The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 27 – Part 4

Yang Kang had heard nothing in Yanjing of any dealings Wanyan Honglie intended with the Beggars’ Guild. Eager now to learn the prince’s purpose, he asked, “May I ask what errand Prince Zhao¹ has for our humble Guild? I beg Chief Qiu to tell me.” Qiu Qianren laughed. “Errand? That word must never be spoken. Prince Zhao merely happened to mention to me that the north is a barren land and its people poor, a poor place for a fine steed to stretch its legs…” Yang Kang broke in, “Prince Zhao wants us to move south?” Qiu Qianren laughed. “Guild Chief Yang is clever indeed. I was truly discourteous to you just now. Prince Zhao said, the lands of Jiangnan and Huguang are warm and their people rich, so why should the brothers of the Beggars’ Guild not come south and rest their horses? It would be far better than the bitter cold of the north.” Yang Kang laughed. “I am much obliged to Prince Zhao and to you, venerable Chief, for your kind advice, and I shall certainly follow it.”

Qiu Qianren had never imagined the other would agree so readily, without the least sign of reluctance, and it took him rather by surprise. Then he reflected that the fellow was young and weak, and one squeeze of the Iron Palm just now had left him half dead with pain. He was terrified, and whatever was said to him now, he would not dare defy it in the slightest. But the Beggars’ Guild was deeply rooted in the north and could hardly pull out at a word. Once the beggars talked it over afterwards, they were bound to go back on it. He must drive the nail home and clinch it, so that the Guild could never retract. So he said, “A man of honour decides with a single word. Has Guild Chief Yang given his promise today, in person, that the Beggars’ Guild will withdraw south of the Great River and never return north?”

Yang Kang was about to consent when Lu Youjiao spoke up. “May it please the Guild Chief, we live by begging. What use have we for gold and jewels? Besides, our Guild numbers in the hundreds of thousands, and our reach spans the world. How can we let anyone set bounds on us? I beg the Guild Chief to think again.”

Yang Kang now understood Wanyan Honglie’s intention. He had long known that north of the Yangtze the Beggars’ Guild had always been hostile to the Jin, a constant thorn in their side. Every time the Jin armies marched south, the Guild would harry their rear, assassinating officers, burning grain stores. Moving the Guild’s people south would naturally be a great boon to a Jin campaign southward. So he said, “This is a token of Chief Qiu’s kindness, and it would be discourteous of us to refuse it. I want no share of the gold and jewels. Four elders, in a while you may share them all out among the brothers.”

Lu Youjiao said urgently, “Our old Guild Chief Hong was called the Northern Beggar, as all the world knows. How can we so lightly abandon our foundations in the north? Our Guild has served the nation in loyalty, generation after generation enemies of the Jin. We must never accept gifts from the Jin, and to withdraw south of the Yangtze is more out of the question still.”

Yang Kang’s face darkened with anger. He was about to reply when Elder Peng said with a laugh, “Elder Lu, our Guild’s great affairs are for the Guild Chief to decide, not you, surely?” Lu Youjiao said sternly, “If it means forgetting loyalty and honour, this subordinate would rather die than obey.” Yang Kang asked, “Elders Jian, Peng and Liang, what do you three think?” Elders Jian and Liang hesitated and did not answer. They too felt that withdrawing the Guild south of the Great River was most unwise. But Elder Peng cried aloud, “We follow the Guild Chief’s orders. How would this subordinate dare disobey?” Yang Kang said, “Very well. From the first of the eighth month, our Guild withdraws to Jiangnan.” At these words, more than half the beggars broke into a clamour. Seeing the beggars in uproar, Yang Kang for a moment did not know what to do. Elders Jian, Peng and Liang shouted for silence, but it was the Dirty Clothes beggars who were protesting, and they paid no heed to the three elders at all.

Elder Peng barked, “Elder Lu, do you mean to rebel against the Guild Chief?” Lu Youjiao said sternly, “Even if I were cut to pieces by a thousand blades, I would not dare defy my superiors or betray the Guild Chief. But the precepts our Guild’s forefathers left us I, Lu Youjiao, dare still less forsake. The Jin have invaded our land and slaughtered our countrymen. They are the sworn enemy of our Great Song. What did old Guild Chief Hong always tell us?” Elders Jian and Liang hung their heads in silence, inwardly full of regret.

