The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 27 – Part 1

Before the Xuanyuan Terrace¹

As the two were quarrelling, footsteps sounded on the stairs. The three Beggars’ Guild elders² who had followed Yang Kang downstairs now returned. They came over to Guo Jing and Huang Rong’s table and bowed.

The beggar in the middle was plump and pale, with a great bush of grizzled beard. Had his clothes not been patched a thousand times over, he would have looked every inch a grand squire or a rich man. He smiled before he spoke, his face all spring breeze and good humour, and said, “Just now that beggar surnamed Lu struck at you two in secret with a deadly hand. We could not stand by and watch, so we have come to save you.”

Guo Jing and Huang Rong were taken aback and asked together, “Struck at us how?”

The elder said, “That beggar refused to share your table and drink with you, did he not?”

Huang Rong’s heart gave a lurch. “Do you mean he poisoned our food and wine?”

The elder sighed. “It is a misfortune for our Guild that such a deceitful man should appear among us. That beggar is a master poisoner. A light flick of his finger, and the powder hidden under his nails slips into the wine and dishes without god or ghost being any the wiser. The poison is already deep in you both. In another half-shichen,³ there will be no saving you.”

Huang Rong did not believe him. “We have no grudge against him, and he none against us. Why should he strike at us so viciously?”

“Most likely something you said offended him. Take this antidote at once, and you may yet be saved.” He took a packet of powder from his robe, divided it between two wine cups, poured wine over it and pressed the pair to drink it down at once.

Huang Rong had already grown suspicious when she saw Yang Kang acting in league with them. She was not going to swallow a medicine rashly on the strength of a few words from him. She said, “The young sir surnamed Yang⁴ is an acquaintance of ours. Would you three invite him to come and see us?”

“Naturally you shall see him. But the poison that traitor used is uncommonly virulent. You must take the antidote quickly, or it will be too late.”

“We are most grateful for your kindness, all three of you. Do sit down and drink a few cups with us. I think of Guild Chief Qiao Feng⁵ of the Beggars’ Guild in days gone by, fighting the assembled heroes single-handed at Gathering Virtue Manor, putting a host of demonic masters to flight before the Shaolin Monastery with the Twenty-Eight Palms of Dragon Subduing,⁶ and forcing the Khitan emperor at Goose Gate to break an arrow in oath and never invade the south. What a hero he was.”

While she, Hong Qigong and Guo Jing were building their raft on Mingxia Island, Hong Qigong had often told her stories of the Guild’s past, so that when she became Guild Chief one day she would not be wholly ignorant of its great affairs. It was then that she had heard of Guild Chief Qiao Feng’s heroic deeds.

The three elders were taken aback to hear her suddenly speak of the Guild Chiefs of old, and wondered how a girl of her tender years could know of such things.

Huang Rong went on, “Guild Chief Hong’s Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing⁷ are without peer in the world. I wonder how many palms you three have learned?”

Shame showed on all three beggars’ faces. Their Guild Chief had never taught them a single palm of the Eighteen. They were worse off even than the eight-bag disciple Li Sheng,⁸ who had at least been given one move, “Divine Dragon Sweeps Its Tail.”

Huang Rong continued, “Elder Lu may be good at poisoning, as you say, but his skill looked quite ordinary to me. Last month the Western Venom Ouyang Feng⁹ treated me to three cups of poisoned wine, and that showed a little real craft. As for these two cups of antidote, you three had better drink them yourselves.” She pushed the two cups of medicated wine towards the three beggars.

The three beggars’ faces changed a little. They knew she was rambling on about this and that on purpose and would not take the medicine.

The elder who looked like a rich man smiled. “Since you have your doubts, Miss, we can hardly force you. It only means our kindness has gone to waste. But I need point out just one thing, Miss, and you will be convinced. Look into my eyes, both of you. Do you see anything unusual there?”

Guo Jing and Huang Rong both looked into his eyes. They were sunk in a round, bulging face of fat, two mere slits, yet the slits glimmered with light, and his gaze was clear and bright.

Huang Rong thought, What’s unusual about them? They’re a pair of shiny little pig’s eyes, that’s all.

