martial prowess is nothing much, yet their name is no small one, so they must have some uncommon gift, most likely a talent for trickery. If I call on them openly, I am sure never to find them in. I must go by night, force my way in, and slaughter all six households, old and young, master and servant, to the last soul. With that he set off with long strides, north towards Jiaxing.³

Hong Qigong,⁴ Zhou Botong,⁵ Guo Jing and Huang Rong⁶ had taken to a small boat and were heading west for land. Guo Jing sat in the stern plying the oars, while Huang Rong plied Zhou Botong with endless questions about riding sharks across the sea. Zhou Botong caught fire at once and wanted to find some way of catching a shark there and then, so that he and Huang Rong could have a grand romp with it.

Guo Jing saw that his shifu’s colour was bad and asked, “How do you feel, Shifu?” Hong Qigong did not answer. He was panting hard, each breath harsh and heavy. Ouyang Feng⁷ had struck him with the Bone-Penetrating Acupoint Strike Technique,⁸ and though the acupoints had since been unsealed, his internal injury had grown a degree worse. Huang Rong gave him several Nine Flower Jade Dew Pills,⁹ which eased the pain a little, but his breathing was still quick and short.

These Nine Flower Jade Dew Pills Huang Rong had were a gift from her shixiong¹⁰ Lu Chengfeng.¹¹ Lu Chengfeng had valued them highly, keeping them in a porcelain bottle with the lid screwed down tight and the whole wrapped in tinfoil, so that they had stayed dry in the sea and come to no harm.

The Old Wild Child, caring nothing whether others lived or died, still clamoured to go into the sea after fish. Huang Rong, who could already see that things were bad, kept signalling him with her eyes to keep quiet and not fret Hong Qigong. Zhou Botong took no notice and went on making a din.

Huang Rong frowned and said, “You want to catch sharks but have no bait to attract them. What are you making all this noise for?”

The Old Wild Child had no dignity for his years, and when the young shouted at him he did not mind in the least. He thought for a while, then said suddenly, “I’ve got it. Brother Guo, I’ll hold your hand while you dip your lower body in the water.”

Guo Jing revered his sworn elder brother, and though he had no idea what he meant by it, he was about to do as he was told. Huang Rong cried, “Jing gege,¹² pay him no mind. He wants to use you as shark bait.”

Zhou Botong clapped his hands and cried, “Exactly. The moment a shark comes, I’ll knock it senseless and haul it up. It won’t hurt you, I promise. Or else you hold my hand and I’ll go in the sea to bring the sharks.”

Huang Rong said, “In a little boat like this, with you two fooling about, it’ll be a wonder if we don’t capsize.”

Zhou Botong said, “If the boat turns over, so much the better. Then we can all play in the sea.”

Huang Rong said, “And what about our shifu? Do you want him dead?”

Zhou Botong scratched his ears and rubbed his cheeks, with no answer to give. After a while, though, he started blaming Hong Qigong for letting Ouyang Feng wound him. “The Old Venom’s nothing so very remarkable. You’re no youngster any more, yet you were careless enough to blunder into getting hurt by him.”

Huang Rong snapped, “One more word of nonsense and the three of us won’t speak to you for three days and three nights.”

Zhou Botong stuck out his tongue and dared not say another word. He took the oars from Guo Jing and rowed with all his might.

The land had looked close, but they rowed until it was dark before they could put ashore. The four of them slept that night on the beach. The next morning Hong Qigong was worse, and Guo Jing was so distraught that he wept.

Hong Qigong smiled and said, “Live another hundred years, and I’d still have to die in the end. Good child, I have only one wish left. While this old beggar still has breath in him, go and see it done for me.”

Huang Rong said with tears in her eyes, “Tell us, Shifu.”