Qiu Qianren² saw that things were going badly. Unless he dealt with Lu Youjiao,³ his errand here might well come to nothing. He gave a cold laugh and said to Yang Kang, “Guild Chief Yang, this Elder Lu is quite overbearing, is he not?” The words were barely out of his mouth when his hands shot out, snatching fiercely at Lu Youjiao’s shoulders. Lu Youjiao, hearing the cold laugh, had already taken precautions. He knew those palms were deadly and dared not meet them head-on. He ducked low in a flash and darted between Qiu Qianren’s legs, and before he had even straightened up, three kicks went whistling back at the other’s buttocks. His name was Lu Youjiao, “Lu Has Feet”, and his legwork truly lived up to it, his kicks swift beyond compare.

When the man suddenly ducked between his legs, Qiu Qianren thought it a very strange move. Hearing the wind of a kick behind him, he hastily struck back with his palm. Lu Youjiao’s third kick, had he committed his full force, might have connected with Qiu Qianren’s backside. But if the Iron Palm struck his shin in return, his leg would not withstand it. Halfway, he forcibly pulled the kick back, turned a somersault past him, and suddenly spat a thick gob of phlegm at Qiu Qianren’s face. Qiu Qianren turned his head aside to dodge it, taken aback by the endless stream of unorthodox moves.

Yang Kang shouted, “Elder Lu, do not be rude to our honoured guest!” Lu Youjiao, hearing the Guild Chief’s command, stepped back two paces. But Qiu Qianren showed no mercy. His hands came at Lu Youjiao’s throat like a pair of iron pincers. Lu Youjiao, secretly alarmed, twisted away and fell back, but he heard his enemy grunt, and both his hands were already caught in the other’s grip.

Lu Youjiao had been through a hundred battles. Though beaten, he did not panic. He pulled upward with all his strength but could not shift the man’s body an inch. At once he drove his head into Qiu Qianren’s belly. He had trained the Copper Hammer Iron Head art since boyhood, and his head could butt a hole in a wall. Once, in a wager with his Guild brothers, he had pitted himself against a great bull, head to head. His skull came away without a scratch, while the bull was knocked senseless. Now, even if this blow did not injure the man, it would surely free his hands from that grip.

To his astonishment, the instant his crown met the other’s belly, the spot felt soft as nothing, as though he had rammed his head into a heap of cotton wool. Knowing something was wrong, he hastily pulled back, but the man’s belly came after him. Lu Youjiao struggled with all his might, but that belly had the pull of some immense suction, holding his skull fast. In his alarm he felt his brow growing hotter and hotter, and his two hands as though they had fallen into a furnace, burning with pain and heat.

Qiu Qianren barked, “Do you submit?” Lu Youjiao cursed, “You stinking traitor, submit to what?” Qiu Qianren’s left hand tightened. There came a series of cracks as every bone in Lu Youjiao’s right hand was crushed. He asked again, “Do you submit?” Lu Youjiao cursed again, “You stinking traitor, submit to what?” Crack, crack, crack, and the bones of his left hand broke too. The pain blurred his mind, but still his mouth would not stop cursing.

Qiu Qianren said, “One heave of my belly and I’ll squash your skull flat as well. Let’s see if you still curse me then.” He had not finished speaking when a figure leapt from among the beggars, broad-shouldered and tall. It was Guo Jing.

He strode up behind Lu Youjiao, raised his right palm high and brought it down on Lu Youjiao’s backside, smack, smack, smack, three crisp slaps that everyone could hear. The three slaps landed on Lu Youjiao’s backside, but Qiu Qianren felt a force surge up through the top of Lu Youjiao’s head and into his own belly, three jolts in quick succession, each heavier than the last. In an instant the suction from his belly was utterly dispersed.

