The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 25 – Part 8

Guo Jing started. That was Ouyang Feng’s¹ voice, yet he had no idea when the man had come in.

The Seven Zis of Quanzhen² were just as startled at the voice. They looked towards the door and saw two men standing side by side beside it, one in a dark gown and one in white, the very two who had chased Zhou Botong³ that night.

The Seven Zis of Quanzhen gave a low whistle together, broke off the fight and stood up.

Huang Yaoshi⁴ said, “Well, well. Seven mangy Daoists ganging up on my disciple. Brother Feng, if I teach them a lesson, would you call that bullying the young?”

Ouyang Feng laughed. “They showed you disrespect first. If you don’t show them a little of your skill, these youngsters will never know what the Master of Peach Blossom Island can do.”

Wang Chuyi⁵ had once seen the Eastern Heretic and the Western Venom on the summit of Mount Hua. He stepped forward and was about to bow when Huang Yaoshi’s figure swayed slightly and he struck a backhanded blow with his palm. Wang Chuyi tried to block it, but far too late. With a smack, the blow landed on his cheek, and he staggered and almost fell.

Qiu Chuji⁶ was horrified. He shouted, “Quick, back to your places!”

Then came four smacks, one after another, and Tan Chuduan,⁷ Liu Chuxuan,⁸ Hao Datong⁹ and Sun Buer¹⁰ had each taken a palm across the face.

Qiu Chuji saw a flicker of blue before his eyes and a palm chopping at his face, its shadow so elusive that he had no idea where to block it. In desperation he flicked out his sleeve and swept it across at Huang Yaoshi’s chest.

Qiu Chuji’s martial arts were the highest of the seven, and that flick of the sleeve was no small thing. Huang Yaoshi had taken his enemy far too lightly, and the sleeve caught him across the chest. A pain shot through him, and he quickly circulated his neili¹¹ to protect himself. His left hand turned up and caught the sleeve, and his right hand went straight for Qiu Chuji’s eyes.

Qiu Chuji wrenched back with all his strength, and the sleeve tore away. At the same moment the palms of Ma Yu¹² and Wang Chuyi arrived together. But Huang Yaoshi moved with supreme agility. His strike at Qiu Chuji had missed, and he had already slipped behind Hao Datong, raised his left leg, and with a thump kicked him head over heels.

By now Guo Jing had given the little hole back to Huang Rong. Seeing her father display his power so magnificently, she was overjoyed. Had she not had to think of the practice running smoothly, with Guo Jing’s injury still needing a shichen or two more, she would have clapped and cheered long since.

Ouyang Feng roared with laughter and cried, “What a fine pack of good-for-nothings Wang Chongyang took for disciples!”

Never since he first learned his art had Qiu Chuji suffered so crushing a defeat. Again and again he cried, “Take your places, all of you.”

But Huang Yaoshi darted east and swerved west, and in a moment he had made seven or eight killing moves in a row. Each of them was hard put to defend himself, so how could they set up their formation?

There were two sharp cracks. Huang Yaoshi had plucked the long jians from Ma Yu’s and Tan Chuduan’s waists, snapped them, and thrown them on the floor. Qiu Chuji and Wang Chuyi drew their jians together and pressed him in an unbroken stream of attacks. The Quanzhen Swordplay was subtle in its changes, and with the two jians linked, its power was very great. Even Huang Yaoshi did not dare take it lightly, and he concentrated as he met several of their moves.

Seizing the chance, Ma Yu planted himself in the place of Tianshu and struck out with his palms, and then Tan Chuduan, Liu Chuxuan and the others each took their places too.

Once the Big Dipper Formation¹³ was set, everything changed. Tianquan and Yuheng met the enemy head-on, Tianji and Kaiyang struck from the flanks on either side, and from behind Yaoguang and Tianxuan wheeled up as well.

With four whooshing moves Huang Yaoshi knocked aside the palm force of four of them and laughed. “Brother Feng, so Wang Chongyang left this trick behind after all!”

He said it lightly, but as his hands met their palm force he knew that things were very different now. Every move the seven made came with tremendous force behind it, far beyond what they had managed a moment before, when each fought for himself. So he brought out the Peach Blossom Falling Petals Palm¹⁴ and spun and whirled about inside the formation, his body darting nimbly, his palm shadows flying.

Huang Rong thought, When Father taught me the Peach Blossom Falling Petals Palm, I thought the five feints and one true strike, the seven feints and one true strike, were only to lure and distract the enemy. I never knew that in real combat, those five feints and seven feints could also kill.

This furious fight was a different thing again from the seven’s battle with Mei Chaofeng. Not only did Huang Rong watch it breathlessly, but even Ouyang Feng, for all his martial arts, was startled. Mei Chaofeng¹⁵ stood to one side listening to the rush of air in the fierce fighting, glad and ashamed at once.

Suddenly there was a cry and then a thud. Yin Zhiping,¹⁶ watching the eight men fight, had grown dizzier and dizzier until the world was spinning round him, and he could not tell how many Huang Yaoshis were rushing to and fro. Everything went black before his eyes, he toppled over backwards, and he fainted clean away.