Zhou Botong cut in, “I’ve never been able to stand the sight of the Old Venom. When my shige¹³ was dying, he had to fake his death first, all because of the Old Venom. Dying twice over, do you think that’s any fun? Old Beggar, you just go ahead and die, and don’t worry. So long as you hold firm and don’t come back to life, you’ll only die the once. I’ll avenge you. First I’ll kill the Old Venom, then bring him back to life, then kill him again, so that he dies twice.”

Hong Qigong laughed and said, “Revenge? That hardly counts as a wish. What I want is a bowl of Yuanyang Wuzhen Kuai¹⁴ made by the imperial chefs of the Danei.¹⁵”

The three thought he had some great matter in mind. Who would have guessed it was only a dish? Huang Rong said, “Shifu, that’s easy. We’re not far from Lin’an. I’ll go to the Imperial Palace and steal you a few big pots of it, and you can eat your fill.”

Zhou Botong interjected again, “I want to eat some too.”

Huang Rong shot him a look. “What would you know about whether food is good?”

Hong Qigong said, “The imperial chefs don’t make Yuanyang Wuzhen Kuai lightly. Back when I hid in the palace for three months, I only got it twice. Just thinking of the taste is enough to set my mouth watering.”

Zhou Botong said, “I have an idea. Let’s go and drag the old emperor’s cook out and make him cook it for us properly.”

Huang Rong said, “That’s not a bad idea of the Old Wild Child’s.”

Zhou Botong was delighted to hear Huang Rong praise him. But Hong Qigong shook his head. “It won’t do. For Yuanyang Wuzhen Kuai, the kitchen’s utensils, its charcoal and its bowls are all made specially as a set. Let a single piece be wrong and the flavour is bound to suffer. We’d do better to go and eat it in the palace.”

And what did the other three care for the Imperial Palace? They said together, “That really is splendid. Let’s go now and see the place for ourselves.”

So Guo Jing took Hong Qigong on his back and they set off north. When they came to a market town, Huang Rong sold some jewellery and bought a mule cart, so that Hong Qigong could lie at ease inside and nurse his injury.

Huang Rong talked it over with Guo Jing. Best of all would be to take their shifu straight to Peach Blossom Island,¹⁶ where the two of them, perhaps even with Huang Yaoshi’s help, could treat him in the underground chamber sealed tight by the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams.¹⁷ But they feared that on seeing Guo Jing, Huang Yaoshi would take him to task over the Nine Yin Manual¹⁸ and come to blows, and then Hong Qigong would get no peace at all. It would be safer to find some other quiet spot in the countryside near Lin’an for his treatment.

Guo Jing was also anxious about his six shifus, who had an appointment with Huang Yaoshi on Peach Blossom Island. He must join them as soon as he could and take Huang Rong with him to see her father. Best of all, they might persuade Zhou Botong to come to the island too and explain the joke over the Nine Yin Manual from start to finish, clearing away the misunderstanding and the bad blood, and then Hong Qigong could heal on Peach Blossom Island in safety. But Zhou Botong was such a muddle-head that he might only make Huang Yaoshi angrier still, and laying any plan with him was hard indeed.

Before many days were out they had crossed the Qiantang River¹⁹ and reached the outskirts of Lin’an. A vast grey dusk was settling, and crows flew home in flock after flock. There was no reaching the city before dark, and they meant to find some small town to stay the night. Looking out, they saw far off by the river a curving stream that wound around seventeen or eighteen households.

Huang Rong cried out, “This village is nice. Let’s rest here.”

Zhou Botong glared and said, “What’s nice about it?”

Huang Rong said, “Look, isn’t this scenery like a painting?”

Zhou Botong said, “So what if it’s like a painting?”

Huang Rong was taken aback and found it hard to answer.

Zhou Botong said, “Paintings can be good or bad. If the scenery resembles one of the Old Wild Child’s paintings, I’m afraid it won’t be much to look at.”

Huang Rong laughed. “To make a landscape like one of the Old Wild Child’s daubs? Even Heaven hasn’t the skill for that.”

Zhou Botong was very pleased with himself. “Isn’t that the truth? If you don’t believe me, I’ll paint you a picture, and you can tell Heaven to try making one like it.”