Lu Youjiao suddenly felt the pressure on his head release and quickly straightened, though his two hands remained locked in Qiu Qianren’s vice-like grip. Guo Jing called out, “You’re no match for Esteemed Senior Qiu. Out of the way!” His left leg swung up in a wide arc and struck Lu Youjiao on the shoulder.

This kick, like the palm strikes before it, landed on Lu Youjiao’s body but sent its force through to Qiu Qianren’s arms. Qiu Qianren felt a violent jolt in the webs of his hands, and his grip on the other man loosened in spite of himself. Lu Youjiao seized his chance and, riding the force of Guo Jing’s kick, shot away to one side. But his head had been held in that suction for so long that the world spun dizzily. He could not stand and toppled to the ground.

The three slaps and the kick Guo Jing had shown left Qiu Qianren secretly alarmed. Young as he was, the lad could pass force through another man’s body, and Qiu Qianren had never expected to find such a man among the beggars. He tightened his guard and did not rush forward to attack. The beggars, however, did not understand what had happened. They had long been convinced that Guo Jing was an accomplice in their Guild Chief’s murder, and now they saw him kick Lu Youjiao to the ground. With loud cries they surged forward en masse.

Guo Jing’s hands and feet had been lashed tight with ropes of steel wire twisted with strips of oxhide, so that he could not stir. All this while he had been gazing up at the Dipper and silently pondering the formation the Seven Zis of Quanzhen⁴ had used that day at Niu Family Village, checking it again and again against the text of the Nine Yin Manual,⁵ which he knew by heart. Many points that had puzzled him were now, step by step, resolving themselves in his mind. The Nine Yin Manual was what a master of an earlier age had distilled from the Daoist canon, and it sprang from the same source as the Quanzhen Daoist neigong Ma Yu had taught him and the Seven Zis’ Big Dipper Formation,⁶ only it went deeper and was subtler still. But Guo Jing’s understanding was really very poor, and he was not well lettered, so he grasped only so much of the Manual. Try as he might afterwards to reflect upon what he had read, he could never perceive the connections between the Manual and the Quanzhen arts. Only now, seeing the Dipper in the sky above, had the faintest glimmer of understanding begun to form.

While Qiu Qianren was trading words with Yang Kang, Elder Jian, Lu Youjiao and the rest, Guo Jing had been wholly absorbed in the Sinew-Contracting Bone-Shrinking Method⁷ described in the lower volume of the Manual. At its lowest, this bone-shrinking art was the burglar’s trick of squeezing through holes and over walls. Mastered to the full, it let a man draw every sinew and bone of his body into a tiny ball, as a hedgehog or porcupine curls up before an enemy. On Mingxia Island, at Hong Qigong’s bidding, Guo Jing had begun training in the Tendon-Transmuting Bone-Tempering Chapter,⁸ and by now he had made some headway. With so good a grounding, once he applied the method, the ropes on his hands and feet slipped off almost without his knowing it. His body was ten times more agile than his mind. Though the bonds were gone, he still could not fathom how it had come about.

Elder Peng had been standing in front of the platform. When he saw Guo Jing slip his bonds, he was badly shaken. He lunged to grab him and missed. All that was left on the ground was a heap of rope, still firmly knotted together, while the man it had bound had slithered out like a loach. Elder Peng was about to give chase when he saw Guo Jing had already rescued Lu Youjiao. Charging in himself, he reckoned, might well do him no good, so he roared, “Seize the young villain!” while his feet stayed rooted to the spot.

Guo Jing had been lashed for a long time and was furious. He understood Huang Rong’s feelings. She had a child’s temper, and she must be even more enraged. He knew the beggars had been duped by Yang Kang and did not really mean to be his enemies, but when he saw them coming at him, yelling, he thought, If I don’t give you a good thrashing today, there’ll be no easing the anger in Rong-er’s heart! He wanted to try out the Big Dipper Formation he had just worked out. With a shake of his arms, he planted his feet on the Heavenly Authority position.