The Seven Zis of Quanzhen held their places fast and defended with all their might. They knew that if even one of them let his attention slip for an instant, not one of the seven would come out of this day alive, and the Quanzhen Order would be wiped out.

Huang Yaoshi too was groaning inwardly. If he had made a killing move at the very start, he could easily have killed or badly wounded one or two of them, and the Big Dipper Formation could never have been set up. But because he had held his hand at first, now he could neither win nor break off. Both sides were riding a tiger they could not get down from, and had no choice but to throw all their strength into the fight.

For the better part of a shichen Huang Yaoshi changed through thirteen kinds of strange and unorthodox martial arts, yet he could never do better than hold them even. They fought on until the cocks crowed together at dawn and sunlight came into the room, and still the eight of them had not settled it.

By now Guo Jing’s seven days and nights of practice were complete. Though the next room was in uproar, his heart was still and his spirit at ease. He closed his eyes and looked inward. A warm mass of breath within him moved down to the Weilü at the base of his spine, rose from there to the Kidney Pass, from Jiaji and the Double Pass up to the Heavenly Pillar and the Jade Pillow, and at last to the Niwan Palace at the crown of his head. There it rested for a moment. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, and the breath came down the front of his body, from the Divine Courtyard down past the Magpie Bridge and the Storeyed Tower, on down to the Yellow Court and the Qi Cave, and slowly sank into his dantian.¹⁷

In a moment the great circuit had turned thirty-six times.

Seeing his face ruddy and his eyes shining with spirit, Huang Rong was delighted. But when she put her eye to the little hole again, she was startled.

Her father was moving slowly, his feet treading the positions of the eight trigrams, sending out one palm strike after another, slowly. She knew this was the highest of all his arts, which her father would never lightly use, and that now the moment had come when victory and defeat, life and death, would be settled at once.

The Seven Zis of Quanzhen too were fighting with all their strength, shouting to one another. Steam rose from their heads, and their Daoist robes were soaked through with sweat, a far cry from the ease of their battle with Mei Chaofeng.

Ouyang Feng stood by with his hands in his sleeves. Seeing how formidable the seven’s Big Dipper Formation was, he hoped that Huang Yaoshi would drain his zhenqi¹⁸ and be gravely injured, so that at the second Huashan Sword Summit he would have one strong rival the fewer. But Huang Yaoshi’s martial arts seemed to have no end, and though the seven would not be beaten, it was no easy matter for them to win either.

He thought, Old Heretic Huang really is formidable!

He saw the moves on both sides growing slower and slower and the fight growing ever more deadly. In less time than it takes to drink a cup of tea, this savage battle would be over.

Then Huang Yaoshi struck one palm each at Sun Buer and Tan Chuduan. The two of them raised their hands to parry, and Liu Chuxuan and Ma Yu struck out to help them.

Ouyang Feng gave a long whistle and cried, “Brother Yao, I’ll help you.” He crouched down and thrust both palms hard at Tan Chuduan’s back.

Tan Chuduan was fighting Huang Yaoshi with all his strength when suddenly he felt a force like a toppling mountain or an overturning sea slam into him from behind, so fierce and so swift that his fellow disciples had no time to save him, and he himself could not dodge it.

With a thud he pitched forward on his face.

Huang Yaoshi roared, “Who asked you to interfere?” He saw Qiu Chuji and Wang Chuyi’s twin jian arrive and swept them aside with his sleeve. His right palm met Ma Yu’s and Hao Datong’s combined force.

Ouyang Feng laughed. “Then I’ll help them!” In a flash both his palms thrust at Huang Yaoshi’s back.

In his blow at Tan Chuduan he had used only three-tenths of his strength, but this thrust carried all the neili of a lifetime. With Huang Yaoshi holding off four of the Zis and no hand to spare, he meant to kill him beneath his palms at a single stroke. He had reckoned it all out. First kill one of the seven, then deal with Huang Yaoshi. Then the Big Dipper Formation would be broken, and even if the remaining Zis turned on him for revenge, he would have nothing to fear.

The vicious stroke came in an instant. However great Huang Yaoshi’s skill, he could not hold off four Zis in front and fight the Western Venom behind at once. He thought, This is the end of me! All he could do was gather his breath into his back and take the blow of Ouyang Feng’s Toad Skill¹⁹ head-on, ready to suffer grave injury from behind.

Ouyang Feng’s thrust carried tremendous force, though it came slowly. Seeing his scheme about to succeed, he was secretly delighted.

Then a dark shape flickered. A figure sprang up from the side and threw itself across Huang Yaoshi’s back with a great cry, taking the blow in his place.

Huang Yaoshi, Ma Yu and the others all broke off their moves at the same moment and leapt apart, and saw that the one who had thrown away her life to shield her shifu was Mei Chaofeng.

Huang Yaoshi turned his head and gave a cold laugh. “Old Venom, you are venomous indeed. Your name is well earned!”

Ouyang Feng’s blow had struck the wrong person. He thought again and again, What a pity! He knew that with Huang Yaoshi and the six Daoists of Quanzhen joining hands, his own life would hardly be safe. With a long peal of laughter he flew out of the door.