Huang Rong said, “Of course I believe you. Since you say this place is no good, don’t stop here. The three of us aren’t going any further.”

Zhou Botong said, “If you three aren’t going on, why should I?”

As they spoke, they reached the village.

The village was all broken walls and ruined houses, sunk in decay. At its eastern end a tattered wine pennant hung out over what looked like a wineshop.²⁰ The three of them went up to it and found two plank tables under the eaves, thick with dust.

Zhou Botong shouted “Hey” several times. Out of the back room came a girl of seventeen or eighteen, her hair unkempt and her clothes in disorder, a thorn hairpin stuck in her hair. She stared blankly at the three of them with big round eyes.

Huang Rong asked for wine and food. The girl kept shaking her head.

Zhou Botong said angrily, “You don’t have wine, you don’t have food. What kind of shop are you running?”

The girl shook her head and said, “I don’t know.”

Zhou Botong said, “Ai, you really are a silly girl.”

The girl grinned and said, “That’s right. I’m called Silly Girl.²¹”

All three of them were tickled at that.

Huang Rong went to look over the back room and the kitchen. There was dust and cobweb everywhere, some cold rice in the wok, and a torn mat on the bed, and a pang of desolation came over her. She came out and asked, “Are you the only one at home?”

Silly Girl smiled and nodded.

Huang Rong asked again, “Where’s your mother?”

Silly Girl said, “Dead!” She rubbed her eyes with her hand, pretending to cry.

Huang Rong asked further, “And your father?”

Silly Girl shook her head. She did not know. Her face and hands were caked with grime, her long nails packed with black dirt, and who could say how many months it had been since she last washed? Huang Rong thought, Even if she had cooked, we couldn’t eat it. She asked, “Do you have rice?”

Silly Girl smiled and nodded, and brought out a rice jar that was half full of coarse rice. Huang Rong washed it and set it cooking. By the time the meal was ready it was quite dark, and when Huang Rong asked for an oil lamp, Silly Girl shook her head again.

Huang Rong took a stick of pine kindling, lit it at the stove, and went to the cupboard for bowls and chopsticks. When she opened the door a reek of dust caught her nose. Holding up the burning pine, she saw seven or eight chipped blue-and-white bowls on the shelf, with more than a dozen dead hearth crickets in them and around them.

Guo Jing came to help fetch the bowls. Huang Rong said, “Go wash these and break off a few tree branches to use as chopsticks.”

Guo Jing agreed and went off with several of the bowls. Huang Rong reached for the last one and at once felt something odd. It was icy cold, not like an ordinary porcelain bowl, and when she lifted, it would not budge, as though it were nailed to the shelf. Huang Rong was mildly surprised. Afraid of crushing it, she did not put any force into it, but tried again, and still could not lift it. She thought, Could it be that years of dirt have fused the bowl to the shelf? She looked closely. The bowl was crusted with a thick layer of rust. It was made of iron.

Huang Rong burst out giggling. She thought, Gold rice bowls, silver rice bowls, jade rice bowls, I’ve seen them all, but I never heard of a rice bowl cast in iron. She gave a hard pull, but the iron bowl did not stir in the slightest. Huang Rong was astonished. She thought, Even if this bowl were nailed to the shelf, a pull like mine should have split the board. Then she thought again, Could the shelf be iron as well? She flicked the board with her middle finger, and it rang with a clang. It was an iron plate, sure enough.

She heaved upwards harder still, and still the bowl did not move. She twisted it to the left, and nothing happened. When she twisted it to the right, she felt it give a little. She put more strength into her hand and the bowl turned with it. All at once there came a grinding rattle, and the back of the cupboard parted to either side, opening on a pitch-black hole. A foul stench gushed out of it, enough to turn the stomach.

Huang Rong gave a cry and sprang hastily aside.

