The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 26 – Part 1

New alliances, old pledges

Huang Yaoshi¹ reflected that he had fought a great battle with the Seven Zis of Quanzhen² for no reason he could name, and for even less reason had made bitter enemies of them. It had all come about for nothing. Watching Mei Chaofeng’s³ breathing grow ever fainter, he recalled the kindnesses and grudges of several decades, and such sorrow came over him that he could not hold back his tears.

Mei Chaofeng smiled faintly at the corner of her mouth and said, “Shifu,⁴ I beg you, be good to me again as you were before. I have wronged you so terribly. I was wrong, wholly and utterly wrong! I want to stay by your side and serve you forever…forever. I am dying. There is no time left!” Her face was all entreaty.

Huang Yaoshi said through his tears, “Good! Good! I shall treat you just as I did when you were small! Ruohua, from now on you must be good and do as Shifu tells you.” Mei Chaofeng’s betrayal of her shimen⁵ had been the great regret of her life. That at the point of death her shifu should forgive her, and call her once more by her childhood name, filled her with joy. Clasping her shifu’s right hand in both of hers, she rocked it gently and said, “Ruohua will always do as Shifu says. Shifu, I want to train my way back to being Ruohua at twelve, at thirteen. Shifu, teach me, teach me…” She struggled up, meaning to perform the rite of becoming his disciple anew. As she knocked her head to the ground for the third time, her body stiffened, and she moved no more.

Huang Rong,⁶ in the next room, had watched these harrowing events follow one upon another. She only hoped her father would stay a few moments longer. Once Guo Jing’s⁷ inner breath was flowing freely, he could come straight out to meet him. But she saw her father stoop and lift Mei Chaofeng’s body into his arms.

Suddenly a horse whinnied outside the door, and it was the voice of Guo Jing’s little red horse.⁸ Then came Silly Girl’s⁹ voice, “This is Niu Family Village.¹⁰ How should I know if anyone here is surnamed Guo? Are you surnamed Guo?” Another voice said, “There are only a handful of households here. Do you mean to say you don’t know everyone in the village?” He sounded thoroughly impatient. As he spoke, several people pushed the door open and came in.

Huang Yaoshi peered out from behind the door, and his face changed. The people coming in were the very Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan¹¹ he had worn out iron shoes searching for in vain. They had gone to Peach Blossom Island¹² to keep their appointment, but for all their turning east and winding west they could never find their way into Huang Yaoshi’s dwelling. Only when they met the island’s mute servants did they learn that he had left. The six had then come upon the little red horse charging wildly about the woods, and Han Baoju¹³ had led it to Niu Family Village in search of Guo Jing.

The six had barely stepped inside when Ke Zhen’e,¹⁴ the Flying Bat, whose hearing was exceptionally keen, caught the sound of breathing behind the door. “Someone’s here!” he cried. At once the six turned. When Zhu Cong¹⁵ and the other four saw Huang Yaoshi barring the doorway with Mei Chaofeng’s corpse cradled in his arms, plainly to cut off their escape, they were badly shaken. Zhu Cong said, “I trust Island Master Huang has been well since we parted! We six brothers went to Peach Blossom Island as you bade us, to pay our respects, but the Island Master had business elsewhere. To meet you here today is good fortune indeed.” With that he bowed low, hands clasped before him.

Huang Yaoshi had meant to strike at once and kill all six. But glancing at Mei Chaofeng’s ashen face, he thought further, The six are her mortal enemies. She may have died first today, but I shall still have her kill every one of them with her own hand. If she has any awareness beneath the earth, she will surely be glad. Cradling the corpse in his right arm, he raised her wrist with his left hand. His figure flickered and he was at Han Baoju’s side, driving Mei Chaofeng’s palm at his right arm. Han Baoju sensed it and tried to dodge, but how could he be fast enough? With a smack the palm landed on his right arm. Huang Yaoshi’s power, issuing through the dead woman’s palm, made her hand a weapon, and the force behind it was tremendous. Han Baoju’s arm did not break, but half his body went numb and he could not move.

