The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 24 – Part 2

Wanyan Honglie¹ tossed and turned and could not sleep. Towards midnight the faint sound of the tide came from the river, and at the far end of the village an old dog kept up a whimpering howl, breaking off and starting again but never stopping, as if it were weeping. Mournful sounds in the still night, and they only deepened his gloom. After a long while he heard footsteps outside the door. Someone was coming. He sat up quickly and drew his jian. Yang Kang² had already sprung behind the door to lie in wait. In the moonlight a woman with tousled hair, humming a nursery song, pushed the door open and came in.

The woman was Silly Girl.³ She had played in the woods to her heart’s content and come home, and finding people asleep in the hall, she thought nothing of it. She felt her way to the heap of brushwood where she always slept, lay down, and in a moment was snoring loudly.

Seeing it was only a simple-minded country girl, Yang Kang smiled and went back to sleep. Wanyan Honglie, though, lay with his thoughts surging and could not sleep for a long time. He got up, took a candle from his bag and lit it, and took out a book to read. Huang Rong⁴ saw the light coming through the little hole and put her eye to it. A moth was fluttering round the candle. Suddenly it flung itself at the flame, its wings were scorched at once, and it fell onto the table. Wanyan Honglie picked it up, saddened despite himself, and thought, If my wife, Lady Bao, were here, she would nurse you back to health. He took a small silver knife and a little medicine bottle from the breast of his robe and turned them over in his hands, fondling them.

Huang Rong tapped Guo Jing⁵ lightly on the shoulder and moved aside from the hole for him to look. At the sight Guo Jing flew into a rage. He dimly recognised the silver knife and medicine bottle as belonging to Bao Xiruo,⁶ Yang Kang’s mother. In Prince Zhao’s Mansion⁷ he had seen her use them to treat a little rabbit. He heard Wanyan Honglie say softly, “Nineteen years ago, in this very village, I met you for the first time… Ah, I wonder what has become of your old home…” With that he stood up, took the candle, opened the door and went out.

Guo Jing was stunned, and thought, Can this be Niu Family Village,⁸ my parents’ old home? He whispered the question in Huang Rong’s ear, and she nodded. Hot blood surged in his breast, and he swayed. Huang Rong’s right palm, pressed to his left, felt his breath suddenly racing, and she knew he was deeply stirred. Fearing danger, she put her left palm against his right as well, and the two of them worked together until Guo Jing slowly grew calm. After a long while the candlelight flickered, and they heard Wanyan Honglie give a long sigh as he came back into the inn.

By now Guo Jing had reined in his monkey heart and horse mind,⁹ and he put his eye to the little mirror.

Wanyan Honglie was sitting by the candle holding a few broken bricks and tiles, staring blankly. Guo Jing thought, This villain is less than ten paces from me. I have only to throw my short dao and he’s dead on the spot. He reached to his waist with his right hand, drew the golden dao¹⁰ that Genghis Khan¹¹ had given him, and whispered to Huang Rong, “Open the door.”

“No!” Huang Rong said quickly. “Killing him would be easy, but our hiding place is sure to be discovered.”

Guo Jing’s voice shook. “Six more days and nights, and who knows where he’ll be?”

Huang Rong knew he would be hard to talk round just then. She whispered in his ear, “Your mother and Rong-er want you to live.”

Guo Jing came to himself with a start and nodded. He put the golden dao back in the sheath at his waist and put his eye to the hole again. Wanyan Honglie had fallen asleep with his head on the table. Then someone in the straw sat up. His face was outside the ring of candlelight, and in the mirror Guo Jing could not make out who it was. The man rose quietly, went and stood behind Wanyan Honglie, and picked up the silver knife and the medicine bottle from the table. He looked at them for a while, then put them down softly and turned round. It was Yang Kang.

Guo Jing thought, Yes, you want to avenge your parents, and now’s your chance. One thrust, and your mortal enemy is dead. Once Old Venom¹² and the others are back, you won’t be able to do it. He was on tenterhooks, longing for him to strike at once. But Yang Kang stood gazing at the silver knife and the bottle, lost in thought. A gust of wind made the candle flare and dim, and then Guo Jing saw him take off his long robe and lay it gently over Wanyan Honglie’s shoulders to keep off the chill of the night. Guo Jing was beside himself with rage and would not look any more. He could not understand how Yang Kang could show such tender care for the enemy who had killed his parents.

Huang Rong comforted him. “Don’t fret. Once you’re healed, this villain can run to the ends of the earth and we’ll still catch him. He’s no Ouyang Feng. Killing him won’t be hard.” Guo Jing nodded and went back to his exercise.

At daybreak the cocks of the village crowed near and far, one answering another, and by then the breath in both their bodies had run seven times round the Small Heavenly Circuit.¹³ Both of them felt easy and calm. Huang Rong held up a forefinger and laughed. “One day gone.”

Guo Jing said quietly, “That was close! If you hadn’t stopped me, I’d have lost my head and nearly ruined everything.”