Guo Jing and Zhou Botong came over at the sound and peered into the cupboard together. A suspicion stirred in Huang Rong, and she thought, Could this be a black shop?²² I’ll wager Silly Girl is only playing the simpleton. She handed the burning pine to Guo Jing, sprang to Silly Girl’s side and reached for her wrist.

Silly Girl swept the grab²³ aside with a wave of her hand and struck back with her palm at Huang Rong’s shoulder. Huang Rong had guessed that the girl meant her no good, but the way this palm came at her looked, of all things, like her own school’s technique, and it gave her a jolt. Her left hand hooked and struck, her right coiled to seize, two moves in quick succession.

After practising the Tendon-Transmuting Bone-Tempering Chapter,²⁴ her neili²⁵ had greatly advanced. Her blows came hard and fast. There was a loud smack, and Silly Girl yelled with pain as her right arm was struck, but her hands did not slow in the least, and she struck out twice more with her palms.

They had traded only a few moves before Huang Rong was secretly amazed. What Silly Girl was using was indeed the first skill a Peach Blossom Island disciple learns, the Azure Wave Palm Technique.²⁶ Simple as it was, it already held the basic principles of Peach Blossom Island’s martial arts, and anyone of the school would know it at a glance.

So Huang Rong held back her strength, to draw the girl into using everything she had and see plainly what school her martial arts came from. But Silly Girl knew only six or seven moves, which she used over and over. Against the day when Guo Jing had faced Liang Ziweng²⁷ with nothing but the one move Proud Dragon Repents,²⁸ that looked a shade more respectable, yet her six or seven moves had nothing like the power of Guo Jing’s one. She did not even know the simplest variations of the technique.

Footnotes

1. 大闹禁宫 — Dà nào jìn gōng. Chapter title. Lit. “Great havoc in the forbidden palace.” The palace is the Song emperor’s, at Lin’an. ↩

2. 江南六怪 — Jiāngnán Liù Guài. Literally six eccentrics of Jiangnan. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 嘉兴 — Jiāxīng. City to the northeast of Lin’an, in modern day Zhejiang Province. See Wikipedia. ↩

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

5. 周伯通 — Zhōu Bótōng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 黄蓉 — Huáng Róng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

8. 透骨打穴法 — Tòugǔ Dǎ Xuè Fǎ. Ouyang Feng’s acupoint-striking art, very hard to undo. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 九花玉露丸 — Jiǔhuā Yùlù Wán. Huang Yaoshi’s elixir, compounded with the dew of nine kinds of flower and hard to make. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 师兄 — shīxiōng. Male senior. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Xiōng means older brother. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 陆乘风 — Lù Chéngfēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 哥哥 — gēge. Literally elder brother. After a given name it marks intimacy, not kinship. ↩

13. 师哥 — shīgē. Male senior, the colloquial form of shixiong. Both apprenticed to the same shifu. Shī means teacher. Gē means older brother. ↩

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

15. 大内 — Dànèi. Literally the great interior. The imperial palace. ↩

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

17. 八卦 — bāguà. Literally eight trigrams. The eight three-line symbols of the Book of Changes, representing the fundamental principles of reality. ↩

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

19. 钱塘江 — Qiántáng Jiāng. The Qiantang River of Zhejiang, known for its tidal bore. See Wikipedia. ↩

20. 酒店 — jiǔdiàn. Literally wine shop. An establishment selling wine and often food. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

22. 黑店 — hēidiàn. Literally black shop. An inn or shop that robs or murders its customers. ↩

23. 擒拿 — qínná. Literally seize and hold. Techniques for seizing and locking an opponent’s joints. ↩

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

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

26. 碧波掌法 — Bìbō Zhǎngfǎ. Basic Peach Blossom Island palm technique containing fundamental principles. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

27. 梁子翁 — Liáng Zǐwēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

28. 亢龙有悔 — Kàng Lóng Yǒu Huǐ. Literally the proud dragon has cause to repent. A move of the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing, named from a line of the Book of Changes. ↩