Huang Yaoshi had not said a word. He had gone for the kill from the very first move, and to use Mei Chaofeng’s corpse as his weapon was weird beyond compare. The six gave a great cry as one and drew their weapons. Huang Yaoshi held Mei Chaofeng’s body high and came straight at them, paying their weapons no heed at all. Han Xiaoying¹⁶ bore the brunt. She saw Mei Chaofeng’s eyes staring wide in death, her long hair loose about her shoulders, her mouth smeared with blood, a sight hideous beyond words, and the right palm raised high and slamming down at the crown of her head. Terror turned her limbs to water, and she had no thought of dodging or parrying. Nan Xiren¹⁷ swung his carrying-pole and Quan Jinfa¹⁸ sent his steelyard weight flying, both aimed at the corpse’s arm. Huang Yaoshi drew back the corpse’s right arm and swung out the left, catching Han Xiaoying squarely in the waist. The pain sent her sinking into a crouch. Han Baoju stepped aside at a slant and sent his Golden Dragon Whip lashing along the ground. Huang Yaoshi’s left foot came down and pinned the tip of the whip. Han Baoju wrenched it back with all his strength. Would it budge so much as a hair? In the blink of an eye Mei Chaofeng’s clawed hand was at his face. Aghast, Han Baoju let go of the whip, threw himself backwards and rolled away across the floor. His face burned with a fierce, stinging pain. He put up his hand and it came away covered in blood. He had been raked with five claw marks. It was fortunate that Mei Chaofeng was dead and could no longer use the Nine Yin White Bone Claw,¹⁹ and that the deadly poison on her claws had dissipated when her breath failed. Otherwise that one stroke would have killed him outright beneath her claws.

In only a few exchanges the six were in mortal danger at every turn. Had Huang Yaoshi not been bent on letting Mei Chaofeng take her revenge with her own hand after death, insisting on destroying his enemies with her hands and feet, the six would long since have been killed or maimed to a man. Even so, before the uncanny, unpredictable moves of the Master of Peach Blossom Island, all six had their lives hanging on a single breath.

Guo Jing, in the next room, heard Zhu Cong greet Huang Yaoshi and was overjoyed. Then he heard the seven come to blows, his six revered shifus panting and shouting as they strained to hold their ground, and the danger was extreme. The qi in his dantian²⁰ had not yet settled firmly. But his six shifus had raised him with a kindness no different from a parent’s. How could he stand by with folded arms? He held his breath, gathered it in, and pushed out with his palm. With a crash, the inner and outer doors of the secret chamber shattered to pieces.

Huang Rong was aghast. She could see that his exercise had not yet run its course, that it was still several ke²¹ short, and yet at this very moment he had put force into a palm strike. Afraid it would cost him his life, she cried, “Jing gege, don’t fight!” The moment Guo Jing’s palm went out, he felt the qi in his dantian surge violently upwards and a fiery heat strike at his heart. He hastily held his breath and reined it in, forcing his inner breath back down into his dantian.

When Huang Yaoshi and the six eccentrics saw the cupboard door suddenly burst apart to reveal Guo Jing and Huang Rong, they were all at once astonished and delighted, and they sprang apart.

Seeing his beloved daughter so suddenly, Huang Yaoshi thought he must be dreaming. He rubbed his eyes and cried, “Rong-er, Rong-er, is it really you?” Huang Rong, one palm still pressed to Guo Jing’s, smiled and nodded but said nothing. Huang Yaoshi’s joy was beyond all his hopes, and he put everything else out of his mind. He laid Mei Chaofeng’s body across a bench, went to the cupboard and sat down cross-legged beside it. He felt his daughter’s pulse and, finding it steady, reached his left palm through the cupboard door to press it against Guo Jing’s right.

Inside Guo Jing several streams of hot qi were churning and rolling. He had already been in acute distress, and in those few moments he had more than once been on the point of leaping up and bellowing to vent the pressure. When Huang Yaoshi’s palm reached across to meet his, an immensely powerful neili²² flowed in, and little by little he grew calm. Huang Yaoshi’s neili was profound beyond measure, and his right hand worked and kneaded the vital acupoints²³ all over Guo Jing’s body. In the time it takes to eat a meal, he had saved his life. Guo Jing’s breath settled and his mind grew easy, his inner breath flowing through his whole body. He leapt out of the cupboard, prostrated himself before Huang Yaoshi, and then went to kowtow to his six shifus.