The beggar went on, “Keep looking into my eyes, both of you, and do not let your minds wander for an instant. Now you feel your eyelids growing heavy, your head swimming, your whole body weak and drained of strength. These are the signs of poison. Close your eyes and sleep.”

His voice was gentle and pleasing, and there was something in it that made a listener drunk. Sure enough, Guo Jing and Huang Rong felt their spirits flag and their eyes grow heavy, and the strength drained from their whole bodies. Huang Rong sensed something was wrong and tried to turn her head away from his gaze, but her eyes were held by his, and she could not help staring back.

The beggar said, “This place looks out over the great lake, and it is wonderfully cool. You two shall sleep soundly here in the clear breeze. Sleep, sleep! So comfortable, sleep quietly now!” His voice grew softer and sweeter with each word.

Before they knew it, Guo Jing and Huang Rong were yawning again and again, and then they slumped over the table, fast asleep.

Neither knew how long they slept. In a daze they felt only a cool wind playing over them and a chill in their bodies, and faintly in their ears there seemed to be the sound of waves. When they opened their eyes, they saw through mist and cloud a bright moon just rising from behind the eastern mountains.

This was no small shock. A moment ago they had been drinking in the wineshop in broad daylight. How could it be dark in the blink of an eye? Still groggy, they tried to stand, and found to their greater alarm that their hands and feet were bound with rope. They opened their mouths to shout, but each had a hemp gag stuffed in it that pricked their mouths and tongues painfully.

Huang Rong knew at once that the plump, pale beggar had tricked them, though what sorcery he had used she could not fathom. She let it be for now. From the corner of her eye she saw Guo Jing lying beside her, straining against his bonds, and she was more than half relieved.

Guo Jing’s neili¹⁰ was now deep and strong, and a few heaves would have snapped any rope, however tough. Yet when he put strength into his hands and feet, the ropes only twanged and held without the slightest give. They had been twisted from strips of oxhide with steel wire worked in.

Guo Jing was about to put more force into it when something cold touched his face. The icy edge of a jian patted him lightly on the cheek, twice. He turned his eyes sideways and saw four young beggars standing guard over them, each holding a weapon. He stopped struggling and turned to look at Huang Rong.

Huang Rong collected herself. She would get the lie of the land first, then think about escape. She rolled onto her side and was struck dumb all over again. They were on the summit of a hill. In the moonlight she could see plainly that there was lake water on every side, with thin haze and light mist lying over a boundless expanse of green waves. She thought, So they’ve carried us off to the top of Mount Jun¹¹ in Dongting Lake. How did we get here without feeling a thing?

She turned her head again. A hundred-odd feet away stood a high platform. Around it sat several hundred beggars in dense ranks, all silent. A full moon hung above a distant peak, not yet at its zenith.

Her heart lifted, and she thought, Ah, of course. Today is the fifteenth of the seventh month, and this is the great assembly of the Beggars’ Guild. In a while I need only find a way to speak and pass on shifu’s orders, and how could the beggars refuse to obey?

A long while passed, and still the beggars made no move. Huang Rong grew very impatient, but she could not stir and had no choice but to bear it. Another half-shichen went by, and her motionless limbs had begun to ache and tingle. The moon, an icy disc, crept slowly overhead until it lit half the high platform.

Huang Rong thought, Li Taibai has a poem: ‘Lightly brushed, the bright lake opens a mirror of jade, and Mount Jun stands painted in vermilion and blue.’ How carefree he was that day, enjoying the hills and the moon. The scene tonight is just the same, yet Jing gege and I are tied up here. It’s enough to make me laugh and fume at once!

The moonlight moved slowly on and fell upon three great characters at the edge of the platform: Xuanyuan Terrace.¹² Huang Rong remembered her father telling her tales of the great rivers and lakes of the realm. Legend had it, he said, that the Yellow Emperor cast a tripod on the shores of Dongting Lake, and when it was finished he mounted a dragon and rose to Heaven. This platform, she supposed, must commemorate the event.

Before long the whole high platform was bathed in bright moonlight. Suddenly there came a tapping, tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap, three beats and a pause, now slow, now quick, now loud, now soft, with a definite rhythm to it. Every beggar held a little stick and was striking the rock in front of him.