“Six more days and nights to go, and you promised to do as I say.”

Guo Jing laughed. “When have I ever not done as you say?”

Huang Rong smiled a little and tilted her head. “Let me think.”

Just then a shaft of sunlight came in through the skylight and lit her face, white with a blush of pink, lovely as the clouds of dawn. Guo Jing became suddenly aware of how warm and soft her palm was, and his heart gave a little flutter. He hastily steadied himself, but his face had already turned scarlet.

In all the time they had been together, Guo Jing had never had such a thought about her, and he was secretly startled and ashamed. Huang Rong, puzzled to see him turn red to the ears, asked, “Jing gege,¹⁴ what’s the matter?”

Guo Jing hung his head. “I’m really wicked. I suddenly thought… thought…”

“Thinking what?”

“I’m not thinking it now.”

“Then what were you thinking before?”

There was no dodging it, and Guo Jing had to say, “I wanted to hold you and kiss you.”

A warm sweetness filled Huang Rong’s heart, and she blushed too. Her loveliness, touched with shyness, was all the more enchanting. Seeing her hang her head and say nothing, Guo Jing asked, “Rong-er, are you angry? Thinking like that makes me as bad as Ouyang Ke.”

Huang Rong smiled sweetly and said softly, “I’m not angry. I was thinking that one day you’ll hold me and kiss me anyway. I’m going to be your wife, after all.”

Guo Jing was overjoyed, and stammered, unable to get a word out. Huang Rong whispered, “Do you want to kiss me very much?”

Guo Jing was about to answer when there were hurried footsteps outside and two men burst into the inn. They heard Hou Tonghai’s¹⁵ voice say, “Screw his granny, I always said there really are ghosts in this world, and you wouldn’t believe me, shige.¹⁶” He sounded beside himself, frantic beyond words.

Then Sha Tongtian’s¹⁷ voice. “What’s all this about ghosts? I tell you, we ran into real masters.”

Huang Rong looked through the hole. Hou Tonghai’s face was covered in blood, and Sha Tongtian’s clothes hung in tatters. Shixiong and shidi were both in a sorry state. Wanyan Honglie and Yang Kang were astonished and asked at once what had happened.

Hou Tonghai said, “Our luck was rotten. Last night in the palace we ran into ghosts. Damn it, a ghost cut off both old Hou’s ears.” Wanyan Honglie saw the bloody mess on either side of his face, where his ears had truly vanished, and was more horrified still. Sha Tongtian snapped, “Still going on about ghosts and demons? Haven’t you made fool enough of yourself?” Hou Tonghai was afraid of his shixiong, but still he protested, “I saw it plain as day. An underworld judge with indigo eyes and a vermilion beard came at me howling. I only turned my head, and the judge had me by the neck, and then my ears were gone. That judge looked exactly like the statue in the temple. How can it not be him?”

Sha Tongtian had traded three moves with the judge and had his clothes torn to shreds. The man’s moves were plainly those of a master of the wulin, no god or demon, but why he should look like an underworld judge baffled him completely.

The four of them argued and guessed, and went to ask Ouyang Ke,¹⁸ who lay nursing his injuries, but could make nothing of it.

While they were talking, Venerable Lingzhi,¹⁹ Peng Lianhu²⁰ and Liang Ziweng²¹ came fleeing back one after another. Venerable Lingzhi’s hands were chained behind his back with iron chains, and Peng Lianhu’s cheeks had been slapped red and swollen. Liang Ziweng was more comical still. Every hair of his white head had been plucked out, turning him into a monk, and as far as the crown of the head went, he and the bald Sha Tongtian now shone back at each other, a well-matched pair.

The three of them, it turned out, had split up in the palace to search for the Wumu’s Art of War,²² and each of them had met a ghost or demon. Only each had met a different one. One had come up against a Wuchang ghost, another the Yellow Spirit Officer, and the third the God of the Soil. Liang Ziweng rubbed his bald head and swore a blue streak, and his filth spared not even the wives of every God of the Soil under heaven. Peng Lianhu swallowed his humiliation and said nothing, but set about freeing Venerable Lingzhi’s hands from the chains. The rusty iron had bitten deep into the flesh, and the links were hooked tight into one another, and it took Peng Lianhu a great deal of effort, scraping the wrists bloody, before he got them off. They looked at one another and said nothing. They all knew they had come up against great masters last night, but after such humiliation, talking of it would only cost them face. Hou Tonghai swore blind it had been ghosts, and the others did not bother to argue with him.

After a long while Wanyan Honglie said, “Why isn’t Mister Ouyang back yet? I wonder if he met ghosts too.”

Yang Kang said, “Mister Ouyang’s martial arts are peerless. Even if he did meet ghosts, I doubt he’d come off the worse.”