Over on one side Guo Jing was telling his shifus all that had happened since they parted. On the other, Huang Yaoshi held his daughter’s hand and listened as she chattered away, laughing and talking her way through her tale. At first the six eccentrics listened to Guo Jing, but he spoke slowly and could not find the words for what he meant. Huang Rong, by contrast, not only had a clear, ringing voice and rich, graceful language, but when she came to the moments of danger her telling was so vivid and lively, so full of brilliant touches, that the six could not help themselves and drifted over one by one to listen. Guo Jing stopped talking, and from speaker became listener. Huang Rong talked for the better part of a shichen,²⁴ radiant with animation, her wit sparkling like strung pearls, now grave, now droll, and everyone listened enraptured, as if drinking mellow wine.

Huang Yaoshi could scarcely believe that his daughter had actually become Chief of the Beggars’ Guild. He said, “This move of Seventh Brother’s is outlandish, and has a strong whiff of the heretical about it. He has stopped being the Northern Beggar. Can he mean to steal my title and call himself the ‘Northern Heretic’? Then the Five Greats²⁵ become the Eastern Beggar, the Western Venom, the Southern Emperor, the Northern Heretic and the Central Heaven-knows-what!”

Huang Rong told it all, right up to the point where her father had fought the six eccentrics, then laughed and said, “There, I needn’t tell you the rest.” Huang Yaoshi said, “I am going to kill those four villains, Ouyang Feng,²⁶ the monk Lingzhi, Qiu Qianren²⁷ and Yang Kang. Come along with me, child, and watch the fun.” His words were of killing, but as he looked at his daughter his heart was glad and his face was all smiles. He glanced at the six eccentrics and felt rather sorry. But though he knew he was in the wrong, he would not bow his head and admit it to anyone. He only said, “At least luck was not too unkind, and did not let me harm good men by mistake.” Huang Rong had resented the six eccentrics for pressing Guo Jing not to marry her. But now that Mu Nianci²⁸ and Yang Kang were promised to each other, she had let the matter go. She laughed and said, “Father, why not apologise to these shifus of his?”

Huang Yaoshi snorted and changed the subject. “I am going to find the Western Venom. Jing-er, you come too.”

He had always disliked Guo Jing’s slowness and stolidity intensely, thinking, I, Huang Yaoshi, am clever beyond compare, and I am to take a blockhead like this for a son-in-law? Will the whole wulin²⁹ not laugh their jaws crooked? He had brought himself to agree to the marriage only with great difficulty, and then Zhou Botong³⁰ had thoughtlessly played his foolish joke, saying Guo Jing had borrowed Mei Chaofeng’s Nine Yin Manual³¹ and copied it. In his anger he had believed it, and hated Guo Jing for a sly, treacherous schemer. But after seeing off Hong Qigong, Ouyang Feng, Zhou Botong and the rest, he had soon seen it clearly. The lower volume Guo Jing had recited held far more text than the lower volume in Mei Chaofeng’s hands, and lacked such phrases as “how much more so now.” It could not have been copied from Mei Chaofeng’s transcript, and he had long since known that Zhou Botong was lying. Later he had been taken in by Venerable Lingzhi’s invented news of Huang Rong’s death. Now he had found his daughter again at last, and in his wild joy all his resentment against the six eccentrics had melted away. Only he would not admit his fault and apologise, hoping instead to do them some great service one day to make amends. And then, seeing that Mei Chaofeng had not forgotten her debt to her shifu even in death, and had given her life to save him from catastrophe, he thought, If Ruohua and her shige³² Xuanfeng had come to me when they fell in love and asked to marry, I would not necessarily have refused. Why run so great a risk and flee Peach Blossom Island? It was because I have always been so capricious. The two of them turned it over and over, and never dared to speak. If Rong-er too, because of my strange temper, were to end up like Ruohua… The thought chilled him to the marrow. In calling him “Jing-er,” he had accepted him as his son-in-law once more.

Huang Rong was overjoyed. Glancing sideways at Guo Jing, she saw he had no idea what the name “Jing-er” implied, and said, “Father, let us go to the imperial palace first and fetch Shifu out.”