Six or seven Beggars’ Guild members charged at him from every direction. Guo Jing stood firm, immovable as a mountain, his left arm barred across his chest. The first three to arrive reached for his arm. He held the arm still, and in a moment several more were on him. Then all at once he snatched the arm back, spun round in a tight circle and went to work with hands and feet on the beggars’ backs, pushing one in the back, ramming another in the waist, kicking a third up the backside. Amid a string of yells, “Ow,” “Ouch,” “Thieving dog,” the six or seven of them went down in a heap.

Guo Jing thought happily, It really works. He turned round, meaning to seize Yang Kang and settle accounts, when in the moonlight he saw two beggars rushing at Huang Rong. He feared she might be hurt, but the distance was too great to reach her in time, and he carried no hidden weapons. In his desperation he bent, pulled off his two cloth shoes, and flung them. It was a trick he would never have thought of on his own, but he had heard the Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan describe their great battle long ago at the Fahua Monastery,⁹ when his second shifu Zhu Cong¹⁰ had pulled off a shoe and hurled it at Qiu Chuji, and so he had picked up the trick.

The two beggars, afraid that Huang Rong too might break free as Guo Jing had, gripped their weapons and were about to kill her on the spot to avenge the old Guild Chief. They had just reached her when, weapons not yet raised, they felt a sharp rush of wind behind them. Something was flying at them, and they knew someone was striking from behind. The more skilled of the two turned in time, and Guo Jing’s shoe struck him square in the chest. The other had no chance to turn before his shoe hit him in the back. A cloth shoe is soft and light, but with Guo Jing’s neili¹¹ behind it, it struck with no small force. Neither man could hold his footing. One fell backwards, the other pitched forward, and both went rolling.

Elder Peng, standing nearer, saw that Guo Jing could strike so hard and fierce even with a cloth shoe, and in still greater fear he hastily backed off several paces.

Guo Jing pushed three beggars aside with a wave of his hand and rushed to Huang Rong’s side. He bent to untie her bonds, but he had barely undone a single knot before dozens of beggars were swarming towards him. He sat down on the ground instead, adopting the method Qiu Chuji, Wang Chuyi and the others had used to fight from within the Big Dipper Formation, extending only his right palm to meet the enemy, while he placed Huang Rong across his knees and went on patiently untying her knots with his left hand. Zhou Botong had taught him Ambidextrous Self-Combat,¹² the art of using one mind for two tasks at once. Now his left hand untied rope while his right hand fought, and he showed not the slightest strain.

In less time than it takes to drink a cup of tea, a hundred or more beggars had ringed Guo Jing and Huang Rong round, rank upon rank. Those at the back could not even catch a glimpse of Guo Jing, let alone strike at him.

Guo Jing defended with a single palm throughout, never once counter-attacking. Only when every bond on Huang Rong’s hands and feet was undone, and the gag taken from her mouth, did he say, “Rong-er, are you hurt?” Huang Rong lay on her side across his knees and made no move to rise. “I’m stiff and numb all over, but I’m not hurt.” Guo Jing said, “Good. Lie there and rest a while, and watch me pay them back for you.” One sat on the ground, the other lay at full length, treating the clamour of brandished weapons and shouting beggars all around them as though it did not exist. Huang Rong laughed. “Go ahead, then. Just don’t really hurt my disciples and grand-disciples.” Guo Jing said, “I understand.” His left hand gently stroked her lovely hair, while his right palm suddenly struck out, bang, bang, bang, and three beggars went flying over the heads of the crowd.

Footnotes

1. 赵王 — Zhào Wáng. Literally Prince of Zhao. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

3. 鲁有脚 — Lǔ Yǒujiǎo. His name meaning “has feet”. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

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

6. 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. ↩

7. 收筋缩骨法 — Shōujīn Suōgǔ Fǎ. Literally method of contracting the sinews and shrinking the bones. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

9. 法华寺 — Fǎhuá Sì. Literally Dharma Blossom Monastery. A Buddhist monastery in Jiaxing. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

10. 朱聪 — Zhū Cōng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

12. 双手互搏 — Shuāngshǒu Hùbó. Fighting technique where both hands operate independently, allowing each hand to perform different techniques simultaneously. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