Huang Rong silently counted the strokes. When she reached nine nines, eighty-one, the sound stopped dead. Four men rose from among the beggars, and in the moonlight she saw plainly that they were Lu Youjiao and the three elders of the Clean Clothes Faction.¹³

The four elders of the Beggars’ Guild went to the four corners of the Xuanyuan Terrace and took their stand. All the beggars rose as one, hands clasped before their chests, and bowed.

When the beggars had sat down again, the plump, pale beggar said in a ringing voice, “Brothers, Heaven has struck the Beggars’ Guild a calamity as great as Heaven itself. Our Guild Chief Hong has died in Lin’an Prefecture!”¹⁴

For a moment not a sound came from the beggars. Then one man gave a great cry and flung himself to the ground. All around, the beggars beat their breasts and stamped their feet, howling and weeping until the woods shook and the sound carried far out across the lake.

Guo Jing was appalled. He thought, So that’s why we couldn’t find shifu. He has passed away. Tears poured from his eyes and nose, but with the gag in his mouth he could not make a sound.

But Huang Rong thought, That fat man is a bad lot. He used sorcery to catch us. How can anything he says be trusted? He must be spreading lies.

Remembering all Hong Qigong’s kindness to them, the beggars wept aloud, every one.

Suddenly Lu Youjiao called out, “Elder Peng, who saw the Guild Chief die with his own eyes?”

The plump, pale Elder Peng said, “Elder Lu, if our Guild Chief were still in this world, who would have eaten a leopard’s gall and a tiger’s heart, to dare lay such a curse on him? The man who saw him die with his own eyes is right here. Young sir Yang, please tell the brothers everything.”

A man rose from the crowd. It was Yang Kang.

Green bamboo staff in hand, he walked to the front of the high platform. At once the beggars fell silent, though low sobbing still went on.

Yang Kang said slowly, “A month ago, Guild Chief Hong fought a contest of martial arts in Lin’an Prefecture. He was set upon by many, and, alas, he fell.”

A storm of feeling broke among the beggars, and they shouted all at once. “Who is the enemy? Tell us, tell us!” “With powers like our Guild Chief’s, how could he fall?” “The enemy must have come in force and set on him together. Our Guild Chief was outnumbered.”

Hearing this, Guo Jing passed from grief to anger, and then to joy. He thought, A month ago shifu was with us, plain as day. So he’s talking rubbish.

But Huang Rong thought, This fellow is the inner disciple of that old fraud Qiu Qianren, and he’s learned his rotten trick of putting about false news of a death.

Yang Kang stretched out both hands and waited for the beggars to quieten before he said, “Those who killed the Guild Chief were the Master of Peach Blossom Island, the Eastern Heretic Huang Yaoshi,¹⁵ and the seven thieving Daoists of the Quanzhen Order.”

Huang Yaoshi had not left his island for many years, and few beggars knew his name. But the Seven Zis of Quanzhen¹⁶ were famous far and wide. Those who had come to Mount Jun for the assembly that day were not ordinary members of the Guild. Naturally they all knew what the Seven Zis could do. They thought, Huang Yaoshi is as famous as the Guild Chief, and with the Seven Zis of Quanzhen joining forces besides, the Guild Chief, however supreme his martial arts, could never have matched them alone. Every one of them was beside himself with grief and fury. Some broke out into curses, others cried that they must go at once and avenge the Guild Chief.

Yang Kang had heard Ouyang Feng say that Hong Qigong had been struck by his Toad Skill¹⁷ and could not survive. He had also believed that he had stabbed Guo Jing to death himself in the Forbidden Palace. Then, out of nowhere, he had run into them at Yueyang Tower. Badly shaken, he had set the three Guild elders to find a way to seize the pair and kill them as quickly as possible.

Sooner or later, he reckoned, the truth would leak out, and Huang Yaoshi, the Seven Zis of Quanzhen and the Six Eccentrics of Jiangnan would all come after him for revenge. The Six Eccentrics’ martial arts were nothing much, and he was not greatly afraid of them, but the Eastern Heretic and the Seven Zis were another matter entirely. So he had airily laid the blame for Hong Qigong’s death at their door, to bring the Beggars’ Guild out in full strength, hoping it would wipe out Peach Blossom Island and the Quanzhen Order and rid him of his greatest danger.