Meanwhile Guo Jing had also told his shifus how Huang Yaoshi had promised him his daughter on Peach Blossom Island, and how Hong Qigong had taken him as a disciple. Ke Zhen’e said happily, “What luck you have, to become the disciple of the Nine-Fingered Divine Beggar, and to have the Master of Peach Blossom Island promise you his beloved daughter. We are delighted beyond words. How could we not give our consent? Only, the Great Khan of Mongolia…” He was thinking of how Genghis Khan had made Guo Jing his Golden Dao Prince Consort. That posed real difficulties, and to speak of it would surely provoke Huang Yaoshi’s anger again, yet for the moment he could not think how to put it.

Suddenly the front door creaked open and Silly Girl came in, carrying a monkey folded from yellow paper. She smiled at Huang Rong and said, “Little sister, have you finished your watermelon? The old man told me to bring you this monkey to play with.”

Huang Rong thought she was merely being silly and paid it no mind, taking the paper monkey without a thought. Silly Girl went on, “The long-haired old man says you’re not to be angry. He’ll find your shifu for you, for certain.” Huang Rong could tell she plainly meant Zhou Botong. Looking at the paper monkey, she saw there was writing on it, and hastily unfolded it. Scrawled crookedly across it were the words, “The old beggar has gone missing. Oh dear, oh dear, the Old Wild Child is in a terrible fix.” Huang Rong cried in alarm, “Aiya, how can Shifu have gone missing?”

Huang Yaoshi pondered for a long while, then said, “The Old Wild Child may be a madcap, but his skill is formidable. So long as Qigong isn’t dead, he is sure to rescue him. But right now there is a serious matter facing the Beggars’ Guild.” Huang Rong said, “What is it?” Huang Yaoshi said, “That lad Yang Kang has taken the bamboo staff the old beggar gave you. His martial prowess may not be much, but he is a formidable customer. Even a man like Ouyang Ke³³ died at his hands. With the staff in his grasp he is bound to stir up wind and waves and bring disaster on the Beggars’ Guild. We must go after him and get it back, or the old beggar’s disciples and their disciples will come to grief. And it does you no credit as Guild Chief either.” Ordinarily, trouble in the Beggars’ Guild would not have weighed on Huang Yaoshi in the least. He would rather have gloated and enjoyed the spectacle. But now that his own daughter was its Guild Chief, how could he stand aside?

Footnotes

1. 黄药师 — Huáng Yàoshī. 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. 梅超风 — Méi Chāofēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 师父 — shīfù. Teacher responsible for technical instruction and moral guidance. Shī means teacher. Fù means father. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

5. 师门 — shīmén. Literally the teacher’s gate. The house of one’s shifu: the master, the fellow disciples, and the rules and obligations binding them. ↩

6. 黄蓉 — Huáng Róng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

7. 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. ↩

8. 小红马 — xiǎo hóng mǎ. The red horse Guo Jing tames on the steppe, a sweat-blood steed. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

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

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

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

13. 韩宝驹 — Hán Bǎojū. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 柯镇恶 — Kē Zhèn’è. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

15. 朱聪 — Zhū Cōng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

16. 韩小莹 — Hán Xiǎoyíng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

17. 南希仁 — Nán Xīrén. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

18. 全金发 — Quán Jīnfā. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

19. 九阴白骨爪 — Jiǔyīn Báigǔ Zhǎo. Literally nine yin white bone claw. A claw technique. ↩

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

21. 刻 — kè. A traditional unit of time, about fifteen minutes. ↩

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

23. 穴道 — xuédào. Acupoints, the nodes along the body’s meridians through which qi flows. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

24. 时辰 — shíchén. Traditional Chinese unit of time equal to two hours; the day was divided into twelve shichen. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

25. 五绝 — Wǔjué. Five supreme martial artists who competed at Huashan Sword Summit for martial supremacy. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

27. 裘千仞 — Qiú Qiānrèn. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

28. 穆念慈 — Mù Niàncí. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

29. 武林 — wǔlín. Literally martial forest. Those who actually practise, teach or study martial arts. The wulin sits inside the jianghu and is narrower than it: every member of the wulin belongs to the jianghu, but a pedlar or physician of the jianghu who never trained is no part of the wulin. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

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

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

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