Ma Yu bent and lifted Tan Chuduan. The touch alarmed him. Tan Chuduan’s upper body sagged oddly, his head lolling to one side. Ouyang Feng’s blow had shattered his ribs front and back, and broken his spine.

Ma Yu saw that his shidi was at death’s door. Tears streamed down his face.

Qiu Chuji gave chase, jian in hand. From far off they heard Ouyang Feng shout, “Old Heretic Huang, I’ve helped you break Wang Chongyang’s formation, and got rid of a traitor to her shifu from Peach Blossom Island for you besides. The six mangy Daoists that are left you can handle on your own. Till we meet again!”

Huang Yaoshi grunted. He knew that even as he left, Ouyang Feng had played another vicious trick, stirring up trouble with his words to lay the whole guilt for Tan Chuduan’s death on him, so that the Quanzhen Order would bear him a grudge and seek revenge. He knew perfectly well that this was Ouyang Feng’s poisonous scheme to set them against each other, but he had no wish to explain himself to the Quanzhen Daoists.

Slowly he raised Mei Chaofeng up. She had spewed blood all over the floor, and he could see she would not live.

Qiu Chuji chased for several hundred feet, but Ouyang Feng had run off, no one knew where.

Afraid that if he chased the enemy alone he too would fall to some foul blow, Ma Yu shouted, “Qiu shidi, come back.”

Qiu Chuji’s eyes looked fit to spit fire. He strode back, pointed straight at Huang Yaoshi and cursed him. “What grudge, what quarrel has our Quanzhen Order with you? You evil demon, first you murdered our Zhou shishu, and now you have murdered our Tan shige. What for?”

Huang Yaoshi started. “Zhou Botong? I killed him?”

Qiu Chuji said, “You still won’t admit it?”

Huang Yaoshi, Zhou Botong and Ouyang Feng had raced each other on foot for several hundred li, and still none of them could pull ahead. They had meant to keep on until it was settled. But in the middle of the race Zhou Botong suddenly remembered that he had left Hong Qigong²⁰ alone deep in the palace, without his martial powers, and that if anyone found him his life would be in danger at once.

He said hastily, “Old Wild Child has things to do. No more racing, no more racing!”

When he said no more racing, he meant it, and Huang Yaoshi and Ouyang Feng truly could do nothing about it, so they had to let him go.

Huang Yaoshi had meant to ask him for news of his beloved daughter, but had not even had the chance to open his mouth.

Tan Chuduan and the others had followed behind, but they soon lost sight of the three, though Huang Yaoshi and the others could see them perfectly well.

Since Old Wild Child had business to see to, the Eastern Heretic and the Western Venom had come back to Niu Family Village²¹ to see what was going on, only for all this to happen.

Now Qiu Chuji was raging like thunder, and Sun Buer, holding Tan Chuduan up, was weeping aloud, and both of them meant to fight Huang Yaoshi to the death.

Huang Yaoshi saw that the misunderstanding was beyond undoing, and only gave a cold laugh and said nothing.

Tan Chuduan slowly opened his eyes. In a low voice he said, “I am going.”

Qiu Chuji and the others quickly gathered around him and sat cross-legged.

Then they heard Tan Chuduan chant,

“My hand grasps the spirit pearl, ever plying the brush, my heart lies open to Heaven’s music, and needs no flute.”

When he had finished, he closed his eyes and died.

The six Zis of Quanzhen bowed their heads and prayed. When they had finished, Ma Yu lifted Tan Chuduan’s body, and Qiu Chuji, Yin Zhiping and the others followed behind him. They went out of the door without once looking back.

By now Qiu Chuji, Sun Buer, and the rest had realised that with Tan Chuduan dead, the Big Dipper Formation was broken. To fight Huang Yaoshi further would only send the remaining six to their deaths. Their great vengeance would have to wait for another day.

Footnotes

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

2. 全真七子 — Quánzhēn Qīzǐ. Literally the seven zi of Quanzhen, zi being an honorific for a master. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

4. 黄药师 — Huáng Yàoshī. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 王处一 — Wáng Chǔyī. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 丘处机 — Qiū Chǔjī. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 谭处端 — Tán Chǔduān. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 刘处玄 — Liú Chǔxuán. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 郝大通 — Hǎo Dàtōng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 孙不二 — Sūn Bù’èr. Her name meaning “not two”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

12. 马钰 — Mǎ Yù. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 天罡北斗阵 — Tiāngāng Běidǒu Zhèn. Literally Big Dipper formation of the Heavenly Ladle. A Quanzhen formation of seven, laid out on the stars of the Big Dipper. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 桃华落英掌 — Táohuā Luòyīng Zhǎng. Palm technique with palm shadows like scattering peach blossoms. Originally called 落英神剑掌 (Falling Petals Divine Sword Palm) in earlier editions. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 梅超风 — Méi Chāofēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 尹志平 — Yǐn Zhìpíng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

18. 真气 — zhēnqì. Literally true qi. Qi refined through internal cultivation. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

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

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