That made Peng Lianhu and the others feel smaller still. Seeing them in such a sorry state, babbling about ghosts and demons, Huang Rong was hugely pleased with herself, and thought, Who’d have guessed the masks I bought for Big Brother Zhou would work such wonders? But I wonder whether Old Venom ran into him and they fought. Through her palm she felt Guo Jing’s breath begin to flow slowly again, and she steadied her breathing and circulated her neili²³ in step with him.

After a night of being knocked about, Peng Lianhu and the others were famished. Some split firewood, some went to buy rice, and they set about cooking. When the rice was done, Hou Tonghai opened the cupboard door and saw the iron bowl. He went to pick it up and of course it would not move. He let out a startled yelp, then bellowed, “Ghosts!” He put all his brute strength into it and heaved, but how could he pull it up?

When Huang Rong heard his yelp she was badly frightened. She knew they were bound to discover the mechanism. Never mind that they could not win if it came to a fight. They were in the middle of driving their breath round the Heavenly Circuit, and if either of them were forced to shift even slightly, Guo Jing’s life would be in danger at once. What was she to do?

While she was at her wits’ end in the secret chamber, outside, Sha Tongtian heard his shidi’s shouting and scolded him for making a fuss about nothing. Hou Tonghai was indignant. “All right, then, you lift the bowl.” Sha Tongtian reached out to lift it, and could not budge it either. “Eh?” he said. Peng Lianhu came over at the sound, looked it over for a while, and said, “There’s a mechanism in this. Big Brother Sha, try turning the bowl left and right.”

Seeing how desperate things were, Huang Rong had no choice but to gamble. She put her short jian in Guo Jing’s hand, reached for the bamboo staff Hong Qigong²⁴ had given her, and in a low voice told Guo Jing to stop driving his breath round the Heavenly Circuit for now, so that their hands could part. But Guo Jing was still injured, weaker than an ordinary man, and the slightest touch would kill him, while she could not drive off this crowd of masters on her own. If Guo Jing died, she could never live on alone. Her heart ached. In a moment it would all be over for the two of them, here. Then, turning her head, she saw the two skeletons in the corner, and an idea came to her. With the staff she rolled the two skulls over, then pressed hard several times on a big watermelon and set the skulls into it, one beside the other.

There were several grinding creaks, and the iron door of the secret chamber had turned open a crack. Huang Rong set the watermelon on top of her head and pulled her long hair down over her face. At that moment Sha Tongtian turned the door open, and out of the cupboard popped a two-headed monster, shrieking.

The monster’s two heads grew side by side, both of them skulls, below them a round ball striped dark green and light green, and below that a tuft of long black beard. After all they had suffered last night, the men were still shaken, and the ghoul that had popped out of the cupboard was truly frightening. Hou Tonghai let out a yell and took to his heels. The others ran out after him before they knew what they were doing, leaving only Ouyang Ke lying in the straw, unable to move, his broken legs not yet healed.

Huang Rong let out a long breath and quickly shut the cupboard door. She could not help laughing, but then it struck her that though they had escaped for the moment, these villains were all old hands of the jianghu and were sure to come back. They had fled just now only because the Old Wild Child²⁵ had frightened them out of their wits the night before. Otherwise how could they have been taken in so easily? Once they calmed down and thought it over, there would be no frightening them off. The smile was still on her face and she had not yet settled on a plan when, sure enough, there was a sound at the shop door and someone came in.

Footnotes

1. 完颜洪烈 — Wányán Hóngliè. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 杨康 — Yáng Kāng. His name meaning “well-being”; paired with Guo Jing’s 靖 it recalls the Jingkang Shame of 1127. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

4. 黄蓉 — Huáng Róng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 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. ↩

6. 包惜弱 — Bāo Xīruò. Her name meaning “cherishing the weak”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 赵王府 — Zhàowáng Fǔ. Wanyan Honglie’s residence in Zhongdu. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 牛家村 — Niújiā Cūn. Literally Niu Family Village. A village outside Lin’an. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 心猿意马 — xīnyuán yìmǎ. Literally heart a monkey, mind a horse. A Buddhist image of the restless, undisciplined mind. ↩

10. 金刀 — jīndāo. The golden dao Genghis Khan bestows on Guo Jing. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

11. 成吉思汗 — Chéngjísī Hán. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

13. 小周天 — xiǎo zhōutiān. Literally small heavenly circuit. The circulation of qi through the Ren and Du vessels, down the front of the body and up the back. ↩

14. 靖哥哥 — Jìng gēge. Literally elder brother Jing. ↩

15. 侯通海 — Hóu Tōnghǎi. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

17. 沙通天 — Shā Tōngtiān. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

18. 欧阳克 — Ōuyáng Kè. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

19. 灵智上人 — Língzhì Shàngrén. Literally the venerable of spiritual wisdom. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

20. 彭连虎 — Péng Liánhǔ. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

22. 武穆遗书 — Wǔmù Yíshū. The military treatise left by Yue Fei (1103—1142), the Song general posthumously titled Wumu. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

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

25. 老顽童 — lǎo wántóng. Literally old wild child. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