Amid the clamour of the beggars, Elder Jian¹⁸ of the Eastern Route rose to his feet and said, “Brothers, hear me.” His beard and brows were grizzled, and he was short and thickset, the oldest of the four elders. The moment he began to speak, the others fell silent, plainly a man of great standing in the Guild.

He said, “We have two great matters before us. The first is to obey Guild Chief Hong’s dying command and install the nineteenth Guild Chief of our Guild. The second is to discuss how we may avenge Guild Chief Hong.”

The beggars roared their assent.

But Lu Youjiao said loudly, “First we must make offerings to the spirit of our old Guild Chief.” He scooped up a handful of wet earth, squeezed it into a little clay figure to stand for Hong Qigong’s spirit, set it at the edge of the Xuanyuan Terrace, and threw himself down and wept. The beggars wailed aloud.

Huang Rong thought, My shifu is perfectly well and has not died at all. What are you stinking beggars crying for? Hmph. You tied up Jing gege and me here for no reason at all, and now you’ve wasted all that grief. Serves you right.

After the beggars had wept for some time, Elder Jian clapped his hands three times. One by one the beggars dried their tears and fell silent, though some still sobbed.

Elder Jian said, “The brothers of our Guild’s various routes have gathered today on Mount Jun in Yuezhou. We came to hear Guild Chief Hong name his successor. Now that, alas, the old Guild Chief has gone to Heaven, the choice must follow his dying command. If he left none, then the four elders of our Guild choose one together. This is the rule passed down from our ancestors through the generations. Is it not so, brothers?”

The beggars agreed with one voice.

Elder Peng said, “Young sir Yang, what was the old Guild Chief’s dying command when he went to Heaven? Please tell us.”

The installation of a Guild Chief was the greatest matter in the Beggars’ Guild. The Guild’s rise or fall depended in large part on whether the Guild Chief was virtuous and capable. In years past the seventeenth Guild Chief, Shi, had been muddle-headed and weak. His martial arts were high, but he handled affairs badly. The Clean Clothes Faction and the Dirty Clothes Faction¹⁹ feuded without end, and the Guild’s standing sank low. Only when Hong Qigong became Guild Chief, and put down both factions by force and forbade them to fight among themselves, did the Guild regain its old might in the jianghu.

Every beggar at the gathering that day knew this old history, and so, hearing that a Guild Chief was to be installed, they all hung on every word, holding their breath.

Footnotes

1. 轩辕台前 — Xuānyuán Tái qián. Chapter title. Xuanyuan is the Yellow Emperor. ↩

2. 长老 — zhǎnglǎo. Elders. The senior leaders of the Beggars’ Guild. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

4. 相公 — xiànggōng. A courteous address to a young man of standing, and also how a wife addresses her husband. ↩

5. 乔峰 — Qiáo Fēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

6. 降龙二十八掌 — Xiáng Lóng Èrshíbā Zhǎng. Literally twenty-eight dragon-subduing palms. An earlier, longer form of the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing. ↩

7. 降龙十八掌 — Xiánglóng Shíbā Zhǎng. Literally eighteen dragon-subduing palms. Hong Qigong’s palm technique. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 黎生 — Lí Shēng. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

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

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

11. 君山 — Jūnshān. Mount Jun, a hilly island in Dongting Lake, Hunan. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

12. 轩辕台 — Xuānyuán Tái. Literally Xuanyuan terrace, Xuanyuan being the Yellow Emperor. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

13. 净衣派 — Jìngyī Pài. Beggars’ Guild members who wear the patched beggar’s robe but otherwise live as ordinary people; most were never beggars. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

14. 临安府 — Lín’ān Fǔ. Capital prefecture of the Southern Song dynasty, modern-day Hangzhou. See Wikipedia. ↩

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

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

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

18. 简长老 — Jiǎn Zhǎnglǎo. Literally Elder Jian. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

19. 污衣派 — Wūyī Pài. Beggars’ Guild members who truly live by begging and keep the Guild’s strict rules. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